The origins of the Nááts'íilid Initiative can be traced back to Spring 2016 when the University of Utah’s DesignBuildBLUFF (DBB) program was approached by representatives of the Dennehotso Chapter Sweat Equity Project (DSEP). They invited DBB to design a prototype house that families in Dennehotso could build themselves. The program’s Director, José Galarza, saw in this an opportunity to transform the model of community engagement that saw architecture as a philanthropic one-way gift from the privileged to the under-represented. 

The Navajo Nation's built environment presents a particular housing situation. There is a need for affordable and culturally appropriate housing that well-meaning organizations and the Navajo Nation can address by holding spaces for such endeavors. At the same time, it possesses an overwhelming number of talented Diné builders and makers who are underemployed. So, with the help of Carmirae Holguin, who worked for DSEP, a successful collaboration was forged between DBB and a local family in the designing and constructing a modest single-family home called the Lone Tree Project. As a prototype, Lone Tree developed a culturally appropriate, easy-to-build design with locally available materials that could be expanded over the coming years.

The success of that project caught the attention of Navajo Council Delegate Nathaniel Brown, who represented the Dennehotso, Kayenta, and Chilchinbeto chapters. Nathaniel officially recognized the DBB program and its students for their efforts and asked José to present the work to the Navajo Housing Association Board of Directors, in order that the program could be expanded. It is on the basis of these follow-up conversations that Carmirae returned to this work, and our original advisory board was formed.

From the outset, this initiative sought to contrast with other community engagement approaches in architecture that appear generous, but have in fact been complicit in stripping beneficiaries of their agency and the knowledge embedded in their traditional building practices. Our thinking on this was foregrounded by a piece that Shundana Yusaf had written for Dialectic III in 2015. It was in struggling with this dilemma that we sought out Indigenous precedents, like the enterprise at Thunder Valley, as alternative models of community engagement. On our recommendation, a sweat equity model was proposed to the board of Navajo Housing Authority, which ultimately was voted into a resolution. Parallel to developments in Navajo, a handful of faculty at the School of Architecture, University of Utah, initiated an effort towards decolonizing design pedagogy. This work tied to the effort to do community-engaged design work in the Navajo Nation on terms that could not be undertaken by DesignBuildBLUFF. 

At this point, Shundana was formally invited into the visioning process. With her, Carmirae, Delegate Brown, Renae Hoshnic, and other chapter representatives, we workshopped a project delivery system that would not repeat the mistakes of the past. The scope of work extended to three chapters: Chilchinbeto, Kayenta, and Dennehotso. They invited Adrienne Caesar to join them. Adrienne was living in Bluff, Utah on the DBB campus and was interested in affordable housing and adobe construction techniques. She volunteered at DBB in 2019 and became the regional technical liaison to the group. A year before that, Tonia Sing Chi visited a longtime friend and mentor, José in Bluff to do research for her historic preservation master’s thesis on perpetuating earthen architectural traditions in Tribal housing. She was invited to the team to lead the facilitation of the design, cultural mapping, and cultural resilience work.