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Indigenous Environmental Planning



MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning | Spring 2024

In collaboration with: Ma Ka Hana Ka ʻIke - Hāna, Hawaii
Team: Khadija Ghanizada, Clarise Han, Leyla Uysal
Advisors: Lipoa Kahaleuahi and Nina Lytton


As part of the student cohort of the MIT course, Indigenous Environmental Planning, our student team partnered with Ma Ka Hana Ka ʻIke to best support their organization for the semester. Upon visiting the school in-person, I worked on reimagining a tiny-home designed towards the needs of their elders and youth.




Students from the local school participated in a design workshop exploring their own tiny-home architectural designs.




Ma Ka Hana Ka ʻIke is an award-winning vocational training organization for preschool-high school youth and graduates of our programs in Hāna, Maui—an isolated community on the island’s east coast with over two-thirds its population of Native Hawaiian ancestry.





The tiny-home was designed to exist as a skeletal structure that could be modulated based on the various community programs offered in the non-profit that are dedicated to empowering its youth through education, gardening, cultural traditions and culinary.