Research and Design Intern

Job Description

Research and Design Intern | Stantec

The Tone:
This is an internship at Stantec, located in Houston, TX. Stantec’s Buildings team is striving to become a leading integrated design practice, focused on the power of design to create meaningful structures. This role contributes to enhancing global quality of life by developing a methodology for culturally attuned, data-informed design. The intern will help translate Indigenous knowledge into spatial expressions that are respectful, contextually grounded, and educationally impactful.

The TL;DR
• Role: Internship
• Type: Full time
• Location: Houston, TX

• Team: Stantec’s Buildings team, working with data from the PILAT team.
• Mission: To uncover patterns and characteristics embedded in Indigenous knowledge systems, cultural practices, and material traditions across different regions, translating insights into culturally respectful spatial expressions.
• Tech Stack: Grasshopper, Python, C#, AI-driven tools, machine learning tools.

What You’ll Actually Do
• Analyze: Analyze Indigenous data for recurring themes, symbols, material systems, and ecological knowledge.
• Translate: Explore strategies for representing these insights through form, texture, or spatial organization, translating patterns into architectural language.
• Develop: Support the development of rule sets and define design rules that can be translated into parametric scripts for storytelling purposes.
• Investigate: Investigate the use of AI or machine learning tools to support culturally-driven design automation and prototype the storytelling parametric design tool.
• Document & Collaborate: Document findings and present them in visually compelling formats, collaborating with designers, researchers, and Indigenous consultants.

The Must-Haves
• Background: Enrolled in or recently completed a graduate program (master or doctorate) in Computer Science, Design & Applied Arts, Sociology, Architecture, Art History, Graphic Design, Industrial Design, Museum Studies, Product Design/Packaging, Digital Communication, Computer Engineering, Anthropology, Mathematics, Physics, City, Urban, Regional Planning, Geography, or Game Development. Early Career.
• Experience: Proven ability to translate raw data into explicit design rules—mapping patterns to forms, materials, textures, and spatial logics—and implement those rules in Grasshopper (or equivalent) and scripting (Python, C#, etc.).
• Skills: Strong research and analytical skills for uncovering themes within Indigenous knowledge systems; deep respect for Indigenous perspectives and skill in crafting non-appropriative, site-responsive narratives; excellent written, verbal, and visual storytelling.
• Bonus: Background in bioregional materials or sustainable design principles; prior community engagement or cultural storytelling projects.