ABSTRACT
Architecture is inherently generous as an idea, since buildings provide shelter, support dwelling, and foster human gathering. Yet the practice of architecture and the buildings produced are often far from that ideal. In the case of co-design and other forms of collaborative practice, however, generosity is a foundational concept. University architecture programmes are perfectly positioned to share architectural knowledge and skills with communities that lack adequate resources and access to design. Engaged design research and live projects become reciprocal acts of sharing and generosity. This chapter examines the benefits and challenges of a co-design process developed by a transdisciplinary team of faculty and students at the University of Virginia. They collaborated with citizens of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate, a Native American Dakotah tribe, to co-design a sustainable Cultural Centre on their Lake Traverse Reservation. Beyond the architecture, they sought to contribute to the economic development, cultural flourishing, and political sovereignty of the tribe. The generosity embodied within this co-design project was not structured as a gift between benefactor and recipient, but rather as a process of exchange and mutual expansiveness between two diverse communities that each shared their knowledge about culture, geography, architecture, and ways of being in the world.
