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Source: Alex Moliski via Unsplash

Designing For, By, and With: Indigenous Voices of the Land

Sovereignty, Architecture, Sacred Land, and Education
Wednesday, February 25, 2026
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm

Kleinman Energy Forum, Fisher Fine Arts Library, 4th Floor
220 South 34th Street, Philadelphia PA

Free and open to the public
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Presented By

Co-sponsors

About

Native American Nations have long been excluded from formal design structures, yet their contributions to design theory, pedagogy, and practice are sophisticated, visionary, and deeply rooted in landscape and architecture. This discussion series targets this disconnect by bringing together four panels of Indigenous voices and their non-Native collaborators to shift how we shift how we approach design—advocating for processes that are for, by, and with Indigenous communities.

Through a 4-month series of shared discussions, presentations, and reflections, this initiative seeks to emphasize deliberation, storytelling, and co-creation—core values of Indigenous design—and proposes discussion as a vital design tool. Our discussions also aim to highlight the importance of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), reinforcing the criticality of Indigenous wisdom in creating sustainable, community-centered, and resilient landscapes.

This series is co-sponsored by the McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology, Cal Poly Pomona’s Department of Landscape Architecture, and Cal Poly Pomona’s Office of Tribal Relations.

If you require any accessibility accommodation, such as live captioning, audio description, or a sign language interpreter, please email news@design.upenn.edu. Please note, we require at least five (5) business days’ notice.

Discussion Series

Due to this being an international project spanning borders and time zones, all speakers will be joining virtually. The Penn community will be meeting in-person at Kleinman Forum for the first, third and fourth panel and Weitzman Hall’s Installation Studio for the second panel.

Schedule
Wed, January 28, 2026
6:00pm - 8:00pm
Panel One: Sovereignty in Design

Panelists:

Lisa Prosper, independent cultural heritage consultant and Senior Advisor to ERA Architects

Joseph Kunkel, Principal, Sustainable Native Community Design Lab, MASS Design

 

Moderator: Muriel S. Fernandez​, MLA, Department of Landscape Architecture, Cal Poly Pomona

Located in the Kleinman Energy Forum.

Schedule
Wed, February 25, 2026
6:00pm-8:00pm
Panel Two: Indigenizing Architecture

Panelists:

Christian Nakarado, Assistant Professor of Art, Wesleyan University

Tamarah Begay, Founder of Indigenous Design Studio + Architecture

Wanda Dalla Costa, Principal at Tawaw Architecture Collective

 

Moderator: Dagny Elise Carlsson, M.Arch & MLA '27, Weitzman School of Design

Located in the Weitzman Hall Installation Studio.

Schedule
Wed, March 18, 2026
6:00pm-8:00pm
Panel Three: Sacred Sites, Storytelling & Memory in Place

Panelists:

Johnpaul Jones, FAIA, founding partner of Jones & Jones Architects, Landscape Architects, Planners

Samantha Johnson-Yang, Tongva biologist, ethnobotanist, scientific illustrator, and Land Back Coordinator for @tongva.taraxat

 

Moderator: Desiree Martinez, Director of Tribal Relations & NAGPRA/CalNAGPRA, Cal Poly Pomona

Located in the Kleinman Energy Forum.

Schedule
Wed, April 22, 2026
6:00pm-8:00pm
Panel Four: Education, Institutions, and the Path Forward

Panelists:

Chris Cornelius, Professor and former Chair of the Department of Architecture at the University of New Mexico

Anjelica Gallegos, Director of the Indigenous Society of Architecture, Planning and Design (ISAPD)

Elsa MH Mäki, Assistant Director at the Buell Center, Columbia GSAPP

 

Moderator: Tera Johnson, MLA & MCP, Horticulturalist, California Botanic Garden

Located in the Kleinman Energy Forum.