Abstract

This paper is an attempt to make a contribution to the area of environmental and cultural studies by reviewing the sustainable way of living among Arctic indigenous peoples from the design perspective. In the context of the extreme Arctic environment, there is a specific demand for design solutions that are simultaneously human-, cultural- and environmental-centric, in order to keep the land and its people intact, and ensure successful adaptation for newcomers. While the nomadic way of living has been widely acknowledged as sustainable by different fields of science (e.g. Ingold 2011; Stammler 2005; Golovnev 2004; Faegre 1979), there are very few studies clearly concerned with practical aspects of integrating indigenous knowledge and technologies into the contemporary context. In this paper, a team of researchers and teachers from the School of Arctic Design elaborates a sustainable vision of the future of the fast-growing industry of Arctic tourism with a strong emphasis on the traditional knowledge of Arctic indigenous peoples.