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WANDA DALLA COSTA Introduction Originating from the Saddle Lake First Nation tribe in Alberta, Wanda Dalla Costa is the first “First Nation woman to become an architect in Canada.” She is a practicing architect and professor who has been co-designing with North American indigenous communities for nearly two decades. Dalla Costa has been living and predominantly working in Phoenix, Arizona, United States of America; as both the principal architect at her firm (Tawaw Architecture Collective) and as a professor at the Arizona State University. She was one of the eighteen indigenous architects who represented Canada in the Venice Architecture Biennale (2018).

Philosophy

Dalla Costa comes from a large family.  Her grandfather is from Goodfish Lake, Alberta and her grandmother is from Saddle Lake, Alberta. Her mother was one of six children; all but one but one of the children went through the residential school system.

Dalla Costa’s interest in architecture started from an early age when her father did home renovation projects. This interest eventually led her to her first  master's degree: in Design Research in the department of City Design, Planning and Policy from Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc), United States of America. She later earned another master's degree in architecture from the University of Calgary, Canada. She has a Bachelor's of Arts in Sociology and Native Studies from University of Alberta, Canada.

After her undergraduate education, Dalla Costa went on a formative backpacking trip.  Beginning in 1990, she travelled through Australia and New Zealand. Although the trip was intended to be a gap year abroad, her travels continued for seven years and included thirty-seven countries. Dalla Costa’s travels have greatly influenced her approach to architecture.¨  Throughout her travels she observed that many Indigenous peoples lived in more traditional environments, in ways that had retained their unique culture.  While witnessing the plethora of traditional living, Dalla Costa began to question “what happened here in Canada?  How are we so far removed from the traditions we had?  The values aren’t embedded in our environment, and so much is missing.  I thought we had to rebuild that connection.”

Current Work

Dalla Costa is a registered architect in both Arizona and California, United States of America.  She is on the board of the Construction in Indian Country Advisory Council, chair of the Subcommittee on Indigenous Architecture Education, Indigenous Task Force, member of the Royal Architecture Institute of Canada (RAIC) Indigenous Task Force, and member of the American Indian Council of Architects and Engineers (AICAE).

Dalla Costa founded her own firm, Redquill Architecture Inc., in 2010. This firm works exclusively with tribal communities and investigates ways of re-instilling the built environment with meaning from traditional worldviews. Projects include the Niitsitapi Learning Centre in Calgary, several buildings at Red Crow Community College in Cardston, Fort McMurray First Nation Community Recreation Centre, and the Tsuu T’ina Nation Office Building in Edmonton.

She works at Arizona State University (ASU) as both an Institute Professor and an associate professor.  Dalla Costa uses her position as a way to “work in service of the next generation.”   Dalla Costa states that she has "a platform to speak about our culture, and if I don’t open those gates, I’m doing a disservice to the generations that will follow.” She is also the founding director of the Indigenous Design Collaborative at ASU which carries out design and design-build projects with local tribes in Arizona. Her teachings aim at “incorporating Indigenous theory from multiple disciplines with comparative non-Indigenous theory” while directing her students to learn through engagement.

In her studio, “students work directly with an Indigenous community . . . [providing] . . . an opportunity for students to engage Indigenous understandings, ways of knowing (epistemology) and ways of being (ontology).” The Indigenous framework Dalla Costa uses for the studio work, is reflective of customs/norms common in Indigenous architecture.  Throughout the studio work, certain principles are upheld.  Specifically: an acknowledgment that the work should be community/tribally-led, the research should be reciprocated between both design students and community members, the Indigenous way of doing architecture is process-based, and that the architecture needs to be place-based and culturally-based.

The Indigenous Placekeeping Framework

In 2016, Dalla Costa introduced her process called The Indigenous Placekeeping Framework. Inspired by the indigenous philosophy of keeping place, the process is developed to initiate a dialogue that allows for a reconnection between current and traditional built forms. The process involves four parts: Community-Led or Tribally-led, Reciprocity, Process Based, and Place-based. Part 1, Community-led, which is the base to all parts, recognizes the community involved by giving recognition to other ways of knowing and learning. The second part, Reciprocity, realizes the importance of giving back to the community. This part also understands that having a close relationship with the community allows an enhanced success of the community over the individual. The third part of the process, namely Process Based, justifies that all design is, infact, a process. The process considers a periphery approach where all views are listened to before considering a design decision. The fourth part, Place-based, relocates the design to the community location. By understanding that cultures have their own unique place, the design is rerouted to the local story. Together, the four parts of Dalla Costas framework is an investigative approach for use by both academic institutions and tribal communities.

The Indigenous Peoples Space: The Embassy In 2017, “the Prime Minister announced that the former American embassy located in Ottawa, would become a space for Indigenous peoples.” Together with the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and the Métis National Council, the Assembly of First Nations have developed a long-term vision for the Indigenous Peoples Space.  The team of Indigenous architects “recognize the potential narrative of this historic site . . . [and will] design by listening and working collaboratively towards an expression that celebrates Indigenous presence.  That is [their] vision.”  As part of the design team for this project, Dalla Costa helped to “create a place for urban Indigenous governance . . . [while recognizing] the equal relationship between the Canadian and indigenous governments.”  Such goals will be achieved in the design by incorporating specific cultural and inclusive elements; such as a nation-to-nation axis featured in the urban design, wigwam structural techniques featured in the framework, and symbolic features of generosity/hospitality (regalia, gifts, etc.) incorporated into the design. A “nation to nation axis between Canada's Centennial Flame and the Indigenous People’s Memorial Flame” was designed to generate equal views from indigenous and western people alike. Since according to “Indigenous research, there is an expectation of enhancing the success of the community. . .over the individual,” an equality of engagement from two sides strengthens design intentions for the city public. Using Indigenous imagery, Dalla Costa drapes steel to symbolize the fabric of regalia, The building contains a variety of Indigenous imagery, in the form of a canoe, animal and plant figures embedded in the steel. Not only this, but often a regalia was used to record knowledge of the past, thus indigenous awareness is also embedded in Costas design. The building extends outwards to both the Parliament and the wider capital city of Ottawa (Figure 4).