The Tulalip Living Coast Salish Village Project is inspired by Tulalip tribal interest in and support of traditional heritage and lifeways and environmental awareness.  This traditional village and campground is envisioned as a vibrant place where a living culture is celebrated and shared in a contemporary setting.  The course is a continuation of a series of courses in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Washington that has provided service-learning opportunities to several Northwest Tribal communities over the past ten years.  In each instance, a partnership between the community and the Department of Landscape Architecture coalesces the community's vision through process and form, offering the tribal community a design as a stepping stone on the path toward realization of its goals.

Participants in this project will work together through the design process to create a design proposal for a traditional Living Coast Salish Village and campground located on the Tulalip reservation.  This project represents an extension of an earlier vision held by tribal planners for a place that would serve tribal groups who were interested in spending time living in traditional ways at a place designed to support traditional lifeways, that swerves Tulalips tribal members and their guests who are interested in camping and that incorporates principles of ecological design and traditional environmental values.

The Cultural Landscapes Studio, Larc 403, offers participants opportunities to develop new perspectives while moving through the design process.  It is these newly accessed perspectives that enhance each designer's skill at capturing, through design formation, the vision held by another.  The successful designer brings expertise to that vision, giving it a form that will move the vision closer to manifestation.

The challenges inherent in cross-cultural design revolve around communication.  The single most important skill to be honed in this work is that of 'deep listening'.  Although ten weeks is far too short a time to adequately appreciate another's worldview, student participants' will develop skills and techniques that will serve them in achieving this goal to a limited degree.