BERNIING CHANGES
Sector
Landscape Architecture Project
Location
Vancouver, BC
Year
2025
Design Team
Chenyue, Sunny, Samuel
Roles
Sections, Stylizing all drawings, Diragrams
Course
DES 302
Instructors
Tatiana Nozaki, Jasper Hugtenburg
Designing a flexible, cyclical
space that respectfully
supports Indigenous
ceremonies and controlled fire
use, while challenging colonial
narratives by recognizing fire as
a positive and vital element.
Our design started with an investigation of the history of fire in Vancouver. After the Great Fire of 1886, colonial planners rebuilt areas like Gastown (formerly Granville) with fire-resistant materials like brick and concrete, trying to remove fire from the city altogether. Fire was treated as something destructive, to fear and eliminate from the urban landscape.
However, we saw a very different approach when we studied Indigenous relationships to fire, especially those held by the Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh, and Squamish peoples. Fire isn’t considered destructive but as reciprocal, regenerative, and sacred. It’s used with intention and care, as part of ceremony, ecology, and community life.
That contrast shaped how we approached this project. We focused on designing a flexible, cyclical space that respectfully supports Indigenous ceremonies and controlled fire use, while challenging colonial narratives by recognizing fire as a positive and vital element.
This isn’t just a gathering space. It’s a place where fire is welcomed back, not as a threat, but as a living, sacred force. It’s a space grounded in land-based knowledge, where cultural rhythms are restored and where fire, land, and memory are held in reciprocal care.
At the centre is a sunken fire pit surrounded by terraced seating that supports gathering and sacred practices. The ground within the fire pit is layered with crushed shells, referencing traditional practices where dancing on shells breaks them down and incorporates them into the ground to form a midden gradually. These middens are more than material accumulations as they culturally represent the living archives, memory, and continuous Indigenous presence on their land.
During ceremonies, blankets traditionally made from plant fibre and cedar are hung around the fire for privacy and later respectfully burned. This act draws inspiration from Indigenous Potlatch ceremonies, which consist of burning goods as offerings for the afterlife to carry meaning across generations and into the spiritual realm. It also nourishes the soil to create a cyclical relationship between land, fire, and humans.
Fire-resistant native plantings foster a safe and ecologically responsive environment. This space reclaims fire as a sacred, regenerative force instead of something to suppress. This approach challenges colonial perspectives ingrained in urban areas like Gastown, where materials like brick and concrete were introduced as a means of control to prevent and avoid fires.
We focused on designing a flexible, cyclical space that respectfully supports Indigenous ceremonies and controlled fire use, while challenging colonial narratives by recognizing fire as a positive and vital element. At the centre is a sunken fire pit surrounded by terraced seating that supports gathering and sacred practices. The ground within the fire pit is layered with crushed shells, referencing traditional practices where dancing on shells breaks them down and incorporates
them into the ground to form a midden gradually. These middens are more than material accumulations as they culturally represent the living archives, memory, and continuous Indigenous presence on their land.
