“As the United States emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic and continues to grapple with a necessary racial reckoning, the most important question we face is how to support an equitable recovery that includes all members of our communities.”
Joseph Kunkel, a citizen of the Northern Cheyenne Nation is a community designer, and educator.
As director of the MASS Design Group’s Sustainable Native Communities Design Lab, based in Santa Fe, N.M., his work explores how architecture, planning, and construction can be leveraged to positively impact the built and unbuilt environments within Indian Country.
Joseph’s early research looked at exemplary Native American housing projects and processes nationwide. This work has developed into emerging best practices within Indian Country, leading to an online Healthy Homes Road Map for affordable tribal housing development, funded by HUD’s Policy, Development, and Research Office.
From 2013-2016 Joseph led the development of a 41-unit Low Income Housing Tax Credit development, which started with an Our Town grant funded by the National Endowments for the Arts and led to an ArtPlace America grant award. In 2019 Joseph was awarded an Obama Foundation Fellowship for his work exploring how to create transformational change through design processes that align with indigenous values. Joseph is a fellow of the inaugural class of the Civil Society Fellowship (a partnership of Anti-Defamation League and The Aspen Institute), and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Organization
MASS Design Group, Santa Fe, NM
Area of Focus
Affordable housing/racial economic justice
Fellowship Project
Develop a housing assessment tool specifically focused on Indian Country as part of a strategy to expand access to safe, healthy, affordable housing and address historic injustices exacerbated by the pandemic.