Associate Professor Anthony Fettes of The University of New Mexico School of Architecture + Planning has received an Envision Resilience National Design Studio Grant to fund his graduate-level landscape architecture design studio, Designing for Hózhó: Healing Land, Water, and Well-being. The studio is at work on traditional and regional approaches to address climate challenges and the award will support continued and expanded work into 2027.

The National Design Studio Grant program supports graduate and undergraduate design studios exploring adaptive solutions to climate change in their rural, urban or mid-sized communities. The National Design Studio Grant was created to expand Envision Resilience's mission to advance innovative planning and design in the face of climate change through student and community partnerships.

For 2026, the Indigenous Design Studio returns to the Hózhó Voices of Healing Center at Borrego Pass (Dibe Yazhi Habitiin), New Mexico. The initial studio in 2024 established cultural grounding, site understanding and design visioning; this year's studio engages students in hands-on watershed restoration and water-harvesting work that directly addresses real, urgent climate vulnerabilities facing Navajo (Diné) communities.

Grounded in the Diné concept of Hózhó - balance, harmony, and beauty, seeking to maintain a positive relationship between each other and the land - the studio is designing and helping to implement demonstration projects featuring passive, Local and Traditional Ecological Knowledge (lo-TEK) water harvesting and land restoration techniques, to support future orchards, gardens and wildlife habitat, while protecting existing historic structures.

"I'm incredibly grateful for the recognition and support to expand the scope of the studio and our continued partnership with the Hózhó Center and surrounding communities," said Fettes.

"Our work aligns with that of ecological restoration organizations in our region, centering on time-tested, traditional and hybrid land management practices. Together with our Indigenous community partners, we exchange ideas and practice reciprocity to deepen our connection to place and care for the land, strengthening ecological, social and economic resilience in rural communities in a changing climate," he said.

In addition to the shared benefits of service learning, studio aims to carefully document the process, from cultural learning through construction, to create an illustrated, community-accessible guide to arid land watershed restoration that empowers others in the region to replicate these strategies with minimal resources. In late 2026 and early 2027, this guide is anticipated to expand to on-site workshops, open to those in surrounding communities.

Traditional Ecological Knowledge is the foundation for all design decisions, integrated with contemporary grading, drainage and green infrastructure techniques developed with support from regional experts. For the demonstration projects, students work in small teams, each responsible for a distinct site project, with support from a growing number of partners, including Rio Grande Return - a local non-profit using low-tech and process-based methods to foster resilience, adaptive capacity and stewardship to restore ecosystems in the Southwest.

"The Landscape Architecture Department is grateful for Envision Resilience's recognition of the urgent work our faculty and students are doing weaving Indigenous knowledge and contemporary practice to adapt and mitigate climate change in New Mexico," Catherine Page Harris, Landscape Architecture Department chair, said. "We encourage students to dream big in response to today's challenges."

The studio's long-term goal is to advance the Center's vision for regenerative land management, food sovereignty and wellness, while developing a replicable model for climate-adaptive design in rural Indigenous and arid communities across the American Southwest.

The Indigenous Landscape Studio focuses on community-engaged learning and reciprocity, partnering with nine Diné (Navajo) and Pueblo communities and nonprofits, and is supported by the Indigenous Design and Planning Institute (iD+Pi) at the UNM School of Architecture and Planning. Studios are structured around partnerships, where students engage each community's worldview, culture, and protocols before design work begins and all projects are driven by community-identified needs and aspirations.

To learn more about the Landscape Architecture Department's work, visit landscape.unm.edu.