--- title: Tammy Eagle Bull Is Weaving Indigenous Design Into Modern Architecture description: The ASU professor is educating the next generation of architects to incorporate resiliency, cultural literacy, and a deep understanding of the natural environment into their work. canonical: https://time.com/collection/time-trailblazers/2026/tammy-eagle-bull/ article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2026-09-02T13:30:34.984Z article:modified_time: 2026-09-02T13:30:35.161Z article:section: U.S. og:title: Tammy Eagle Bull Is Weaving Indigenous Design Into Modern Architecture og:description: The ASU professor is educating the next generation of architects to incorporate resiliency, cultural literacy, and a deep understanding of the natural environment into their work og:url: https://time.com/collection/time-trailblazers/2026/tammy-eagle-bull/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt85f289c2140daf05/6a8f4ad433f7f1df1184b8e1/Bull---Courtesy-of-Subject.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Tammy Eagle Bull Is Weaving Indigenous Design Into Modern Architecture og:type: article twitter:card: summary twitter:title: Tammy Eagle Bull Is Weaving Indigenous Design Into Modern Architecture twitter:description: The ASU professor is educating the next generation of architects to incorporate resiliency, cultural literacy, and a deep understanding of the natural environment into their work twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt85f289c2140daf05/6a8f4ad433f7f1df1184b8e1/Bull---Courtesy-of-Subject.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Sep 02, 2026 # Tammy Eagle Bull Is Weaving Indigenous Design Into Modern Architecture > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account. by [Aimee Rawlins](https://time.com/author/aimee-rawlins/) ## Aimee Rawlins  The Wounded Knee Memorial (unbuilt), Wounded Knee, South Dakota. The Wounded Knee Memorial (unbuilt), Wounded Knee, South Dakota.Courtesy of Tammy Eagle Bull As extreme weather intensifies and America’s housing crisis deepens, it’s becoming clear that the conventional ways in which we build new structures are no longer working. In response, some architects are starting to place greater weight on weaving resiliency, cultural literacy, and a deep understanding of the natural environment into their work. Tammy Eagle Bull has been advocating for these practices for decades. As the first Indigenous woman licensed to practice architecture in the United States, she has spent her career incorporating the historical and cultural knowledge of Indigenous tribes into her work. For many years that has meant designing for tribal communities, like the Porcupine School on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Reservation, which was the state's first LEED Silver-certified school, or the Oglala Lakota Artspace, which was designed around the Lakota belief that stars are connected to "sacred histories, stories, and knowledge." Still, she knew these approaches weren’t only relevant to tribal projects. "There's an \[Indigenous\] philosophy and methodology and pedagogy that is very applicable to everything that architects and designers do," Eagle Bull tells TIME. Where conventional architectural practices are often guided by technical factors like zoning, Eagle Bull takes a different approach. "I like to go further back into the deep temporality of the site,” she says. “What was it originally? Who lived here? How did they live?" She says this is especially important when thinking about extreme heat in a place like Phoenix, which had a record [113 consecutive days](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/hottest-us-city-phoenix-smashes-heat-streak-record-2024-09-23/) of 100-plus degree temperatures in 2024\. "People are like, 'This is so inhospitable. It's too hot. People can't thrive here,'" she says. "\[But\] people did. They had thriving cities, they had agriculture, and they were able to sustain life. And so, if we look back, we can see that living in modern day Phoenix shouldn't be such a struggle. There were strategies that were employed to manage water and to manage heat." These design principles are at the root of many modern models, says Eagle Bull, such as the “Passive House” concept, in which the built environment is crafted to work with things like weather systems and wind flows, and “life-centered design,” which takes local ecology and circularity into consideration. "The heart of all that is really what Indigenous design has been practicing for millennia," she says. As a professor of practice at Arizona State University’s Design School, Eagle Bull is helping educate the next generation of architects in these design principles. For example, some of her students recently imagined solutions for unhoused Indigenous populations in Phoenix, focusing on how shelters might be deployed quickly and safely while still centering Native culture and practices. One idea floated was co-housing, which isn't typically embraced in shelters, where men and women tend to be separated. But Eagle Bull argues these kinds of approaches have their place. "There are a lot of times where it's an extended family, maybe the son's taking care of the mother or the grandmother," she explains. "So the idea is being flexible, employing different strategies and ideas in a balance that can work best for whatever situation." In 2025, Eagle Bull became the director of a new Master's program at ASU. The M.S. in Indigenous Placekeeping and Design was founded by [Wanda Dalla Costa](https://www.tawarc.com/about), the first First Nations woman to be a licensed architect in Canada and a leading figure in Indigenous design in North America. It is one of only a handful of degree programs in the U.S. that focuses on both the history and practical application of Indigenous design. "There are a lot of things that we can learn from \[Indigenous\] cultural practices," Eagle Bull says. "They can help us not only manage the ecology and environment, but also how people exist with each other and thrive and create places that support who they are and support their community." ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collection/time-trailblazers/2026/tammy-eagle-bull/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collection/time-trailblazers/2026/tammy-eagle-bull/"},"headline":"Tammy Eagle Bull Is Weaving Indigenous Design Into Modern Architecture","datePublished":"2026-09-02T13:30:34.984Z","dateModified":"2026-09-02T13:30:35.161Z","description":"The ASU professor is educating the next generation of architects to incorporate resiliency, cultural literacy, and a deep understanding of the natural environment into their work.","url":"https://time.com/collection/time-trailblazers/2026/tammy-eagle-bull/","keywords":["Trailblazers 2026"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt85f289c2140daf05/6a8f4ad433f7f1df1184b8e1/Bull---Courtesy-of-Subject.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Aimee Rawlins","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/aimee-rawlins/"}],"creator":"Aimee Rawlins","articleSection":"U.S.","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt85f289c2140daf05/6a8f4ad433f7f1df1184b8e1/Bull---Courtesy-of-Subject.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collection/time-trailblazers/2026/tammy-eagle-bull/","name":"Tammy Eagle Bull Is Weaving Indigenous Design Into Modern Architecture"}}]}] ```