“Indigenous people are as much part of the land as the land is part of them. They cultivate the land while the land cultivates them.”


Floyd Bennett Field, like the rest of present day New York City, was once home to the Lenape community. A community walked freely on this ground, their ground, their home for at least 15,000 years until the arrival of European colonizers. This site once represented the indigenous ability to live in communion with nature, used for fishing, growing, hunting, cultivating, before it was stolen by European settlers.


The erasure of Indegenous people was performed through genocide, biological warfare, and extreme violence. Over centuries, the land was stolen and colonized by European settlers.


In spirit, the site remains a stolen land. this land does not belong to the United States National Park Service. The concept of ownership itself is colonial rhetoric. This land will always remain as the land of the Lenape people.


It is suggested the site is given back to its original people with the intention of allowing the native people to reclaim their voice, culture, and identity, which has been systematically erased. An erasure that continues today as we speak with the perpetuation of white hegemony.


Instead, we suggest erasing the hangar, this imperialist remnant of the United States’ military apparatus. This design reflects this by being unimpeded by these military walls, these monuments to violence.


It is suggested expansion of the grounds to both eliminate the visuals of colonial military structure and to provide space for indegious people to design their own way of land use.


Indigenous communities are 6% of the world's population yet they protect and manage 80% of the planet's biodiversity.


“When the rights of indigenous peoples are protected–and particularly their rights to land, territories and resources–  their culture thrives and nature thrives.”


When it comes to our responsibility to the native people of this land as modern day settlers, we must think of not just the sustainability of energy and resources, but sustainability in terms of political rhetoric. It is unsustainable to continue to think of this land outside its 15,000 year old history of being stewarded by the Lenape people.


The architecture should start a conversation of reparations, modern day oppression and negligence, representing layers of forgotten history, of ground, people, the flora and fauna.


The design aims to represent the layering of time,  by embracing both the past and the future to come. To invite technological advancement in terms of both material and structure.


The architecture is meant to elevate, rise, seek healing and suggest a voice. The design represents lightness, air, sky, transparency and most importantly, honesty.


To allow the sun, the moon, the rain, the clouds and weather to visually enter the space, and at night to glow and give back.


The architecture is open and flexible to be programmed by the original people according to their needs. Currently, it allows spaces for art, culture and the exploration of identity for the indigenous people. Through performance spaces, galleries, archives of the indigenous history of people and plants, a community kitchen and space to exchange indigenous knowledge of horticulture through workshops and training for the local community. A proper space for the current community gardeners to rest and converse, as noted while visiting the site. The vast suggested landscape to host sculptures and allow shaded reading spaces under indigenous trees.


The architecture is to remain colourless, but to bring colours through people and art. The architecture aims to be part of the future as much as it honors the past. It is to walk together with futuristic aesthetics and technology without falling into the trap of representing indigenous identity simply through the use of indigenous forms and building materials, as often expected and desired by the white and western gaze that fetishizes their superfluous idea of indigenous aesthetics. The design instead represents indigenous value systems, lifeways, norms, and worldviews.


The architecture is there to host, shelter and allow. not to become the indegious identity itself, especially as designed by a non-indigenous person. Rather, it is meant to follow principles of indigenous culture such as relationality, plurality, and collaboration. It is meant to provide spatial agency, to allow a space to be close to nature, to aid in the building of community, to be in a celebratory circle.


The land is not to be filled or occupied, but to remain. To remain as an identity and to be nurtured.