BNIM has worked with Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation (TVCDC) since 2009. The first project in this partnership was the regional sustainability plan for the Oglala Lakota Nation on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. From broad public engagement and professional insight during this two-year planning process, 12 interrelated initiatives emerged that hold the greatest potential for achieving the objectives of the regional sustainability plan. One of the first of these initiatives to move forward to implementation is an effort that supports and integrates many goals of the plan: the development of a Model Regenerative Community in Thunder Valley.

The goal of the Thunder Valley Regenerative Community is to create a sustainable and interconnected community that provides better housing, places for businesses to thrive, and a supportive environment for youth, elderly and families.  The community is envisioned as a living laboratory to build job skills, knowledge, and capacity for residents to own homes and businesses. This project will explore and refine new ways of living that build on traditional Lakota values to develop innovative, homegrown Native solutions to a variety of challenges.

BNIM is part of a design team that includes Pyatt Studio, the Native American Sustainable Housing Initiative (University of Colorado – Boulder), KLJ Engineers, and Biohabitat. BNIM serves as the lead planner for the master plan and architect for the multifamily and mixed-used buildings. The design team created the first master plan in the spring of 2012, considering the site balance of water supply, stormwater, wastewater, and energy. The goals of this development include creating a system of high performance water collection and reuse, ecological wastewater treatment, and onsite renewable energy creation through solar, wind and geothermal energy transfer. In future phases, the team will explore the use of biomass.

Utilizing the One Planet Community benchmarking and metric process to establish and track high performance systems, the design team readdressed the Master Plan in the fall of 2014 to refine the overall design and research the eligible systems for USDA Rural Development funding for Phase 1 infrastructure. BNIM also assisted TVCDC in creating the housing business plan and proforma for feasibility of Phase 1 infrastructure and housing.  Groundbreaking for Phase 1 is June 22, 2015, and design for Phase 2 is under discussion.