All tribal projects are unique and include many different building types, each one with its own priorities, requirements, and cultural significance. That said, these projects must always serve the tribe, benefit its people, and honor its culture and values.

Tribal project owners take their duty to serve as good stewards of tribal resources seriously. As a result, it’s important that other project stakeholders recognize that every dollar spent must deliver value to the community. But while project owners don’t want to waste money, they are willing to spend more on practical, useful solutions that better serve the community.

This is an area where technology design can prove divisive. Tribal project owners won’t embrace innovation for the sake of being on the leading edge. However, they are generally willing to implement new technology and infrastructure that solves current problems and creates future opportunities. It’s up to architects and project partners to deliver designs that address these challenges and solutions that deliver on their promised value.

To ensure that project owners get the full value of their technology infrastructure, it’s essential to involve a technology consultant upfront. Expertise in this area can help identify not just individual solutions but installation approaches that can maximize system value over the long term.

Deliver new ideas that enhance value

Because tribal project stakeholders take a long-term view of value, project owners want partners to bring in new ideas. They may not always invest in these technology solutions right away, but appreciate when partners offer ideas on how to enhance value.

However, many tribal project owners have proven that they’re willing to adopt advanced technology when their project partners can make the business case for these investments. For example, when the Muscogee (Creek) Nation requested solutions that would support sustainability and cost savings within their 167,000-square-foot Citizen Services Building, they ultimately agreed to invest in a low-voltage intelligent lighting solution. After reviewing options, they found that the right design could also lead to a solution that would lower installation and operating costs and enable greater control over the lighting system. The Muscogee (Creek) Nation is now designing this same solution into its future projects.

Many tribal project stakeholders have also proven willing to pay more upfront for solutions that reduce the long-term costs of project ownership and maintenance. Research indicates that approximately 70% of a building’s total cost is in its operational expense. Paying more in upfront construction costs to achieve lower maintenance costs is particularly valuable for tribal owners, who will often occupy their buildings for decades.

In building its headquarters, the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma ultimately paid to have their network infrastructure redesigned to ensure they had the best solution installed upfront. They recognized that a technology-agnostic design that anticipated how technologies would change in the future would prevent them from spending money chasing technology improvements as they were released. To ensure this flexibility, the half-million square-foot modular facility embedded its all-fiber network and Class 4 power systems under the raised floors and into the walls, using quick-connect cabling. This enables nearly endless reconfiguration for this modern office building – including more than 350 changes since 2018.

Position your team to maximize value

Technology alone doesn’t deliver value. It has to be designed and installed appropriately. That’s why many tribal projects benefit from working with a technology consultant who serves as an extension of their team.

A valuable technology consultant partner takes ownership of a project, treating owner’s priorities as their own. This partner collaborates closely with internal teams to ensure technology is designed to serve the owner’s specific use cases. Your consultant should be continuously looking for opportunities to reduce spending while enhancing project value. Finally, a technology partner should provide highly detailed design drawings and specifications demonstrating exactly how every project component will work and deliver value.

This is the type of partner the Cherokee Nation found in its technology design for the Hastings Hospital in Tahlequah, Okla. This 469,000-square-foot, full-service hospital was set to integrate a wide range of technology solutions. However, the Cherokee project stakeholders realized they did not have the in-house resources to oversee the technology planning for a cutting-edge hospital while managing the technology across their existing portfolio. They needed a multidisciplinary technology consultant who could handle the diversity of systems and enforce the Nation’s design standards.

Childers Architect brought CRUX Solutions onboard to create a design that accounted for every piece of IT equipment in the entire hospital, as well as complex AV systems and a range of security systems. Once onboard, the CRUX team met with every department within the hospital to map out each piece of IT technology equipment. The resulting specification document spelled out the level of integration required between every piece of hardware and software going into the facility to achieve desired use cases.

During this process, the CRUX team began applying the Nation’s IT standards to the design of the hospital’s technology systems. This standardization is essential for ensuring modern solutions work effectively together. It also helps keep technology consistent across the Nation’s healthcare facilities, simplifying system maintenance and operations. Standardization further helps reduce costs by ensuring equipment can be purchased through existing contracts. Ultimately, CRUX was asked to rewrite Cherokee’s technical standards to ensure that vendors’ proposed technology solutions comply with the design standards and that hospital operators would gain the full advantages of their modern technology solution.

Build the case for technology’s value

A holistic approach to low-voltage technology network infrastructure design can help any project owner reduce costs and maximize value. However, architects may find their tribal clients particularly open to technology strategies that can demonstrate how they will serve building occupants. Understanding those use cases begins with open communication with project owners – while delivering that value is best achieved by working with a knowledgeable technology consultant.

This is an area where CRUX can help. From small facilities to tribal headquarters of over 500,000 square feet, CRUX has delivered the benefit of its integrated infrastructure approach to projects for tribal nations from Oklahoma and Arizona to New York and Alaska. To learn more about how we can maximize the value of technology networks designed for tribal projects, contact CRUX today.

