Global Studio.

design in the post-covid 19 world

Unique and Interconnected

RAIC Centre for Architecture

Welcome to the collaboration that is the Global Studio in the RAIC Centre for architecture at Athabasca University. It is a project occupying the intersection of dialogue and action in the realm of architecture and architectural education, working towards decolonizing our minds and shifting our relationships to the land, the materials we use, and the structures and systems we design. The project lives in an institutional setting where teachings are dominated by European Canons and a history of Canada and in a province deeply rooted in an economy of extracting fossil fuels. We are working on these social and planetary injustices through listening to multiple perspectives and reflection, and then acting on curriculum and systemic change, but we have a long way to go.

I understand that for some reading the following statement may be heard as part of a land protocol and for others, like myself, it is an acknowledgement of past and present colonialisms to the land and people of the landscapes i inhabit. It is not a transactional statement to make peace and perpetuate the status quo, it is a living document and a statement of action.

As the coordinator of the Global Studio, i’m sitting writing in a house built from pine extracted from the forests of the interior Salish Region of Turtle Island, today known as interior British Columbia within the colonized political boundaries of Canada. This small house’s modernist design is rooted in legacies of European philosophy. Its form sits in contrast to a nearby circular pit that is being reabsorbed by the forest, a visual echo of a kekuli or roundhouse common to this Sekwepemc region before the erasure of colonialism. I am a 5th generation white settler, a third generation squatter on the lands of the Secwepemc Nation. Our current system does not criminalized me for my squatting. This region was not negotiated by treaty and remains to this day unceded. Immediately around where I stay this loss was to the Splat’sin, Neskonlith, and Skwlax peoples. I benefit from their loss of land through the intergeneration wealth of land ownership, a legal practice of land theft started here in 1851 sanctioned by the British Crown. A Splat’sin band council member described the Secwepemc traditional lands to me as roughly the Shuswap Lake watershed and occupied since time immemorial by the nation’s unique cultures. There is archeological evidence of their presence dating back over 15,000 year.

I also live and work in eGoli or Johannesburg, South Africa on veld that is the traditional lands of the San and the Sotho-Twana peoples.

I learned in the course of my research that significant gold deposits were discovered in both the Jukskei River in now Johannesburg and here in the North Thompson River within 4 years of each other in the mid-1850s triggering British colonial mechanisms of land appropriation, displacement of communities thousands of years old, cultural assimilation, and resource extraction from the land that continues to this day. In both the regions now known as Canada and the US, colonists bought, sold and enslaved African people and indentured Asian people to drive this economy.

This statement is part of my own reckoning with my participation in inherited legacies of past and present colonialisms as i grapple to decolonize my mind and way of walking in the world. I have benefited from teachings on land and living in non-hierarchical relationship from Splat’sin friends and colleagues and others of the unique cultures across Turtle Island in my own journey towards cultural humility, kooksjam, or thank you. My friends in Joburg, Eish they’ve taught me a lot about the privilege and impact of my white body in space and pushed me to richer ways of seeing and of the unseen around us, ngiyabonga kakhulu ngafundisa, thank you for those teachings.

To the ancestors and beings of the landscapes I inhabit, I commit to contribute in my roles as a designer and educator to ongoing action towards living in right relations and in the defence of the land, rocks, water, and the creatures with fins, legs and wings. And as an activist to remain humble so that in my own arrogance I don’t simply re-frame more palatable colonialisms.

- Kristen Kornienko, MLA, PhD, Fulbright Fellow, Coordinator of the Global Studio

Regenerative Design posits that we now have the capability to move beyond sustainability to create communities that can generate more energy than they require; purify more water than they contaminate; produce more food than they require; and sequester more carbon than they emit. In a Post-COVID world, we similarly need to address means to regenerate the economy, our educational system and our quality of life while at the same time creating environments that are healthier and safer. This subtheme is founded on the principles of sound environmental science but would also be informed by traditional and indigenous knowledge and experience of the environment. In this respect, it would incorporate contemporary thinking on heritage resource management as well.

Universal/Inclusive Design is based on the idea that these environments should not just be accessible but welcoming to everyone. In other words, we need to design in a manner that is “accessible, usable, convenient and a pleasure to use”.

Equity in Design and Design Education is focused on “challenging and critiquing the current status quo in mainstream contemporary academic and professional discourse and bringing greater depth to the conversations happening around issues of gender, race, culture, and class”. This subtheme would also involve the respectful and meaningful inclusion of indigenous design and designers from around the world in our curriculums and would inform the Regenerative Design subtheme as well.