PSU's oak savanna has been the focus of student research and projects as well as seasonal gatherings and work groups — all centered in Indigenous ways of knowing, learning and doing. (Karen O'Donnell Stein)
A renowned Indigenous architect from Australia will be visiting Portland State this week, kicking off a year of courses and programming centered on the restoration of a campus oak savanna and the design-build of a center that will support the education and practice of Indigenous Traditional Ecological and Cultural Knowledge (ITECK).
Kevin O'Brien, a principal at one of Australia's leading architecture firms, joins the School of Architecture as its 2022 Distinguished Visiting Professor and will lead a one-week Indigenous design methods workshop for undergraduate and graduate architecture studio classes. He will also visit with students in PSU's Indigenous Nations Studies program, meet with architects from local firms, and host a public lecture.
"This is really a launch for the students and faculty in both Architecture and Indigenous Nations Studies that will collaborate on this project," said Sergio Palleroni, a professor of architecture and director of PSU's Center for Public Interest Design.
The project has been in the works for more than a decade, but momentum has been building in recent years. Efforts to reclaim an oak savanna in the heart of PSU's campus for food, medicine and ceremony began with students in Indigenous Nations Studies seeking sanctuary and a place to come together that would honor the ancient oak savannas that once thrived in the Willamette Valley.
Over the years, the five-acre oak savanna site has been the focus of student research and projects as well as seasonal gatherings and work groups — all centered in Indigenous ways of knowing, learning and doing. On the south end, they envisioned a new future for the underused Harrison Street Building that sits on the site: indoor spaces like a kitchen, classroom and seating areas that would transition seamlessly into the outdoors.
In 2019, Palleroni joined students and community to assess the building and begin a collaborative imagining process that culminated in a spring 2021 studio course in the School of Architecture focused on creating an ITECK center.
Students present their concept design for an ITECK center in spring 2022 (Karen O'Donnell Stein)This year, the building, including its redesign, material strategies, relation to the land and proposed functions, will be the focus of several architecture studio and Indigenous Nations Studies courses.
"The nature of this center — what it houses, how it will relate to and support the oak savanna, how its construction and tectonics will reflect the deep ecological values of the First Nations — will be the core challenges of these studios, Palleroni said. "We will be guided by the insights and wisdom of Kevin O'Brien, (Indigenous Nations Studies assistant professor) Judy Bluehorse Skelton and the First Nations of our region."
VISIT HIGHLIGHTS
Welcome Reception
Monday, Oct. 3, 10 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.; Native American Student and Community Center
"Finding Country" Design Workshops
O'Brien will challenge students to rethink their assumptions about architecture's relationship to the land, how they imagine the city, and how we learn through doing.
Fridays@4: Finding Country
In a lecture open to the public, O'Brien will discuss his practice and share the results of the week-long workshop at PSU.
Friday, Oct. 7, 4-5:30 p.m.; Shattuck Hall Annex
Bonfire & Closing Ceremony
Students will burn the materials and models from the week in a bonfire as a symbolic gesture of letting go and to show that fire is used as an agent of change; the lessons students learn will carry on in the understanding they gained, not in the documents and artifacts of the process.