The project is part of a group exhibition, "Architecture at Home" at Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville, AR. The designer wanted to address Indigenous housing and how the proliferation of the existing housing types have not served the cultures and environments of the people that live within them. The foundation of the project comes from the experience the designer had growing-up in HUD housing on a Reservation in Wisconsin.
This housing prototype is designed in a modular approach where modules can be added, subtracted, or moved to accommodate how Indigenous families can grow and shrink quickly. Multiple generations may be living in a home.
The space is intended to be flexible and does not subscribe to the Living, Kitchen, and Dining models that were placed upon Indigenous people and how they were "supposed" to live. Spaces are generous and may be places of making, eating, storytelling, and ceremony.
The designer grew up on the Oneida Indian Reservation in Wisconsin. Their home was designed and built by the United Stated Department of Housing and Urban Development (H.U.D.) to house Indigenous people who were forcibly removed and relocated to reservations from their ancestral lands. H.U.D. homes have been an instrument of colonization by removing the option of choice, and failing to support the educational, economic, and cultural advancement of Indigenous people.
To address deficiencies of H.U.D. housing, this structure considers the ways that conventional housing models, especially those from H.U.D., can be improved for Indigenous people.
My H.U.D. house didn’t have…
A porch
A garage
A place for a fire
A view of the sky
A good connection to the Earth
A place to study/read/draw
A good way to get water off the roof
Any regard for the sun/moon
Space for my non-human relatives
The regalia of my culture