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The fires of ambition: Te Awa Tupua 2040
No full textRESEARCH QUESTION:
How can New Zealand cities be decolonised to re-establish mana whenua ahikātanga?
SUB-QUESTION:
How can design based on Whanganuitanga re-establish mana whenua ahikātanga at Pākaitore?
ABSTRACT:
Since the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi the Whanganui river has actively been destroyed by legislative acts of the Crown. The Highways and Watercourses Diversions Act 1858, the Wanganui River Trust Act 1891, and the Coal Mines Act amendment in 1891 have all undermined Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the ability for Whanganui uri (descendants of the river) to care for, protect, manage and use the river. Over the past 180 years the outcomes of these laws have diminished the mauri of the river and severed the interconnected relationship Whanganui uri have with the river, resulting in a significant loss of ancestral knowledge and practises.
The Te Awa Tupua Act that was passed in 2017 represents a significant turning point. A point where Whanganui uri can acknowledge their people who championed the longest running legal battle in New Zealand’s history, by imagining the future of Te Awa Tupua through their eyes. Now that the river is established as a legal person through Westminster law, Whanganui uri can shift efforts towards restoring the mauri of the awa and rebuilding their relationship with the awa.
This research is a design exploration into Whanganui uri’s aspirations for Te Awa Tupua, following the Te Awa Tupua Act, 2017. The research process was developed to align with the He Waka Pakoko – Pathways to 2040 symposium for Whanganui uri through Kaupapa Māori Rangahau and research by design. In doing so, this research addresses the questions: how can New Zealand cities be decolonised to re-establish mana whenua ahikātanga? and how can design based on Whanganuitanga re-establish mana whenua ahikātanga at Pākaitore?
Site: Pākaitore, Whanganu
Anti-social distancing : revisiting Auckland’s Unitary Plan
No full textPlanning systems in Auckland have been revised over a decade of complex realignments that followed the amalgamation of the region’s seven cities into a single planning administration. The city’s Unitary Plan, which came into force in November 2016, introduced new rules for housing design across the region, coordinating regional policies for the development of form, growth and density. Since 2016 these policies have been guided by two main drivers: planning for sustainability in the context of an annual rate of growth of 2.5 percent, and an underlying but potent principle of deregulation wherever possible. Sustainable cities, according to current theory, need to be more densely developed than Auckland is, and a healthy market economy needs to have a minimum of ‘red tape.’ To serve both objectives, intensification and deregulation, a new category of higher density housing, terraced housing and apartment buildings, has been introduced, stipulating maximum building heights and minimum floor areas but with no other density controls.
This paper identifies two typologies preferred by developers under the new regulations: small apartment blocks and stand-alone, or ‘detached’ houses. The paper discusses the merits of these choices in light of the intentions expressed by the opening sections of the Unitary Plan, and its broader objectives. Conclusions suggest that some aspects of deregulation need to be revisited to protect the city’s housing stock from over-dense developments using inappropriate house types
Hyperspectral NIR imaging of plant material
No full textThis study looks at the classification of plant species and components using Hyperspectral cameras in the Near Infrared region of the spectrum as part of a move towards precision agriculture. The NIR region of the electromagnetic spectrum lies just below the visible spectrum. Its longer wavelength has several advantages over visible light such as the ability to penetrate significantly below the surface of a material and along with absorption peaks for many chemical groups present in this region.
In this work proximal spectral reflectance images were used of common New Zealand pasture weeds in order to determine the inter- and intra- species proximal spectral reflectance variations. It examined the ability and extent of accuracy when using hyperspectral cameras to uniquely identify three common species of weeds that grow in pastures based on their reflectance spectra alone. The use of these cameras showed that considerable measurement noise in the spectral data was present. This noise was due to using uncontrolled lighting i.e. solar illumination in field applications and the effect of scattered light on shading in the image. It was shown that a significant reduction of noise can be achieved by careful experimental design prior to acquiring the images. Despite the noise the study was successful in identifying weed species based purely on the reflectance spectra. This work also showed the ability of hyperspectral near-infrared imaging to identify the plant components such as flowers, stems and leaves on individual plant
MOVE : body tactics : a vertical studio project in the architecture programme
No full textArchitectural space is designed and built for occupation by the body: the individual body, the collective body, the bodies of all species... as becoming architects we must develop an awareness and a recognition of this critical relationship.
