When
Sustainable by Design brings four internationally recognized Native American and Indigenous leaders in the built environment to the University of Arizona to share perspectives on sustainability that position community well-being, environmental stewardship, and responsibility to future generations as equal and interdependent foundations of sustainable practice.
Grounded in relational worldviews, the symposium will demonstrate how each practitioner has developed distinct Indigenous planning and design frameworks that integrate culturally informed, place-based knowledge with research to generate innovative responses to the environmental and social challenges facing communities today.
Connecting People, Culture, and Nature
Monday, April 6 | 10-11 AM
College of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture | Sundt Gallery
REGISTER
Join Athena Steen, who, together with her husband Bill Steen, founded The Canelo Project in 1989. The Canelo Project is a family-based community and applied educational center that provides hands-on learning experiences in living, growing food, and building in ways that cultivate friendship, beauty, and simplicity. This talk will explore how integrated living systems can foster deeper partnerships with nature, culture, and one another.
Building with Natural Materials Workshop
Monday, April 6 | 11 AM–Noon
CAPLA Materials Workshop | Limited to 40 participants
Register
Join Athena Steen for a hands-on workshop exploring the properties and uses of clay. Participants will learn how to harvest raw materials and blend them to create a range of media for forming useful objects and producing non-toxic paints. The workshop will conclude with a pizza lunch for participants.
Sustainability by Design – Evening Symposium
Monday, April 6 | 5–7:30 PM
Center for Creative Photography (CCP) & Zoom | Limited to 200 in-person participants
REGISTER
Join Johnpaul Jones, Ted Jojola, and Wanda Dalla Costa for an evening symposium exploring Indigenous perspectives on sustainability in the built environment. Through presentations of their work, each speaker will illustrate how Indigenous planning and design frameworks draw upon traditional knowledge of building and living in relationship with the natural world while informing contemporary practice.
MEET THE SPEAKERS
Wanda Dalla Costa, AIA, FRAIC, LEED A.P.
Wanda Dalla Costa, FRAIC, AIA (she/her) is an architect, educator, and member of the Saddle Lake Cree Nation. She is the founder of Tawaw Architecture Collective, a cross-border design practice licensed in both Canada and the United States, specializing in Indigenous Placekeeping and life-centered design.
At Arizona State University, Dalla Costa is the founding director of the Indigenous Design Collaborative, a community-driven design and research center. Dalla Costa earned her Master of Urban Design Research from the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) and her Master of Architecture from the University of Calgary. Her work has been recognized nationally and internationally; she is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada and a Yerba Buena Center for the Arts 100 Honoree, a distinction acknowledging cultural leaders reshaping design and social equity.
Dr. Theodore Jojola
Theodore (Ted) Jojola, PhD, is the founder and Director of the Indigenous Design + Planning Institute, School of Architecture + Planning, University of New Mexico (UNM). iD+Pi works with tribal communities throughout the SW region as well as internationally by facilitating culturally informed approaches to community development. He is an enrolled member of the Pueblo of Isleta.
He is an emeritus Distinguished Professor and Regents’ Professor in the UNM Community & Regional Planning Department retiring in 2025. From 2008-2010, he was Visiting Distinguished Professor at Arizona State University where he was a member of the faculty of the School Geographic Sciences and Planning. In 2023, he was a Visiting Indigenous Scholar at the Department of Environmental and Urban Change, York University as well as the Indigenous Resilience Institute, University of Arizona. He was Director of Native American Studies at UNM from 1980-1996, and established the interdisciplinary undergraduate degree program in Native Studies. In 2015, he helped establish a Graduate Concentration in Indigenous Planning, the only one in the nation.
Johnpaul Jones
Johnpaul Jones has a distinguished 52-year career as an architect and founding partner of Jones & Jones. Johnpaul's designs have won widespread acclaim for their reverence for the earth, for paying deep respect to regional Architectural Traditions and Native landscapes, and for heightening understanding of the diverse people and cultures of America. Johnpaul has led the design of numerous museums, botanical facilities, parks, nature preserves, visitor education centers, and environmental learning centers.
A Fellow in the American Institute of Architects, his designs have won a stream of local and national awards. His awards include the 2005 Distinguished Service Award from the University of Oregon (his alma mater), the AlA Seattle Medal (2006), the Pietro Belluschi Distinguished Professorship from the University of Oregon (2011), the Island Treasure Award from the Bainbridge Island Art and Humanities Council (2013), the Washington State Governor's Heritage Award (2014), and the National Humanities Medal from the National Endowment for the Humanities (2014) conferred by President Barack Obama.
Athena Steen
Athena Steen grew up in a family of Native American potters, sculptors, and artists, shaping her lifelong relationship with clay and earth. She approaches building as a sculptural practice that connects beauty, function, and the living qualities of natural materials. In the early 1980s she built her first off-grid passive solar straw bale home, helping pioneer contemporary natural building. As co-director of The Canelo Project, she has spent over 30 years teaching hands-on workshops in earth and straw construction, emphasizing accessible methods rooted in place, tradition, and community.