Swanson Lecture: Joseph Kunkel
Kunkel’s lecture, "Land Back – Design Forward", reframes the Land Back movement beyond questions of ownership, property, or acknowledgment. For Indigenous peoples, connection to land has always been defined through relationships—relationships of stewardship, responsibility, and reciprocity that have guided communities for millennia. Yet contemporary systems shaping our built environment have rarely recognized these ways of relating to land. Through examples, his lecture will explore architecture, planning, and design approaches that begin to unravel these deeper relationships, moving beyond development toward practices that support cultural continuity, ecological stewardship, and community resilience.
Joseph Kunkel is based in Santa Fe, NM. He serves as a Principal at MASS Design Group, where he leads the Sustainable Native Communities Design Lab. A citizen of the Northern Cheyenne Nation, Joseph’s work focuses on sustainable design practices that support culturally rooted, ecologically focused development in Indigenous communities, from affordable housing and healthcare facilities to critical community infrastructure. He is a former Enterprise Rose Architectural Fellow and has received numerous honors, including the Obama Fellowship (2019), the inaugural Elaine Johnson Coates Award from the University of Maryland (2021), the Rubinger Community Fellowship from LISC (2022), and selection to the Aspen Institute’s Civil Society Fellowship as a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Event Links
Website: https://go.evvnt.com/3568008-0
