Studio:indigenous

Honored and delighted to be included in this story about Indigenous design.

I reached 10,000 followers on 12/31/25! Thanks to all of my longtime and new followers.

2025 YIR — It’s been a busy year. Got a rescue puppy, won some awards, took my Yale students to Acoma, had some exhibitions, did some lectures, finished some projects, and went back to just being a Professor. Looking forward to a 2026 that is equally as good, if not better! #2025

MoHipHop: Museum of Hip Hop. Some of the work from my fourth-year UG studio this semester. Students deployed representation tools to examine Hip Hop as a culture. They were led through a methodology that explored graffiti, rhyme schemes, diction, and sampling. The charge of the final project was to render visible the exuberance and experimentation this culture demonstrated from its inception.

I’m happy to share I have an essay in the current Harvard Design Magazine 53, Reuse and Repair. “My Estranged Relative: Some Indigenous Values for Repair” offers another way to view the land - as an estranged relative we need to reconcile with. Thanks to the guest editors, Jeanne Gang and Lizabeth Cohen for inviting me to contribute. Much gratitude to Ken Stewart and Meghan Sandberg for their editorial guidance.

I had a wonderful time at the induction ceremony in NYC over the weekend. It was great to catch-up with so many friends. I am beyond grateful to be one of the 2025 inductees among so many talented artists and architects. I’m still pinching myself and can’t believe my name is on this prestigious list. To have my work recognized and deemed worthy of nomination, then have the other academicians see it as remarkable enough to vote and include in the academy is truly unfathomable - All without submitting or presenting anything.

yelákhwaˀ (container) -Exhibition space for Indigenous ceramics at the Gardiner Museum, Toronto. Structure consists of a timber frame clad in copper mesh. The piece finds its inspiration from the Haudenosaunee material practices of basket making and ceramics. This vessel sits within a renewed gallery space at the Gardiner. The pieces within, created from Earth by Indigenous hands, are connected with Father Sky through the projection on the ceiling. I extend my deepest gratitude to the Gardiner Museum, curator Fran Hebert-Spence, their Indigenous advisory council, Montgomery Sisam Architects, and McWood for the superb fabrication. This project has been 2.5+ years in the making and is my newest relative!

Excited to be recognized as a Finalist in this year’s Vision Awards in the Architectural Visionary Of The Year category! Link in Bio to see the winners and others shortlisted. 📷

I am honored and delighted to have Not My HUD House among this extraordinary group of projects. The House Transformed exhibition includes a fuller realization of my proposed alternative to the HUD house I grew up in. Thanks to Mónica Ponce de León for the gracious invitation to include my work. The exhibition opens on September 25.

I’m delighted to share Ukwé Tase (Stranger) has been longlisted in the 2025 for Installation Design. The piece was an alternative land acknowledgment for the 2023 CAB 5: This is a Rehearsal. I am grateful to the CAB 5 curators and staff, to for their impeccable fabrication and for the always exquisite photos.

Master’s Project Final | Spring 2025 | | Alexander Smith | Q***r Placemaking in New Mexico | I chaired his committee and was joined by Nora Wendl & Albert Lopez

This M.Arch thesis project investigates Q***r placemaking within the unique cultural and geographic landscape of New Mexico. Addressing the challenges faced by a dispersed LGBTQIA+ community—such as issues of visibility, safety, and the need for spaces that honor intersecting identities including Two-Spirit legacies—the project critiques traditional, centralized models of Q***r space.

My Youngest Relatives

Solo Exhibition at

I have begun to think of buildings as our youngest relatives. I think of the responsibility I have as a designer and my effort to be a good future ancestor. The artifacts I am leaving are to be understood as contemporary forms grounded in a timeless world view. Buildings are not unlike infants; they take tremendous effort to bring into being, they s**t, they sweat, they consume resources but can also be tremendously rewarding. I don’t have children, but I know what it is to put somethintg into the world that others can experience and understand what I stood for as a relative.