The Alaska Design Collaboratory is a collaborative research initiative between Virginia Tech, Portland State University, and Colby College working with the Cold Climate Housing Research Center and community partners in the Alaska Native villages of Quinhagak and Unalakleet. Together, the team is exploring new approaches to supporting communities facing the accelerating impacts of climate change, including erosion, flooding, permafrost degradation, housing insecurity, and, in some cases, displacement from their ancestral homelands.

Rather than designing predetermined architectural solutions, the project asks a different question: How can design create the conditions for communities to lead their own adaptation planning?

The result is a collaborative design methodology that centers Indigenous knowledge while integrating technical expertise through a family of participatory design tools. Developed through ongoing collaboration with community members, the methodology transforms adaptation planning from a primarily expert-driven process into one that enables residents to identify challenges, explore alternatives, build consensus, and access technical resources while remaining grounded in local knowledge, lived experience, and community priorities.

The project includes complementary tools that support different stages of the decision-making process, including cooperative planning games, augmented reality landscape modeling, scenario planning activities, and analog and digital resource guides. While each tool addresses a specific aspect of climate adaptation, together they form an integrated framework that supports community-led planning, relocation, sheltering in place, and long-term resilience.

The innovation of the Alaska Design Collaboratory lies not in any single tool, but in the methodology that connects them. By creating multiple pathways for participation, the project enables people of different ages, experiences, and technical backgrounds to contribute meaningfully.