by Russell Boniface

The Gap, Ariz., is a remote, small Native American community that is barely more than a trading post in the northern part of the state. So remote, in fact, that if you researched The Gap on the Internet, you will come up as dry as the Arizona heat.

The Gap is a four-hour drive north of Scottsdale, which itself is adjacent to Phoenix. To get to The Gap, you would have to drive up through piney mountainous terrain into Flagstaff, and then descend back down into the northeast part of the state into a region that is home to Native American tribes such as the Navajo and Hopi.

When the local Navajo tribe from The Gap approached Schneider, Shay, Pian, Worcester Architects (SSPW) in Phoenix about building a K-3 elementary school on its reservation, they asked for a facility that was modern, representative of its rich Navajo tradition, and serviceable as a community center. With topography, climate, and cultural issues factoring in, SSPW architect Patrick McGee, AIA, went to work.

Awareness of Native American culture
The Tuba City Unified School District technically was the client on Tsinnaabaas Ha’bitiin Elementary in The Gap. Tsinnaabaas Ha’bitiin is Navajo for “wagon wheel.” SSPW Architects were already familiar and sensitive to the cultural needs of Native Americans when designing schools because they have more than 15 years’ experience in the region, with the superintendent’s office as its primary contact. SSPW Architects has designed nine elementary schools, including Tsinnaabaas Ha’bitiin.

“The firm had experience on reservations and had developed a strong sense of cultural awareness with the tribes in the state, which I drew upon for this project with our team,” says McGee. “So, in the big picture, we had some language to work with in fusing the facility with the colors and other cultural elements that we knew were appreciated by the tribe.”

Design began in February 2003. Not natives of the area, McGee and his staff talked with the local school district center administrators, who gave them feedback on Navajo design issues. It was also important to the Navajo community members that the students have a first-class facility. “The Tuba City Unified School District and the Bureau of Indian Affairs offer educational facilities that rival those of Phoenix and other cities,” describes McGee. “Although the Native American students, both Navajo and Hopi from remote locations in the region, come from traditional homes without modern plumbing or electrical conveniences, the students are from well-educated backgrounds. The Navajo wanted a top-rate school with all the modern conveniences. We did have a budget to work with, which was $6.5 million, but it was such that we could give them a modern school with aesthetic value.” Construction of the school began in September 2003 and was completed in July 2004.

The building itself is 25,500 square feet and round. It has the expansion potential to become a K-6 elementary school. Tsinnaabaas Ha’bitiin incorporates Navajo patterns and colors in its design. “The school comprises the four colors of the Navajo precious stones, which represent north, south, east, and west,” explains McGee. “The colors are white, turquoise, black, and abalone (yellow), so you will see in our facility a good representation of these colors in the masonry, ceramics and tile patterns, and paints. For example, the signage is in a turquoise tile. Also, the color of the masonry represents the typical red dirt that you find on a reservation. The community appreciated the attempt to represent the color of land and the precious stones. But underneath the skin, it’s not too different from the other schools we are building here in Phoenix and elsewhere in the state for nontribal communities.”

The school is round to represent a traditional Navajo “hogan,” which is the Navajo “home place” of shelter and family activities. But the hogan also represents the Navajo cosmos and is the center of their religious being. Its form of construction has remained relatively unchanged for centuries.

“The traditional Navajo hogan is round and made of logs, tree bark, and earth oriented with doors facing east,” notes McGee. “The Navajo would have a hogan for living and perhaps a hogan for ceremonial traditions. They enter a hogan through an eastern door and walk around it with a clockwise approach. The east represents the morning and represents light, so the approach to the school opens up through the use of columns to the morning light. All of our facilities on the reservation are oriented to the east. The community appreciates that we took the round shape of the hogan and fused it with the entry of the building, as well as the building itself.”

