Makwa Waakaa’igan

Situated next to a former residential school, Algoma University’s Makwa Waakaa’igan Indigenous Centre of Cultural Excellence will be a hub for teaching and learning, truth telling, healing, cultural preservation, and transformation. In the traditional teachings of many Indigenous peoples, water is the origin of life, and the directions of the medicine wheel embody concepts relating to the cycle of the seasons, the stages of life, the interconnectedness of all things, and the need for balance in our lives. These ideas find expression in the competition-winning design by Moriyama Teshima Architects and Smoke Architecture (architects) and PLANT Architect and Trophic Design (landscape architects).

The building’s name means “bear’s den” in Anishinaabemowin. Makwa Waakaa’igan’s organic form evokes Makwa, the bear – medicine carrier, protector, and healer – rising from the ground. An extensive green roof, with a gathering circle nestled into large shrubs and planted mounds, merges the architecture into the landscape. The view from the rooftop’s gathering circle extends south to the wide St. Marys River.

Pathways around the building link to four exterior focal points, aligned with the medicine wheel’s cardinal directions. To the west, near the main entrance, a fern-carpeted birch grove surrounds a memorial to the First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children taken from their families and forced to attend Shingwauk Hall residential school. The other focal points are a gathering arbour (south); an open-air classroom and wood fire grill in the forest (east); and an arbour with an oculus open to the sky above a rock that held special significance to the children of Shingwauk Hall (north). Originating in the north, a linear water feature traces a curve around the building, passing first through dry meadowland and then into wet meadowland along the forest edge, where it flows into a pond.
Sweetgrass braids inspired the landscape’s intertwining pathways. As they weave through the site, these paths invite reflection on the colonial past from the vantage points of an empowering present, and the envisioning of a sustainable future.