Kelly Edzerza-Bapty

OBSIDIAN ARCHITECTURE

OBSIDIAN ARCHITECTURE

JOANNE HAMMOND

JOANNE HAMMOND TOP LEFT Kelly Edzerza-Bapty’s Nzen’man’ Child and Family Development Centre will be built with fire-killed timber from the wildfires that devastated the region last summer. BOTTOM LEFT The design was inspired by Indigenous pit houses, like the ones reconstructed at Xat’śūll Heritage Village (Soda Creek, on the Fraser River).

Inklucksheen Reserve, BC TEXT Emma Steen

Obsidian Architecture founder Kelly Edzerza-Bapty is rethinking typical ways of making architecture. Her Indigenous-owned and -operated firm works predominantly with First Nations across the Yukon and British Columbia through slow, community-led approaches. Coming out of an education in industrial design and architecture, where she did not see herself reflected, Edzerza-Bapty says that having a female-led Indigenous practice was a priority. “I’ve tried partnering with bigger firms, and realized that a lot of the time, you are still tokenized. They want you there when they need to check the boxes and put an Indigenous face forward, but you are never offered equity beyond consultation, and are not in the meat of the construction documents: you are merely ‘Indigenizing’ their designs.”

Edzerza-Bapty’s projects often include hiring Indigenous community members, and developing regionally specific designs that speak to the Nation they serve. Her process slows down production to make time to sit with—and build trust with—community. “We’re not quick in, quick out,” says Bapty. “[In client consultations,] I ask for different groups of elders, often in gender split, and local Indigenous language speakers, as well as the members that are running the programming in communities. We try to do at least a full-day workshop with youth in the community each time we come in: we’ll run model-building workshops, and design-thinking sessions with iPads, markers, laptops with 3D building files. These youthful contributions to the design process, programming, and final project are valuable. In this participatory approach, we’re thinking about [buildings] in terms of being in place for several generations, of having that longevity and durability. We are investing in ‘generational architecture’ and ‘generational building.’”

BC’s accelerating history of wildfires has led Edzerza-Bapty and her team to reconsider how designs can work in a world where natural disasters and environmental changes are becoming more frequent. One strategy has been to harvest wood charred by forest fires for construction— once the burnt portions are removed, it’s essentially kiln-dried timber. Collecting and clearing out the wood also reduces the risk of future forest fires and accelerates the forest’s regeneration. “When fires come through and burn hot and quick, they leave really beautiful timber behind,” says Bapty. “If the fire comes through a second year, it’s fuel. So what if we plan to go out and do a selective timber harvest that can also work as a restorative approach to land management?” It’s the kind of holistic outlook that Indigenous Nations have always held, she adds.

Edzerza-Bapty plans to use fire-killed timber for the interior structure of the Nzen’man’ Child and Family Development Centre for the Nlaka’pamux community in the southern interior of BC. Her work on that project started in 2017, when she was commissioned to design a new facility to combine all of the organization’s services into one building. When the town of Lytton and the surrounding area were hit by wildfires in 2021, destroying the spaces that they were renting in the interim, the pressure to fund a new building increased.

The new centre, which will be located in Inklucksheen Reserve along the Fraser River, is a land-bermed form that backs into the hillside like a shieshkin (pit house) with red, rammed earth walls—a local material and naturally fire-proof construction. “In the different canyons going north, there are redhued rocks—when the sun hits them, they are very vibrant,” says EdzerzaBapty. “We have the pit house as a model of vernacular architecture from that region, which was our inspiration for the building form and structure. The building faces the Stein Valley, an area with lots of pictographs—these hold many stories, including a Nlaka’pamux birthing story.”

Edzerza-Bapty says that the centre has “an amazing board of women working there,” and has taken on services including childcare, early learning, youth and elder programming, disability services, food and family programs, and in-home care. “They bridge a lot of the shortcomings created in the community from the reserve systems and from a 80-year history with a residential school. These women are putting reconciliation in action, within their communities, and under their own systems. It’s a community approach to reconciliation.” Still, the centre has struggled for funds to ensure the building can be completed. “It’s hard to find funding for organizations like this that are doing all the right work,” says Edzerza-Bapty. “There’s a gap at the government level for putting equity in Indigenous organizations and Indigenous-run projects.”

Nonetheless, Edzerza-Bapty points out that even adversity can bring new possibilities. “A fire is a rebirth. After a forest fire comes through, the first year it feels devastating. But the next year, it’s a field of fireweed, there’s a regrowth that happens. That’s how Indigenous communities are: they are resilient. If we have the chance to do it differently or better, we will.”