March 31, 2016
First Nations Urban Expression
This special guest post is brought to you by Jane Taylor and Tiffany Collinge.
Last week, our office hosted its first dinner gathering on our new community table, a reclaimed 65 year old Green Ash Tree – with a dramatic thunderstorm that added ambiance! We had the good fortune to host a group of influential minds with Enterprise Edmonton to discuss Indigenous Edmonton – Urban Design and Planning.
Lisa Baroldi [Creative Economy and Aboriginal Lead with Enterprise Edmonton] brought her latest discussion topic to our office on how to collectively shift discussion towards co-creation initiatives within the city. Baroldi invited guest speaker Ryan Walker, a Professor in Urban Planning from the University of Saskatchewan, to share examples of indigenous communities that are celebrated as urban centres around the world. Edmonton, home to the second largest urban First Nations population in Canada, is one of the few Canadian cities to have an aboriginal urban agreement, and this conversation was a great starting point to building an urban dialogue.
Lisa had noticed that there aren’t any visual traces of our First Nations heritage within downtown Edmonton. Are visitors to our urban centre ever aware of this hidden culture? As we walk around the city, are our signs written in any of the Cree syllabics? These questions challenged us as a group, and were a great starting point for our discussion.
As a design team, we are conscious of engaging the history and culture within any given project we undertake, and the evening’s discussion was no different. Together, we considered the future for First Nations urban planning, and recognised the importance of a more inclusive approach to our cities, and future projects.
The best conversations often happen around the dinner table, and a huge thanks to Elm Café, who provided us with a delicious menu for the evening.
We can’t wait to see where this discussion takes us!