Indigenous Design: Design Adapted to Place - 1.25 PDH (LA CES/HSW)

Recorded On: 10/06/2024

The profession of landscape architecture in Canada is taking steps toward renewed relations with Indigenous peoples, a process known as Reconciliation. The Canadian Society of Landscape Architects Reconciliation Advisory Committee supports this process through research, practice, advocacy, and policy that is changing the practice of landscape architecture in Canada.

Learning objectives:

Gain awareness of Indigenous perspectives and lessons that contribute to the profession of landscape architecture, in both a historical and contemporary context.
Gain awareness of efforts of Reconciliation in the Canadian context and understanding of how the lessons and advancements can apply to the United States.
Understand that Indigenous cultures are not simply stories and symbols. Recognize how the role that living with and engaging local environments connects us to place and indigeneity in landscape architecture.
Understand the effective role that collaboration with Indigenous communities and practice has in building shared goals and visions that lead to a more informed, diverse approach to landscape architecture.

Naomi Ratte

Indigenous Planning + Design Consultant / Co-Chair

NVision Insight Group / Canadian Society Landscape Architects Reconciliation Advisory Committee

Naomi Ratte is a Consultant with NVision Insight Group Inc. She provides support on projects related to territorial park design, interpretive planning, traditional knowledge studies including interviews, mapping and much more. She is a recent graduate of the Master of Landscape Architecture program from the University of Manitoba. Her practicum work focused on exploring past narratives and proposed a way to form new stories in her community’s traditional territory at the mouth of the Red River near Selkirk, Manitoba, Canada. Naomi is also the Co-Chair of the CSLA Reconciliation Advisory Committee.

Grant Fahlgren

Urban Designer

Harvard Graduate School of Design

Grant Fahlgren is a member of Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation, Chair of the Reconciliation Advisory Committee of the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects, and a Knox Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. In 2015, he was named National Olmsted Scholar by the Landscape Architecture Foundation which supported the expansion of his research on Indigenous adaptations to climate change that inform his professional work with Indigenous communities and his contributions to the Canadian National Adaptation Strategy as a member of the Advisory Table on Built and Natural Infrastructure. In 2021, Grant received the Emerging Professional Award from the CSLA.