We are honored to welcome Wanda Dalla Costa, a member of the Saddle Lake Cree Nation and a practicing architect and educator, who will speak about her design methodologies incorporating Indigenous generational knowledge. With every project, she asks: How can we localize design for the immediate ecology? Can design be a collaborative community action? 

Co-designing with North American Indigenous groups for nearly twenty years, Dalla Costa will speak on Indigenous place-keeping, culturally sensitive design, urbanism, and climate resilience.

Join us for an online conversation on Wednesday, April 3, 12:00 EDT. 

Wanda Dalla Costa, AIA, FRAIC, LEED A.P. is a member of the Saddle Lake Cree Nation. Her firm, Tawaw Architecture Collective (www.TawArc.com) has offices in both Phoenix and Calgary. At Arizona State University, she is the director and founder of the Indigenous Design Collaborative. Her teaching and research are focused on Indigenous ways of knowing, co-design methodologies, and the resiliency of vernacular architectures. Dalla Costa received an Honorary Doctorate in 2023 from Athabasca University. In 2022, she was also recognized as an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Architecture Institute of Canada, and in 2019, she was recognized as a YBCA 100 recipient by the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, a list which celebrates people, organizations, and movements shifting culture through ideas, their art, and their activism.