Architecture
Begins With Acknowledgement
Design with the Land.
Honor its Story.
LANDFRAME; A Shift in Practice.
LANDFRAME is a digital platform created to support meaningful land acknowledgement statements, Indigenous-led narratives, and culturally grounded design. While initially developed for the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry, LANDFRAME fosters respectful engagement with land by reconnecting with its identity, acknowledging its history, and elevating the communities who continue to care for it.
Why
LANDFRAME ?
Across the places we build, shape, and inhabit, there are deeper stories of caretaking, displacement, survival, and continuity. These stories are rooted in the land itself.
LANDFRAME exists to bring those stories to the forefront. It responds to a long history of Indigenous erasure in planning and design, inviting us to acknowledge both past and present. The work grounds architectural and landscape decisions in Indigenous knowledge systems, living data, and collective memory.
LANDFRAME advances land statements and culturally sensitive design by weaving Indigenous ecological and cultural knowledge into modern sustainability and resiliency practices. These principles guide the future of communities.
What Tools Does LANDFRAME Provide?
Visitors can learn site-specific heritage and ecological data, engage with interactive mapping tools, and access design prompts. These tools support spatial decisions rooted in Indigenous knowledge.​
The platform provides cultural and environmental information spanning hundreds of years, including tribal territories, languages, regional materials, and traditional building practices, to support site-specific land acknowledgment statements and early design thinking.
LANDFRAME also offers data visualization scripts, which are simple, pre-designed formats that help translate land-based knowledge into visual content like maps, patterns, or material strategies. These tools empower users to better understand and communicate the layered relationships between place, people, and design, especially in the earliest stages of project development.
What are
LANDFRAME's
Guiding Principles?
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​LEGACY
Honoring the enduring presence, knowledge, and land stewardship of Indigenous peoples.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Centering truthful recognition of Indigenous relationships to place; past, present, and future.
NARRATIVE
Uplifting Indigenous voices and experiences throughout the design process.
DESIGN
Embedding culturally grounded, place-based practices in architecture and planning.
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FABRIC
Offering structured guidance woven into Indigenous knowledge systems.
RELATIONSHIP
Prioritizing long-term, reciprocal partnerships with Indigenous communities.
AGENCY
Providing open tools and learning pathways that support Indigenous leadership in shaping space.
MAPPING
Creating living, Indigenous knowledge-led spatial experiences that reflect memory, land, and ecology.
ECOLOGY
Embracing interdependence and systems-thinking in how humans and land interact.
