AZURE Magazine Writes about Batoche

We were thrilled when Parks Canada chose our firm to develop an interactive, outdoor interpretive environment for Batoche National Historic site, in Saskatchewan, Canada, and we are immensely proud of the results. For Form:Media and sister company Ekistics Planning & Design, this project represents the effort of interpretive planners, architects, landscape architects, and graphic designers collaborating to interpret a unique cultural landscape, the spiritual capital of the Métis people.

Recently, AZURE Magazine wrote an article on our new approach to cultural interpretation.

We developed experiential elements in the landscape to highlight the scale and beauty of the site, while simultaneously acknowledging the personal lives and cultural strength of the Métis people here. We used the seigneurial, or river lot land division system, as an emblem of the culture and struggle of the Métis people. From a design perspective, the distinctive shapes of the lot system provides a foundational narrative for interpreting the cultural landscape of Batoche.  Stories told here include the transition from nomadic life to agricultural society, emphasis on the river as critical to Métis way of life and primary means of travel, a source of fresh water, and conflict between the Métis’ traditional river-lot system and Canada’s “rational” Dominion Land Survey (DLS).

Read the article here.