Dena’ina Wellness Center - Kenaitze Indian Tribe

The Dena'ina Wellness Center provides health and well-being services for the Kenaitze Indian Tribe, encouraging healthy living within a culturally relevant setting. Federally recognized as a tribe in 1971, the energy of their re-emergence is visible within this site and building: emphasizing who they are, where they come from, and where they are going. The site references their landscapes, craft, traditions, and culture through multiple levels of meaning, from abstract to explicit. Within an area of native plantings representing "beach to mountains," the Raven Plaza is an important gathering place where the focus is a cultural calendar. This places an individual within the context of traditional values; within days, months, and seasons, lunar and tidal cycles, and a long history that includes first contact with western culture. This is encompassed by their sixteen cultural values and a surrounding seat wall that shows their surrounding mountainous horizon line. Other site features include a woven screen wall based on porcupine quill-work patterns, integration of sculpture, and physical, cognitive, and cultural therapeutic opportunities.