The dominant culture of Canada owes a great deal to Canada’sindigenous peoplesthey have been run over rough shod since John Cabot first landed on the shores of Nova Scotia. In short they have been treated as less than second class citizens since Europeans first came to North America. The list of Injustices and indignities put upon them are a matter of record;The reservation system, residential schools, the multitude of unsolved cases of missing indigenous women, is just the tip of the ice berg of a long list.

It is long past time for a course correction.

After over a decade of visits to most northern communities from Nain in Labrador to Kugluktuk at the mouth of the Coppermine It is my view that one of the most overlooked causes of the ills of northern communities, both socially and from a health perspective is the prefab box housingfoisted on them by an unthinking culture from the south IE; four times the rate of suicides, Diabetes and Obesity than the Canadian norm .

The frigid climate and long months of winter forces the young and the elderly to seldom venture out and results in long periods of inactive isolation and depressing loneliness. It is akin to a sentence of solitary confinement for all but the most fit. Even conventional condos with their rectangular layout and narrow halls are just stacked solitary cells to the indigenous culture. Their stair wells and hallways provide niches that are breeding grounds for substance abuse and youth gangs.

This current poorly suited form of housing system will plod along continuing to prolong and exacerbate the problems unless there is a paradigm shift and it appears there is little likelihood of that coming from within the existing system. Therefore this is my attempt to try and do something to initiate that shift

Drawing inspiration from designs like the long house of the Huron and Iroquois or the large communal igloos of the Inuit and other cultures that use a central protected communal courtyards. I am proposing the development of open communal form of architecture .

To Kick this off as a starting point I am proposing a concept.

Which I have called the DomoQagg (Latin Domo for house and a foreshortening of the Qaggiqq the Inuit name of a large communal Igloo.) It is comprised of between 30 to 50 individual living units in a circle each like a segments of a pie which surround and open into a domed roof central courtyard which is sizeable enough for a soccer pitch, a communal garden or what ever use the community deems.

It is a self-policing form of architecture where outside the individual homes attention is focused on the activities within an open well lit climate controlled common. The result being center court mimics the space and light of outside but the residents are protected from the extremes of weather. Any time of year no matter the outside temperature the residents will be able to go “outside” to visit and interact with friends and neighbours without the over burden of clothing required by the extreme cold. The result will be a far more physically and socially active lifestyle. Each private living unit’s back door opens to the real outdoors through an unheated storage space (garage) where any number of items can be stored from country food to , komotiks and dogs snowmobiles and ATVs.

The DomoQagg will be a village unit of up to 100 residents. In each DQ village there can be the equivalent of a corner store, a health center, a common laundry, business center. In short within each DQ village will develop a mix of uses and services for community .

Using current technology the DomoQagg will be designed like a ship as a self contained living capsule that, dependent on location, will use and store energy from natural local sources, solar, wind and or hydro. It will have redundant systems for power water and waste. all types of waste will be recycled and precipitation can be collected and maintain more than an adequate water supply.

When need be the DQ will close up like a clam and be impervious the worst extremes of weather.

Because it is circular in shape with any movement of air their will be an atmospheric pressure differential from side to side of the unit. Using this differential combined with an air to air heat exchanger a healthy passive ventalation system can be maintained with a back up power system that kicks in when the air movement drops below a set standard.

Initial construction concepts

Computer controlled addive construction or 3d printing on a large scale can be employed in the major part of construction of the DQ I envision it