Date/Time: October 30, 2025 | 1:30 – 2:30 pm

Room: 162-163

Audience: Architects, Engineers, Educators, Facility Personnel, Contractors / Suppliers / Manufacturers, Consultants

Call to Action:

1. Encourage their next stakeholder meetings, charrettes, or design exercises be undertaken on site – to design in place.
2. Develop – on their own or with their client/students – role-playing exercises and manipulatives for use in visioning and designing their school design project.
3. Develop understanding of Indigenous perspectives and approaches to interpersonal and nature-related interaction for use in their projects (suggestions for specific materials will be provided during the session).

Abstract: In seeking New Horizons in Learning Environments, what can educational planners and designers learn from adopting and incorporating Indigenous perspectives and practices into the design process? With both Indigenous and non-Indigenous presenters/facilitators and school designers, this session will explore different aspects of Indigenous worldviews and practices related to understandings of place, relationships, and nature. Using that as a starting point, participants will learn about and explore distinct aspects and practices they can adopt to transform the way they engage communities and stakeholders of all ages and roles, and through that develop designs that are more truly contextual and contributory to their natural and human communities.

• Culture: Many Indigenous cultures differ from European-based cultures in some fundamental ways. Common descriptors include: nonhierarchical, consensus-based, relationship building (both people & place), more measured pace of time in conversation and ideation cadence, and consideration of incorporation and consideration of multiple (seven) generations in decision-making. Indigenous cultures in general are highly land or water-based; the place in nature is not just a location, but all of its physical, living, and historical aspects are integral to identity, culture, and learning – in nature. These contribute to a design process that can be more deeply considered and more broadly contextual, with benefits to decision-making and health of people, communities, and nature. Indigenous presenters will discuss and demonstrate these philosophies and practices, and help participants see the direct relevance to contemporary and emerging trends in education and the design of learning environments.


• Role-Playing / Avatars / Storytelling: Role-playing, adopting avatars or personas from nature, and storytelling, are important aspects of ceremonial and cultural practices – from religion and spiritual practices to the passing of vital history lessons and wisdom – amongst many Indigenous peoples. Participants will learn of a recent application of this during a pre-design exercise with students and community members in an Indigenous community. Each adopted the persona of a teacher, forest animal, plant, fish, bird, insect, etc. and then designed and critiqued design solutions from their adopted personas’ perspective. By employing storytelling, this interactive design process had surprising benefits to students and the project design. Participants will engage in an exercise demonstrating the power of role-playing and storytelling for the design process.


• Design in Place: What if the design was conceived, explored, and developed on the project site – in place, outdoors, in its natural setting – as Indigenous peoples, as well as early colonizers, have done since time immemorial? Participants will learn about a recent “Design on the Beach” exercise where students and family members ventured to their Indigenous community’s place of origin and the forested site of their new school to collect tools and artifacts to conceptualize, explore, and design their new school. Beyond simple immersion in nature, the contextual aspects of what the design team and students learned was unexpected in impact and type. Participants will engage in an exercise demonstrating designing-in-place.


• Natural Connections & Considerations: The benefits to humans from establishing and nourishing interaction between the indoors and outdoors have been well documented in western science over the past two decades. It is well accepted that even casual interaction from a view or smell can have positive impacts to physiology, emotions, behavior, and learning comprehension and retention. But this is not new knowledge – it is “new” to western cultures who forgot and discarded it a long time ago in the interests of efficiency. Many Indigenous cultures continue to not just recognize the benefits of outdoor connection and learning but consider it necessary to healthy living and successful learning. Starting with the perspectives of there is no bad weather, just bad clothing, and the building is the 3rd skin, the session will explore what is needed to support outdoor learning and its inherent experiential qualities.

Learning Objectives:

1. Develop greater awareness of Indigenous perspectives on relationships, time, place, and our role in the natural environment.
2. Learn how the Indigenous cultural and educational practices can help us develop and improve collaborative, evidence-based, and physically and culturally contextual design processes and outcomes.
3. Learn how to use specific tools and activities to incorporate Indigenous perspectives and practices into the planning and design of learning environments.
4. Learn how we can design and build learning environments to support best learning practices outdoors – in addition to or instead of the now-traditional indoor environments.