FIRST PEOPLES HOUSE OF LEARNING TRENT UNIVERSITY

The design team, Two Row Architect from Six Nations of the Grand River and Dunlop Architects from Toronto used the vision statement developed by the First Peoples House design committee as the informing element in the design. This statement talks of the building as honouring the land, creating a respectful community and acting as a beacon. The ground floor of the building is open to create a sense of sitting gently on the land. The First Peoples House of Learning is a distributed space. It consists of six distinct elements spread throughout the building. The idea behind the distributed space is to reflect the distribution of Aboriginal Peoples throughout the country: that all Aboriginal Peoples are not in one place and to ensure that the encounter with aboriginality is everywhere and unexpected, much as it is in Canada. The Aboriginal elements were also designed to push the boundaries of Aboriginal representation. Trent has been extremely successful at pushing the academic boundaries in Aboriginal programming and in making an outstanding contribution to the creation of places of dignity and respect for Aboriginal Peoples.