The Shaping & Structuring of Space: mâmwêyatitân centre

Our Mission: to provide services from a shared facility focused on youth and families within a vibrant thriving neighbourhood, in North Central Regina, that is a partnership between community, schools and service providers working collaboratively to improve outcomes in the determinants of health and social well being.

“Our Vision,” mâmawêyatitân centre.

Mâmawêyatitân (pronounced mama-WAH-yah-tin-tin) is a Cree word meaning ‘let’s be all together.’^[1] The mâmawêyatitân centre, located in Regina, Saskatchewan, seeks to provide a space where everyone and everything is together. It includes a daycare, the Scott Collegiate high school, community centre, Albert Branch library, an Elders’ room, and a recreational complex and gymnasia, which are open to the public in the North Central neighbourhood of Regina.^[2] The outdoor space includes “a garden, basketball court, soccer pitch and a cultural space with elements drawn from Indigenous traditions.”^[3]

The Centre was first proposed in 2001 as a resource centre to serve the marginalized North Central neighbourhood.^[4] It was designed by P3Architecture Partnership (P3A) with funding from the Regina Public Schools, City of Regina, and Regina Public Library.^[5] The Centre’s total construction cost approximately $42.2 million despite various funding cuts forcing the architects to cut out a health clinic and food store.^[6] In 2017, the centre opened with the aim “to embody Indigenous principles in its materiality, by abstracting the Prairie locale’s wide horizons in its opaque sky-blue glass and Tyndall-stone base.”^[7]

Similar to a previous feature, the Hoop Dance Gathering Place, the design and construction of the mâmawêyatitân centre was a collaboration between P3A architects, government officials, local residents, and Indigenous Elders.^[8] Elders advised on the colours and placements of certain spaces, such as the Elders and Ceremony Space now located beside the main entrance.^[9] Additionally, there are no demarcation lines between rooms and uses; rather, the spaces merge into one another, as visible in the image on the right below.^[10]

The Centre is an example of the potentiality of shared space and “the integration of educational and community programs.”^[11] Adele Weder, who visited the space in 2019, notes that the structure “still looks pristine,” although the lack of a permanent grocery store and health clinic is a disappointing loss and a future necessity.^[12] The mâmawêyatitân centre offers many resources and unique spaces to the surrounding community and provides a blueprint for similar spaces to be developed and constructed in other marginalized neighbourhoods across Canada.

Like the Hoop Dance Gathering Place, the mâmawêyatitân centre points to the importance of listening to community demand, receiving adequate funding, and supporting each community’s unique vision for their future. For more on the design of the mâmawêyatitân centre, check out Adele Weder, “All in it Together: mâmawêyatitân centre, Regina, Saskatchewan,” Canadian Architect, September 5, 2019.

– Catherine Ramey

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^[1] “mâmawêyatitân centre,” City of Regina; Adele Weder, “All in it Together: mâmawêyatitân centre, Regina, Saskatchewan,” Canadian Architect, September 5, 2019.

^[2] “mâmawêyatitân centre,” City of Regina; mâmawêyatitân centre.

^[3] “mâmawêyatitân centre,” City of Regina.

^[4] Weder, “All in it Together.”

^[5] Ibid.

^[6] Weder, “All in it Together;” “mâmâwêyatitân centre Construction on Budget,” mâmawêyatitân centre.

^[7] Weder, “All in it Together.”

^[8] Ibid.

^[9] Ibid.

^[10] Ibid.

^[11] “Our Vision,” mâmawêyatitân centre; “Education,” P3Arch.

^[12] Weder, “All in it Together.”