Building with Purpose: Welcoming Scott Moore y Medina as Director of the Native Nations Studio
EAPC is proud to welcome Scott Moore y Medina as the Director of our newly established Native Nations Studio
With more than 30 years of experience across architecture, planning, cultural advocacy, education, public-private sectors, and community development, Scott brings a rich, values-driven approach to his work. His career journey, which is shaped by heritage, human connection, and the beauty of place, has taken him from Kansas to New Mexico, around the world and back, and over the last two decades, through the homelands of many Indigenous Peoples in North America.
“I believe professionals in planning and design must be excellent listeners, resource-gatherers, as well as humble servants respectful of culture, and the land,” Scott shares. “In this next chapter, I’m excited to further develop methodologies for values-based experiences for our clients and communities.”
A Career Built on Culture and Connection
Scott’s story is rooted in family, land, and lifelong learning. Raised in the Flint Hills of Kansas by educators, artists, preachers, and leaders from Anglo and Hispanic/Mestizo traditions, his worldview was shaped by time spent in the rural prairie landscapes of his paternal lineage and the multicultural (Spanish and Indigenous) environments up and down the Rocky Mountains of New Mexico and southern Colorado that go back 500+ years, representing his mother's ancestry. This seeded a passion for art, storytelling, spirituality, sustainability and systems thinking that he would carry forward in his career.
Scott graduated from the University of Kansas with a 5-year professional degree in architecture. His early years included design work across Europe, New Mexico, the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation of South Dakota, and beyond. He was particularly drawn to ceremonial models of collaboration where every participant shares a clear intention, contributes with care, and remains deeply present in the process. This became the foundation for an Indigenous-led professional practice he helped launch in 2013, working primarily with Native Americans and communities of color and culture. “We led with heart,” Scott reflects. “We set intentions, listened deeply, and conducted integrated design protocols rooted in respect, food, knowledge, history, culture and the land itself.”
Leading the Native Nations Studio at EAPC
Scott steps into the role of Director of the Native Nations Studio (NNS), which is focused on architecture, planning, fund-sourcing, capacity-building, and sustainability, springing from an Indigenous mindset and focused on the advancement and empowerment of Native Nations. Although the NNS is still in its strategic development phase, its mission is clear: to support Indigenous communities through place-based, human-centric design and planning honoring intergenerational ties, cultural sovereignty, environmental balance, and future-focused development.
Scott outlines six guiding principles he believes will guide the Native Nations Studio in the years to come:
- Protect culture, language, ceremonies, and rights across generations.
- Preserve and enhance systems for inclusion and representation.
- Promote cultural continuity and social cohesion through dialogue.
- Empower communities to plan, design, and build for self-sufficiency.
- Respect the interconnectedness of all living things and Grandmother Earth.
- Stand in solidarity with Indigenous Peoples to build resilient and healthy futures.
Outside of EAPC
In addition to his love of planning and design, Scott has served as a community development leader, grant-writer, non-profit board president, community builder, and university adjunct professor. He currently teaches “Human-Centric Design: Equity and Comfort” at the University of Oklahoma, focusing on justice, equity, diversity, Indigenous placemaking and the impacts of changing climates on the built environment. He’s also a father of three, a painter, and a pretty good sheep shearer (thanks to a recent experience on the Navajo Nation). He resides in North Tulsa, where he helps maintain a sweat lodge and spiritual gathering space that was started by a close friend from the Rosebud Indian Reservation. He otherwise enjoys time spent in nature, making dishes with green/red chili from New Mexico, storytelling, and travel with good friends and family.
He is thrilled to be at EAPC and says, “I’m excited to get to know the many fine people here,” he says. “And I look forward to walking together in service of something greater than ourselves.”
Welcome to EAPC, Scott. Your voice, vision, and leadership are already making a difference.
