Lo—TEK. Water. A Field Guide for TEKnology: Julia Watson

How do we design in partnership with nature rather than in dominance over it? Julia Watson, author of Lo—TEK: Design by Radical Indigenism and Lo—TEK Water, explores Indigenous innovation as resilient and regenerative models for a climate-altered world. She presents ancestral technologies and living systems from Southeast Asia and the Amazon, connecting cultural and ecological intelligence to contemporary built-environment challenges. The lecture introduces the Lo—TEK Institute and the Office for Intercultural Urbanism, an Indigenous and non-Indigenous-led practice guided by a majority-Indigenous advisory circle, inviting audiences to rethink design as stewardship of evolving biocultural systems rooted in place-based knowledge.

Author and designer Julia Watson is a global advocate for Indigenous ecological knowledge and the bestselling author of Lo—TEK, Design by Radical Indigenism. Of Greco-Egyptian-English descent and Australian-born, Julia studied landscape architecture at Harvard and has taught at Columbia, Harvard, and RISD. Her work is inspired by travels across the globe and a lifelong mission to uplift ancestral technologies through storytelling. She co-founded the Lo—TEK Institute, launched the Living Earth Curriculum, and co-leads the Lo—TEK Office of Intercultural Urbanism, leading the way in regenerative design—merging Indigenous science, Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), and cutting-edge urban innovation.