The Power of Place: Reclaiming Equity Through Design in Native Communities

At the AIA Colorado Practice + Design Conference, the session “The Power of Place: Reclaiming Equity Through Design in Native Communities” showcased how thoughtful design can honor traditions, address challenges, and foster meaningful connections. Led by Joe Cruz, AIA, Chris Le, Assoc. AIA, and Trisha Parekh, Assoc. AIA, from Mead & Hunt, a multidisciplinary firm specializing in infrastructure, aviation, water, and community development, the discussion centered on three impactful projects: the Crazy Horse Memorial master plan update, the Durango Airport Expansion, and the Plaza Biage Dormitory in Shiprock, New Mexico.

The speakers emphasized the importance of listening deeply to Native American communities, whose oral traditions and hidden stories often go unnoticed. Sustainability and resilience were aligned with cultural identity to foster belonging and pride. The Crazy Horse Memorial update tackled representation controversies, incorporating the medicine wheel as a guiding principle and advocating for Native-led design partnerships. The Durango Airport engaged the Southern Ute Tribe, with tribal council member Linda Baker shaping design decisions. Art programs and museum exhibits curated by the tribe enhanced the airport’s connection to the community, while design choices prioritized natural light and views of the San Juan Mountains.

The Plaza Biage Dormitory drew inspiration from the Navajo hogan and the four sacred directions—North, East, South, and West—integrating tilt-up concrete with red pigment to reflect the landscape. Navajo cultural values of stewardship and harmony with nature informed sustainable design choices, including water conservation, energy efficiency, and biophilic elements. Bureau of Indian Affairs design standards guided the dorm’s alignment with cultural identity and wellness. Post-occupancy comfort surveys will ensure the dorm meets student needs.

Through these projects, the session highlighted how equity-focused design can transcend technical metrics, creating spaces that embody cultural identity, pride, and stewardship. By listening, collaborating, and embracing humility, architects and planners can uplift underrepresented communities and build a legacy of resilience and belonging.

Deep Listening as the Foundation of Culturally Responsive Design

Working with Native communities requires moving beyond traditional stakeholder engagement to active, transformative listening that challenges designers’ assumptions and opens space for unheard stories and oral traditions.

Listening isn’t just passive. It’s an active process. It’s about engaging with the people and being open to the perspectives of others and being open to the idea of changing your perspectives. Setting aside your own ego and being able to incorporate everything that you’re hearing.

Cultural Frameworks as Design Organizing Principles

Traditional cultural concepts like the Four Sacred Directions can serve as powerful organizing principles for site planning, moving beyond functional zoning to create spaces that embody cultural meaning and spiritual connection.

The project is grounded in the concept of the four sacred directions… North represents spirituality and wisdom… The east is the direction of new beginnings and learning… The south speaks of vitality and play… And west is associated with gathering and introspection.

Belonging Through Intentional Design Elements

Creating belonging for Native students requires five key design principles: honoring cultural origins, ensuring safety and security, fostering community connections, meaningful representation, and supporting individual flourishing through environmental wellness.

Belonging begins with honoring where you came from… Spaces that reflect Navajo art, stories and traditions. An architecture that mirrors the landscape… It reminds students that who they are is seen, valued and celebrated.

Maintaining Long-term Community Relationships

Successful projects with Native communities require ongoing relationships beyond project completion, including post-occupancy surveys, continued community engagement, and recognition that infrastructure serves communities that will remain long after buildings may change.

Something that’s unique about the Southern Ute and their ideas for their community is that… They’ve always been there. So even if the airport goes away in 50, 100, 200 years, that suddenly you will remain in that space. They’ve always been there.

Sustainability and Cultural Values as Unified Principles

Environmental sustainability and Native cultural values are not separate concepts but complementary approaches that both emphasize stewardship, respect for natural resources, and long-term community resilience.

The principles that guide leads to worship of the environment, natural resources, wellness and community benefit mirror the Navajo worldview. And in that alignment we found shared language, one that transcends metrics and standards and moves towards meaning.

Trust Building Through Genuine Engagement

Authentic engagement with Native communities can unlock unprecedented access and collaboration opportunities, as demonstrated when genuine listening led to access to spaces that had been closed even to foundation leadership.

When they saw that we were bringing our genuine selves and that we were listening, we were granted access to the courtyard house… It had been so closed off that members of the foundation itself had never been in the house. The CEO and the board director had never been in the house.

Representation Through Authentic Cultural Integration

Meaningful representation goes beyond aesthetic elements to include giving communities curatorial control over their own spaces and stories, as demonstrated by giving tribes ‘the keys’ to design their own exhibit areas.

The airport manager basically gave the keys and said, these are your spaces to curate, where whatever you want to put in these spaces to inform people about the airport about, do it, you have the opportunity to do it.

Addressing Controversies Through Transparent Dialogue

Long-standing cultural controversies should be addressed head-on through public dialogue rather than avoided, creating frameworks for ongoing conversation and understanding between different tribal perspectives.

For 77 years, they haven’t really been addressed. And so what we’re hoping for… we set up the framework to address these challenges. They had never been addressed publicly before… let’s address them head on publicly for the future to create dialogue and to kind of demystify some of the challenges.

Stepping Back to Elevate Native Leadership

True equity sometimes means recommending that Native designers lead projects while non-Native firms provide technical support, even when it means stepping away from lucrative design roles.

I made the recommendation that we don’t take the project… What I recommended was that we uplift a Native American designer, and they lead the design conversation for the next phases. But that doesn’t mean lose the project… Bring your other architectural skill sets to bear, support the architectural design through other elements.

Buildings as Living Classrooms for Cultural Values

Sustainable buildings can serve as teaching tools where students learn environmental stewardship through daily interaction with renewable energy, water conservation, and natural systems, making abstract concepts tangible experiences.

The building itself becomes a living classroom, a place where students can touch, see, feel what sustainability means. They learn how the sunlight powers their door through renewable energy, how rainwater will support the native landscape… They’re not just living in a sustainable building, they’re learning from it.