On July 23, 2026, JLG Architects and Cankdeska Cikana Community College Cultural Heritage Center were awarded a 2026 AIA Minneapolis Merit Award, an honor bestowed on projects designed by Minnesota architects who “tell a story of excellence beyond design, emphasize public-interest design, and embrace the varied forces that shape a building.”
The AIA Minneapolis 2026 Merit Award marks the project’s third notable design recognition, including an AIA North Dakota Merit Award and an AIA South Dakota Honor Award in 2025.
Preserving Tradition
On the Spirit Lake Dakota Reservation in Fort Totten, ND, JLG helped Cankdeska Cikana Community College preserve sacred traditions by designing a 9,000-square-foot Cultural Heritage Center addition. The Center successfully unites the Spirit Lake Tribe’s historic artifact collection for the first time in a permanent home.
The endeavor also honors the wishes of the College’s namesake, Paul Yankton Sr., who earned two Purple Hearts while serving as a WWII rifleman. Yankton, whose Dakota name was Cankdeska Cikana, is celebrated as a proud local warrior who believed in self-responsibility and the need for educational opportunities for Native people.
“Early in the design process, Dr. Cynthia Lindquist, then president of Cankdeska Cikana Community College, shared with our team how vital this project was in preventing the loss of cultural knowledge on campus. The Cultural Heritage Center is the result of that visionary leadership. It’s a place that brings to light not only artifacts, but opportunities for the community to gather, connect, and pass down valued traditions and history to younger generations.”
— Shawn Senescall, AIA | Project Architect II, JLG Architects
Designing the Cultural Heritage Center
JLG’s unwrapped nomadic design challenged doing more with less, honoring the Native American value of resource stewardship. The Center’s curved exterior used 11% less material than an equivalent rectilinear massing. The façade’s circular shape and tipi-style entry reflect important Native American symbolism further defined through varying profiles of ribbed metal panels. These panels forge a seasonally changing canvas for showcasing the colors, textures, and movement of North Dakota’s native landscape.
Inside the Center is a place of pride emerging from within curved linear glass artifact displays, movable displays, and locally fabricated trusses – all meticulously designed to embody the shape of a Native American Medicine Wheel and tipi. Arranged directly over a large central display, a skylight creates a subtle vertical exterior-to-interior element that draws its inspiration from a tipi smoke flap, harvesting diluted light into the heart of the artifact collection.
Beyond curated artifact exhibits, the addition extends to a 2,740-square-foot multipurpose event space that invites both campus and community to connect, learn, and celebrate past and present together. Today, the Cankdeska Cikana Community College Cultural Heritage Center is a vibrant campus epicenter and living tribute that continues the centuries-long Native American practice of passing down cultural history and sacred traditions to future generations of the Spirit Lake Tribe.
“Growing up near the Spirit Lake Dakota Reservation and the national game preserve, this project was a chance to give back to a place that shaped me. I felt a deep responsibility to honor the land’s resources so future generations have access to the same meaningful experiences I did. More than any of the three awards, what moves me most is knowing the Tribe’s traditions and artifacts finally have a permanent home where their story will continue to be told.”
— Ted Wright | Senior Project Designer, AIA, LEED AP, JLG Architects
AIA Minneapolis Chapter
The 2026 Merit Awards were presented to recipients at the AIA Minneapolis Mid-Summer Social & Merit Awards Celebration at the Luminary Arts Center on July 23, 2026. AIA Minneapolis is the largest chapter in Minnesota, with more than 1,600 members.
The Merit Awards are distinguished by their unique jury composition. In addition to an architect, the jury includes a business professional, real estate developer, community advocate, and academic leader. This broad perspective ensures projects are evaluated through multiple lenses.
