Rooted in New Mexico’s high desert, Nat Garnenez is a designer, educator, and researcher whose work operates at the intersection of architecture, Indigenous philosophy, pedagogy, and computational systems. He holds a Master of Architecture from Kansas State University's College of Architecture, Planning, and Design (APDesign), and currently teaches architectural design and representation at the University of New Mexico School of Architecture and Planning. His practice is grounded in the study of place, knowledge systems, and the ethical and epistemological dimensions of design.

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His work approaches architecture and the built environment as a cultural, cognitive, and socio-political system rather than a purely technical or aesthetic discipline. Drawing from Indigenous epistemologies, cognitive neuroscience, phenomenology, and systems theory, he works through a theory of place that integrates place-making, place-knowing, and embodied cognition, while critically examining how design and education encode values, shape perception, and reproduce or contest structures of power, particularly in relation to Indigenous communities and decolonizing design practices. As an educator and researcher, he advocates for studio-based, interdisciplinary pedagogy and treats the design studio as an epistemic laboratory for investigating how knowledge is constructed, tested, and operationalized. Across all domains, his scholarship is unified by a commitment to analytical rigor, ethical responsibility, and a deep respect for place/context, community, lived experience, and Indigenous ways of knowing.

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natgarnenez@nsitu.studio