Spring 2025 | Professor: Christian Nakarado

This course is a collaborative design-build studio where we’re creating a full-scale gathering space in the forest. At the beginning of the semester, we explored land-based research, met with Indigenous community members from around Connecticut, and studied traditional building methods. We worked in rotating teams to create sketches, models, and mock-ups of our ideas before selecting a final design.

Individual Project: The Stud

Team 1 Submission:

Team 2 Submission:

Team 3 Submission (final):

Final Group Project:

This project brings together design, craft, ecology, and cultural learning. It has helped me understand how architecture can be used not just to shape space, but to honor history and create a meaningful connection to a place.

With guidance from members of the Wangunk, Mohegan, Pequot and Wampanoag communities that call the northeast home, we created a gathering space in the Connecticut Forest and Parks Association’s Field Forest to convey its indigenous past, mark a continued indigenous presence and make a statement about indigenous future.