Our Science Questers learn about Indigenous architect Douglas Cardinal, and An’ostin makes a lean-to in the woods.
An architect is an individual who has a team that design and create a building around the needs of the people and then he supervised the construction of the building, the contractors, the trades, until it is exactly the way you designed it.
Indigenous knowledge helps me as an architect because my whole profession is just centered on our values as Indigenous people. The values of caring and loving and sharing with respect for each other and respect for the land, respect for any environment that we’re in.
Those values I express in my architecture. It’s in harmony with the environment. It sits properly on mother earth.
My mother inspired me to become an architect ever since I was 6 years old, she trained me as an architect to understand the arts, sculpture, painting, music, ‘cause architecture is the mother of the arts so it’s very important to have that foundation if you wanna be an architect.
In my job as an architect, you become almost a modern day shaman because you become a magical being that can bring people’s dreams into reality. You have to be rooted in one’s own traditions, as the elders say, walking to the future with the drum in one hand and a computer in the other. That is our destiny where we can really teach the immigrant culture to love the earth as we love and that’s so important for our, for our future.