The tiskʷat Housing Project marks a homecoming for the Tla’amin Nation, returning housing to a former village site along the Powell River. tiskʷat, meaning “Big River” in ʔayʔaǰuθəm, the ancestral language of Tla’amin people, was a longstanding settlement where Tla’amin families lived and gathered before being forcibly removed in the late 1800s to make way for a pulp mill and hydroelectric dam. The new housing development will provide more than 30 homes for Tla’amin Nation members and re-establish a connection to a landscape that has long been central to Tla’amin life. 

 

The landscape design draws the river, once home to an abundant salmon run, back toward the site through an integrated stormwater system that connects the building’s roof drainage to the landscape. The planting strategy adopts a fully native palette while allowing for the natural self-establishment of arbutus and native grasses, reflecting the site’s native bio-climatic landscape, characteristic of the dry bluffs of the Coastal Douglas-fir ecosystem. The organization of the landscape centres on gathering, reflecting the site’s history as a village and meeting place, with the central building spine aligned with a gathering space and fire pit. Landform and planting further draw from the surrounding geology, mountains, islands, and inlet, reconnecting the new community with the character of its ancestral landscape.