Wanda Dalla Costa

Wanda Dalla Costa is a practicing architect and professor who has been co-designing with North American indigenous communities for nearly two decades. Dalla Costa currently teaches at Arizona State University as Institute Professor and associate professor in The Design School and the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment. She is founding principal and owner of the firm, Tawaw Architecture Collective, which is based in Calgary, Alberta and Phoenix, Arizona. She was one of eighteen indigenous architects representing Canada in the Venice Architecture Biennale 2018.

Early life and education Wanda Dalla Costa's mother is one of six children and is from Saddle Lake First Nation, Alberta. All but one of the children went to residential school. Her grandfather is from Goodfish Lake, Alberta and her grandmother is from Saddle Lake, Alberta.

She also teaches at Arizona State University (ASU) as both an Institute Professor and associate professor. Dalla Costa's teaching includes interdisciplinary service learning studios. She is also the founder and former Director of the Indigenous Design Collaborative at ASU which carries out design and design-build projects with tribes in North America. The collaborative makes connections between tribal community members, multidisciplinary ASU students, faculty, and industry.

She is on the board of the Construction in Indian Country Advisory Council, chair of the Subcommittee on Indigenous Architecture Education, Indigenous Task Force, member of the Royal Architecture Institute of Canada (RAIC) Indigenous Task Force, and member of the American Indian Council of Architects and Engineers (AICAE).

Awards

2025, https://calgarychamber.com/small-business-week/calgary-small-business-awards-2025/ 2025 https://www.ctvnews.ca/calgary/article/calgarys-arts-commons-transformation-shortlisted-for-2025-world-architecture-award/ 2023 https://lfpress.com/feature/winners-unveiled-at-2023-london-heritage-awards 2020, Trailblazer Award, Verdical Group's annual Net Zero Conference 2019, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, YBCA 100 Dalla Costa, W. (2011) "An emerging narrative: Aboriginal contributions to Canadian architecture". pp. 356–379 In: Voyageur, C. J., D. R. Newhouse and D. Beavon eds., Hidden in Plain Sight: Contributions of Aboriginal Peoples to Canadian Identity and Culture. University of Toronto Press. Toronto, Canada. . Dalla Costa, Wanda. “Indigenous Futurity and Architecture: Rewriting the Urban Narrative.” Architecture Australia, vol. 109, no. 2, 2020, pp. 56–58.

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