After significant community input and through a thorough competitive process, Tsartlip First Nation has awarded Iredale Architecture to deliver the design of Tsartlip’s new Child and Youth Wellness Centre and redesigning and reconstruction of the sports field. As the project moves full steam ahead, Tsartlip calls upon the community to stay involved and to help celebrate this significant win.
The new Wellness Centre will provide a modern space for Tsartlip members to access consistent and culturally appropriate services. Meanwhile, the sports field, which will be designed by landscape architects and engineers at Urban Systems, will create a space for Tsartlip’s next generation of athletes to play, learn, connect, and build stronger physical and emotional wellbeing. The development of a new sports field is also an important step towards overcoming the historic lack of access and opportunity that have limited participation in sport among Indigenous communities.
The new Wellness Centre and sports field projects are responsive to members’ long-standing call for safe places where Tsartlip’s children, youth, and families can engage in recreation and other programs and services. Tsartlip’s administration worked with the community to understand this need in-depth during the creation of the Pre-Capital Needs Assessment Report (“the Assessment”) issued in 2023.
During the Assessment process, Tsartlip administration created an inventory of existing services and engaged with the community to determine what additional services are needed. Ultimately, it became clear that there are not enough existing spaces to provide culturally appropriate preventative wellness services to Tsartlip’s children and families, and community members articulated a need for “improved, community-driven programming space for prevention services on-reserve.” The Wellness Centre and sports field projects are directly addressing this need articulated by the community. Moving these projects forward is also in alignment with Tsartlip’s 2021 Strategic Plan, which was designed to create “a healthy, safe, and thriving community that is grounded in traditional laws, language, and culture.”
Tsartlip administration played a key role in selecting Iredale Architecture to design the Wellness Centre. A community advisory committee, made up of community members and Tsartlip staff, hand-picked Iredale architecture from a list of the architects who expressed the interest to the RFP for these projects. Ultimately, the TFN’s decision-makers were swayed by Iredale’s impressive roster of projects completed for First Nations. Iredale Architecture not only designed beautiful, functional, and oftentimes buildings for First Nations, but does so in a way that centers culture. Tsartlip administration is confident Iredale Architecture will bring this kind of cultural awareness to its design of the new Wellness Centre.
Tsartlip administration, Iredale Architecture and Urban Systems are currently collaborating to round out the feasibility phase of the project, which involves the development of initial design concepts, costing, site selection, and site investigations to ensure construction is feasible from a cultural, environmental, geotechnical, and archeological standpoint. While the site selection process is still underway, the team is working to identify a location near the existing sports field so that the Wellness Centre is close to other community buildings and homes.
The feasibility phase will continue into 2025. Tsartlip administration expects to release the completed feasibility study, including final design concepts, in the spring of 2025. Then, if the study is supported by both the community and Chief and Council, the project will move into the next phases: detailed design, followed by construction, both funding dependent.
The success of this project so far is thanks to the consistent engagement of Tsartlip administration and Tsartlip members. As it moves forward into the next stages, Tsartlip administration calls upon members to continue participating in the process to ensure the final product reflects the community’s vision and reflects its identity, culture and spirit. In former-MLA and current Tsartlip lead negotiator Adam Olsen’s words, “This is an important legacy for W̱JOȽEȽP! Let’s inform the design and build this project together!”
To stay up to date on progress on the Wellness Centre, opportunities to engage, and other Tsartlip news, be sure to subscribe to the Tsartlip newsletter.
