Seattle DJC.com local business news and data – Architecture & Engineering
March 27, 2025
Designing with cultural integrity
By DAN SNOOK
Integrus
Snook
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When designing buildings, architects start by identifying goals and objectives to guide the process of creating a structure. This includes addressing client aspirations to meet functional and efficiency requirements, while providing an aesthetically appropriate and enduring place that fits within its setting. Beyond that foundation, there is much more to crafting meaningful places that respect social, historical, and environmental context. It extends to embodying place, values and identity. For architects, the inclination is to lead by offering concepts and ideas. When engaging with tribes, it is especially important to first come with an open mind, ready to listen and learn, developing a respectful relationship as partners to reach relevant design solutions.
Working with tribal organizations presents intriguing design opportunities. Integrus has worked with tribes on many types of buildings throughout the Pacific Northwest, in Alaska and California. The River Tower Hotel at Northern Quest Hotel & Casino outside of Spokane offers an example of building a working relationship with tribes, in which maintaining a balance of collaboration, sensitivity to complex histories, and expectations of an aspirational client leads to extraordinary results.
Hospitality is a competitive market, where defining a transformative guest experience that achieves economic goals is paramount. Asking, ‘what story do you want your hotel to tell?’ anchors the concept for the entire guest journey Tribes have powerful and inspiring stories to tell; learning these stories and bringing their vision to life makes for an energizing and empowering design process. For River Tower, the question asked was ‘how can design support the Kalispel Tribe in celebrating their culture and telling their story of the past, present,and future?’
NORTHERN QUEST RIVER TOWER
Northern Quest Resort & Casino in Airway Heights is the largest casino resort in Washington state, developed by visionary tribal leaders committed to growing a successful multi-faceted destination. Already a popular gaming and entertainment venue, expanding their luxury hotel offerings is a powerful attractor inviting visitors to stay longer. The underlying goal of River Tower was to create a structure embodying heritage and contemporary culture to tangibly connect people with tribal hosts.
DESIGN PROCESS
At the onset of the design process, the project team met with leaders of the Kalispel Tribe to listen and learn about tribal history, meaningful touchpoints and themes to be incorporated into the hospitality experience. These included the values, history, language and traditions that contribute to their culture.
The team, which along with Integrus included Lydig Construction, The Society, Ankrom Moisan, Coffman Engineering, Parametrix, Berger Partnership and MW Engineers, worked to integrate ideas into a refined hotel reinforcing pride of place and supporting the tribe in authentically telling its story. The hotel was delivered on time and on budget, benefiting from the high level of integration. The result is a landmark destination hotel featuring layered components of cultural significance and tribal identity.
The Kalispel Tribe has a rich history, with homelands in the valleys and along the rivers of the northern Rockies. The Pend Oreille River in particular, remains an enduring heart of their traditional lifeways.
Every design decision supports guest experience and connects to tribal culture and place. The hotel’s undulating form of raised metal panels evokes a weir structure, a traditional fishing system of woven fencing extending across a river to snare salmon. These communal weirs were hospitable gathering places where tribes would meet to fish, trade and celebrate.
Weaving through the landscape like a weir across a river, the hotel references these traditional gathering places, proudly expressing the heritage of hospitality as inspiration for a contemporary place to gather and welcome visitors. It was important to choose forms, materials, and colors that evoke an emotional response considering cultural and historical context. Referencing these important local gathering places, the River Tower is infused with tradition, integrating components of Kalispel community life.
COHESIVE MATERIAL NARRATIVE
When integrating tradition and cultural stories in design, it is critical to avoid pastiche or stereotypical iconography. It was important to the Tribe these meaningful elements be expressed with a contemporary aesthetic, focusing on the human experience and providing both functional and visual appeal.
At River Tower, visitors are greeted by a spectacular two-story illuminated wall displaying a fishing scene recreated from historical photography. Interior spaces are grounded in biophilia, with rich colors and organic texture matching the landscape of the Tribe’s ancestral home. Views of the surrounding landscape are visible from dramatic floor-to-ceiling windows at every turn. The hallway carpet features script referencing the Salish language bordered by a profile of a distant mountain range. Each room features artwork created by Tribal members, and curated displays of hand-crafted artifacts leave a lasting impression on guests.
OUTSIDE
A skywalk?between the tower and casino evokes the historic bridge crossing?onto the Kalispel Reservation, a Tribal touchpoint symbolizing coming home. Orange wayfinding pylons emulating structural elements of Tribal logging history guide visitors through the landscape of pine and aspen groves, basalt talus, grasses, firepits and rain gardens.
BEST PRACTICES AND CONSIDERATIONS
To ensure inspiration comes directly from those who are part of the culture being presented, designers need to check the impulse to advance their own independent ideas, prioritizing visioning conversations with client leaders to determine what and how to represent cultural elements. This exploration uncovers opportunities to integrate heritage into design.
At River Tower, touchpoints throughout the hotel and landscape incorporate tribal culture, traditions, values and pride of place that resonate with the client community and are discernible by visitors without being overtly instructive. In working with any group, it is important to respect that different backgrounds represented bring a variety of perspectives and sensitive experiences to be respected in presenting culture and history. This extends to differences in communication styles that can inadvertently impact discussions, which can be offset by mutually establishing clear guidelines for respectful conversations.
PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE
The distinctive River Tower Hotel celebrates hospitality, pride of heritage and is a contributing element of Tribal growth and regional impact supporting a promising future. Grounded in cultural roots, it expresses the Tribe’s modern way of life and projects a vision for ongoing success.
Dan Snook is an architect and associate principal at Integrus Architecture, focused on civic work and hospitality projects.
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