Part 1:
Upside Down and Backwards
Instructor: Shawn Bailey + Lancelot Coar
EVAR 4004
Year 4 Environmental Design
Architecture Design Studio
Part 1: Indigenous Food Systems
Indigenous food systems are the origins of the world’s food supply.¹ Indigenous foods are the traditional foods harvested from the land or water, including wild game, fish and berries. Harvesting Indigenous foods are central to Indigenous people’s identity, culture, health and self-determination.¹ Indigenous food systems provide sustenance connected to land, territories, stewardship, identity, way of life and spirituality. Indigenous food systems were largely intact in mid-western Canada up until the signing of the Numbered Treaties.² Although much Indigenous food-related knowledge remains, knowledge transmission and access to land have been disrupted by colonialism.
Indigenous food systems in Canada require revitalization, as indicated by the high rates of food insecurity in Indigenous communities. Roughly half (50.8 percent) of households within First Nation reserves (First Nations Information Governance Centre, 2018) experienced food insecurity, and 75 percent of homes in northern Manitoba communities before COVID-19 were food insecure.² This means most First Nation households in communities had inadequate or unstable access to nutritious food due to financial constraints, before COVID-19, compared to 1 in 8 Canadians (4.4 million Canadians). Clearly, food security in First Nations needs urgent attention, which requires food security action plans and education.
We worked with the Mino Bimaadiziwin Partnership and their Kitigay Project in the fall term. “Kitigay”, the Anishinaabe word meaning to plant, describes the hope for this post-secondary education. This program is to grow plants but also ideas of reconciliation, Indigenous food sovereignty and food businesses. We worked with 14 youth from Brokenhead Ojibway Nation (BON) and examined how community members view food production, land management, and conservation. We spent time understanding the fuller meaning of the land and how BON imagines how to work with it to address their needs and remain good stewards of the gifts and relations of the land.
¹ Shailesh, Shukla. Indigenous food systems : concepts, cases, and conversations. Toronto, Canadian Scholars, 2020.
² Fieldhouse, Thompson. Tackling food security issues in indigenous communities in Canada: The Manitoba experience. 2012. Nutrition & Dietetics, Vol, 69, Issue 3 /p. 217-221.
Tymon Melnyk
Lauren Bennett
Rebekah Enns
Derelyne Raval
Mackenzie Jackson
Lauren Bennett
Sharing the Gift
A fourth-year Environmental Design student in the architecture stream who will be furthering her education in Fall of 2022 as a Master of Architecture Student at the University of Manitoba.
Working with the community of Brokenhead Ojibway Nation and students of the Kitigay program, achieving food sovereignty is at the center of this project. Through exploring the gifts of the farm site that will be developed to yield food for the community, the architecture stands gently on the active, ever changing site. Inspired by the stories of the 13 Moons, the learning/distribution/greenhouse center lends itself to the growth of the community through storytelling.
Rebekah Enns
This project was born in partnership with Brokenhead Ojibway Nation and the Kitigay Farm. The farm will be lead by the community for everyone. This building serves as a kitchen and teaching space, for food to be harvested and turned into delicious meals. It provides a place where generations can meet and enjoy each other’s company while taking in views of the land and remaining connected to the land.
Mackenzie Jackson
Kitigay Youth Village
The programmatic concept for the project was rooted in providing a safe space for the youth of Brokenhead Oibway Nation to gather, creating a strong, influential environment that neutralizes negative influences and promotes social integration, education and extracurricular activities. This goal was based in facilitating a reconnection to traditional hunting and fishing traditions and food preparation as well as providing a space for learning about culture, land based knowledge and social knowledge.
Local Timber, Local Engagement
The idea of using locally harvested timber and help from the community in the construction process was inspired through conversations with one of the members of the community who owned his own wood mill. The community member, named Jonathan, shared with me that he has various logging routes in the surrounding area where he goes to ceremonially harvest trees to use in various projects around the community. This immediately sparked a conversation centered around involving using the community in the harvesting, milling and construction process of the youth village. By getting
members of the community involved in the construction of the building, working in tandem with a experienced workers, an opportunity is created for the learning of the new skills, and a sense of pride and ownership in the finished building.
Tymon Melnyk
Learning From the Land
Tymon has just graduated from the University of Manitoba’s Environmental Design program with a focus on Architecture. He enjoyed his studies this past year studying how design with indigenous paradigms, ways of knowing and learning. He is planning on working with his degree and returning to the University of Manitoba to pursue a Master’s Degree in Architecture.
The land offers many lessons to those who listen and engage with it. This project aims to provide a space for community to gather, work, cook, feast and learn from the land.
A central gathering and feasting area provides space to meet, share, relax and feast. An expansive view looks out onto an herb garden that provides and opportunity to gather and learn about herbs and medicines. Those sitting near the windows feel fresh air wandering into the space through windows, along with the scents of the herbs just outside.
A kitchen connects with the central space providing a place to teach and learn about preparing and cooking food gathered from the land. Another expansive view looks onto a community farm where the community may learn while working the land together, growing vegetables to share amongst themselves and to cook in the kitchen. An open fire features prominently in the kitchen around which youth, adults and elders can all gather together to cook and share food, stories and each other’s company.
Derelyne Raval
minogi’aawaso ‘to raise children in a good way’
On completing her final year in the B.Env.D program, Derelyne Raval plans to further her fascination for the ‘weird’ and the ‘wonderful’ by pursuing a M.Arch at McGill University. For the summer, she works as an Architectural Researcher for Grounded Architecture with Shawn Bailey and a team of other incredible humans.
In collaboration with Brokenhead Ojibway Nation and the Kitigay Project, the project aimed at designing a site plan and architecture which enacts food sovereignty, community wellbeing, and youth empowerment within the community of Brokenhead. The youth of community were the focus of the efforts towards capacity building. The direction of the architecture evolved into an inquiry into childhood memories, directly inspired by the heartbreaking story behind Jordan’s Principle. Providing a space for children at the nearby Tommy Prince Elementary school at place away from the tradition school setting to learn from the land, and to learn about the processes of growing food. From the initial planting of a seed to the lively togetherness of feasting, food acts as a linkage between education, sustenance, and relationship.