Tribal architectural projects may vary widely in type, size, and priorities, but they generally share one common characteristic: every design decision is made with consideration of how it serves tribal citizens. Architects must keep this consideration in mind during conversations about integrating innovative technology solutions into their projects – because today’s leading-edge technology can absolutely create opportunities for tribes and their citizens.

Well-designed technology solutions can bring communities closer together, lessen facilities’ impact on the environment, and reduce long-term operational costs. Achieving these building innovation advantages requires upfront cost-to-benefit conversations and thoughtful, collaborative design. With greater awareness of how technology can support shared goals, project partners and tribal leaders can create more effective and efficient spaces.

Choctaw HQ leverages technology to support future flexibility

We’ve seen technology drive building innovation in projects large and small, in support of a range of operational objectives. Flexibility was the primary challenge for the design of the Choctaw Nation’s 500,000-square-foot headquarters facility. In pulling government services from offices at more than 30 locations into a single, easily accessible building, Choctaw Nation was well aware how unplanned growth could get out of hand. The Nation tasked FSB Architects + Engineers with designing a building that reflected the tribe’s heritage and achievement while also supporting future growth.

To accommodate this balancing act, FSB designed the five-story building with a raised floor system and movable walls throughout. Transforming today’s suite of enclosed offices into tomorrow’s conference room is an easier task due to technology quite literally embedded into the modular DIRTT walls. Floorplan changes can be made virtually overnight with minimal disruption by “unplugging” the wall systems and reconfiguring them where needed.

Much of the facility’s connectivity is supported by the use of digital electricity. This low voltage solution helps lower both upfront construction and long-term operational costs. It also delivers the plug-and-play capabilities needed to support the adaptable interior footprint.

To learn more about intelligent low-voltage lighting, download our free guide, The Path to Lower Lighting Costs and Greater System Flexibility. 

The Cherokee Nation tests efficiency improvements for impact

The Cherokee Nation in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, is the largest tribe in the nation, which gives it the responsibility to care for more 140,000 citizens within its tribal boundaries alone. That responsibility is why the tribe elected to explore technology-driven building innovation opportunities on a small test case first.

The tribal council authorized the construction of a $5 million public park, named after the late Chief Wilma P. Mankiller Cherokee, known for her activism. Covering roughly 6.25 acres, the park is meant as a gathering place, one that reflects elements of the Cherokee language, culture and traditions in its design and landscaping. However, the 3,000-square-foot community building at the center of the park presented an opportunity to test technology-driven energy efficient solutions on a safe scale.

Demonstrating the operational efficiencies possible on a test project makes it much more feasible to move advanced solutions forward on a larger facility, where the technology may command a larger part of the overall budget, and generate a far better ROI.

Guardrails for greater technology adoption

While project and community needs vary widely, we’ve seen a few common roadblocks to greater adoption of technology for tribal projects. With the following principles in mind, project partners and tribal leaders may be able to more effectively integrate technology into their building innovations.

• Ease of use and maintenance should be front of mind, especially for rural facilities. Even the most innovative technology requires regular maintenance. This can be a hurdle to innovation for smaller tribes or facilities located in more rural areas. These projects may be limited by the availability of on-site maintenance or IT expertise to service technology systems. If an advanced system requires specific maintenance knowledge, it may make the solutions impractical for some tribal facilities.

On the other hand, certain smart building solutions may provide advanced insight into maintenance needs or even offer opportunities for remote troubleshooting. Highlighting the ease of use and operation for integrated systems is an important value proposition.

• Sustainable design methods are a means to an end, not an end itself. By and large, Native American communities work to serve as stewards for the environment, which makes sustainable design features a priority for many tribal projects. However, few tribes are interested in pursuing green building certifications or sustainability for its own sake. Good, efficient design is simply seen as the right way to do things. To this end, it’s important to emphasize the adoption of technology as a solution for reducing energy usage, not for showcasing innovation.

• Any added upfront cost must demonstrate value to tribal citizens. Budget defines every construction project, but tribes are shaped by this constraint in unique ways. Census data reveals that approximately 27% of Native Americans live in poverty, compared to the average of 15% for the broader U.S. population. Tribal leaders take seriously their responsibility for investing only as much as necessary to achieve project goals, which in turn support their citizens’ wellbeing. Investments in hotels or casinos, for example, are made to attract guests who generate revenue, which is invested back into the community.

Technology investments must fit within this playbook. Any solutions must fit within the initial budget and/or demonstrate clear long-term operational savings. Solutions that can achieve both, in line with broader goals, are more likely to find their way into future projects. However, it’s important for architects to educate tribal stakeholders on these cost considerations as solutions become more cost competitive due to broader adoptions over time.

Conversations must focus on technology’s ability to support the tribe’s mission to care for its people and land. Today’s technology solutions very much support these goals. However, achieving these goals depends upon architects’ and engineers’ work to build awareness as innovation advances and costs fall.