Navajo customs such as basket and blanket weaving are evident in the school’s interior and exterior design. “It was convenient with our modular systems, whether it be masonry or tile patterns, to come up with colorful, repetitive patterns to reflect their weaving traditions,” says McGee. “We also have some patterns on the side of the building in the masonry that look like the patterns you will see in the local pottery. The multi-purpose basketball floor is a large blanket of patterns derived from the colors of the four precious stones.”

McGee and his staff do develop a color pattern or two of their own to “bounce off” a Native American client. “We might suggest anchoring a building to the ground with a repeating pattern that reflects the surrounding mountains or mesas that are around the site in the distance. We look for patterns that will work with the building material but have a Native American look and feel. And we generally find wide acceptance of our attempts by our clients. For one facility, we did inquire with the cultural center what they thought about a pattern. They told us it was a little bit too busy and to take it down a notch. But then they told us instead of closing the pattern with a continuous stripe, instead cut it at the corners. In other words, open the pattern at the corners so the spirits can come and go. So it’s that sort of input that we appreciate, and anything that makes them appreciate the facility more we are all behind. I’ve heard it said that the students, the parents, and the grandparents, when visiting these facilities, really appreciate seeing these repetitive patterns, as it does recall their weaving, pottery, and other traditions.”

When the wind blows . . .
The Arizona climate, topography, and sun came into play when designing Tsinnaabaas Ha’bitiin Elementary.

“Northern Arizona is on remote, high plains with a lot of wind and sand,” McGee points out. “We are always asked to bring elements into the site to help control the sand blow, because the sand will blow and drift. Low screen walls and walls with high curves are good at controlling the sand. We use double vestibule doors at the entries to control the sand and cold blowing air. When the sand is blowing hard, it will blow right at the door, as well as the cold, as it gets much colder up there than down in Phoenix. We also take advantage of the extreme sunlight up there, given the expanse of brown sand. We are always asked for natural light within classrooms and corridors and everywhere we can get it.”

The blowing sand also required wind-resistant masonry and more sophisticated mechanical systems. “We tend to use multi-pipe mechanical systems because the blowing sand tends to cause problems with less-sophisticated mechanical systems.”

Sense of pride
The Gap community truly appreciates when a facility like this is built, as evidenced by the dedication ceremony of Tsinnaabaas Ha’bitiin Elementary, when hundreds of community members, dignitaries, and local leaders came out and had a dedication party that lasted five hours.

“I never had been to a dedication ceremony where they asked the architects to stand up to receive a large round of applause,” says McGee. “That gave me a good feeling.”

McGee appeared in the AIA half-hour video com*mu*ni*ty with the representative of the local cultural center and the school principal. The video provokes discussion about the future of community and is available to every AIA component. “It was a very enjoyable experience. I pointed out some of the issues we face working in the Northern region. They pointed out the elements they get out of the building, such as the weaving and color patterns and the eastern entry. It was heartwarming to see the users describe these elements, and perhaps bringing more to it than we thought was there.”

Currently, SSPW Architects has a new, two-story, hogan-shaped high school expansion underway at Tuba City High School, the biggest building program in the northern region to date. SSPW has designed two previous high school expansions. “When we get done with Tuba City High School, we will see over $15 million worth of badly needed expansion,” notes McGee. “They were working in a facility that was structurally condemned, but Arizona, with their funds, allowed us to tear that down to make way for new facilities. Again, I am working very hard to infuse Native American elements into the building. As architects, we enjoy looking at cultural traditions and elements, and finding ways of incorporating those as our designs evolve.”

McGee says there is a great deal of need for new facilities on Native American reservations. “It’s important that we work with them and work within the budgets that they have.” He adds that he couldn’t enjoy his experiences working with the tribes more and is looking forward to more work with the Native Americans. “There has been a big history of building on reservations where the buildings are more mainstream and vernacular, not sensitive to tribal members and the community. However, we are trying to be a solution. We want to give our clients a modern building, but cloak it in their culture, color, and traditions so the building becomes theirs.”

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