Growing Together: Facilitating Growth in Nibinamik First Nation

First Nations of Canada are experiencing a housing crisis. On-reserve housing shortages and deficiencies are creating conditions of overcrowding and family doubling, forcing families to live in inadequate conditions or go off-reserve in search of suitable conditions. Numerous inquests, court cases and policy documents recognize the link between existing poor housing conditions and the physical and mental-health outcome gaps prevalent in First Nations individuals. Current conditions are largely the result of colonial planning and policy processes of dispossession and assimilation — where land and the house were used as tools in the broader context of imperial conquest.

This project looked to subvert this colonial dynamic and reimagine housing at three scales: the home, the neighbourhood, and the community (as centred on local values and preferences). Working at the intersections of Indigenous planning and community-based engagement, this project looked to design a strategy through which the Nibinamik First Nation Housing Committee and leadership could engage their membership in design-based conversations. Games and activities were created to understand the preferences of community members, grow a design lexicon and reintroduce the notion of choice to housing and community development decisions, which was long ago removed by the federal government.