Through an investigation of this relationship between the living system(s) (the body) and the static cartesian space (the frame), this project explores ways to actively engage body and architecture
Life of a Pasifika police communicator: Recognising cultural diversity in the workplace: A study on the contributing factors that keep Pacific people working for New Zealand police communications
No full textLiterature provides substantial evidence that cultural diversity is vital in the workplace and can create a stronger outcome for the workplace team. Having multiple perspectives on one issue is more effective than that of one. There are a growing number of studies that explore benefits and limitations of cultural diversity within the workplace, however there are very few studies focusing on cultural diversity in the workplace specific to Pacific people. This research aims to begin bridging this gap in research by speaking to Pacific workers within the NZ police communications centers to find out what has kept them working within NZ police communications.
This is a qualitative study, utilizing Talanoa methodology to explore factors that kept Pacific people working for NZ police communications and identify improvements that could be made to police initiatives and processes for recruiting Pacific people. Six participants from different Pacific cultures were interviewed in total.
Findings indicate that Pacific people were motivated to join NZ police communications as an opportunity to either become a police officer or for career progression. Another motivational factor was seeing other Pacific and non-Pacific people in police practicing similar cultural values. The key challenges that Pacific people go through include the lengthy process in recruitment and orientation, limited cultural awareness shown from managers and the challenge between professional and personal values. Some of the ways that participants coped with these challenges were by talking and confiding in colleagues and family. There were many suggestions for improvement regarding how NZ police can better support their Pacific employees in the communication departments. These included raising cultural awareness among staff as this would build on trust and connection with Pacific employees, having more Pacific people in leadership roles so Pacific people feel represented and can relate to more effectively. Other recommendations include socialization for workgroups and establishing a support network group for Pacific staff in NZ police communications
Newmarket Arts Trust: A brief history (2004–2021)
No full textBACKGROUND
The Newmarket Arts Trust (NAT) was formed in 2004. The original trustees were a mixture of people involved in the art world
–– myself
–– Sue Haigh (no relation to the author, local resident and active member of the Newmarket Park Beautification Group)
–– Deborah White (owner of Newmarket gallery Whitespace)
–– Joy Tongue (owner of Newmarket gallery Studio of Contemporary Art)
[...]
The trust was established by the Newmarket Business Association (NBA) and was tasked with promoting arts, especially public art in the Newmarket area – roughly the area within the boundary of the old Newmarket Borough Council and now the boundary of the NBA. I had been closely involved in establishing the NBA and ensuring that the Newmarket area had a special Mainstreet rate that was devolved by Auckland City Council (ACC) to the NBA. These special rates were essential in funding a regular and substantial part of the costs of future artworks.
NAT is a community organisation registered with the Charities Commission. Its constitution includes the following purposes:
–– Promote art and culture in Newmarket
–– Establish and support a Newmarket art and culture fund to commission works and promote the arts
–– Purchase artworks for public display in Newmarket
–– Encourage public art in all new developments and redevelopments in Newmarket
–– Encourage artists to set up in the Newmarket communit
Climate change and housing: Exploring a New Urban model to help build resilience to climate change
No full textThe environmental effects of climate change and the provision of affordable housing are seen as essential yet disparate issues in contemporary urban discourse in Aotearoa New Zealand. We argue that these two critical problems are actually linked through shared landscape-based conditions. We suggest that without careful thought, the provision of housing, especially in denser typologies, could exacerbate the environmental effects of climate change. We propose a new approach to urban planning, one that acknowledges the underlying landscape and the consequence of climate change within the contemporary city. We put forward a method using catchment mapping and GIS analysis to ensure the planning of safe housing.
To investigate this proposition, a collaborative design investigation between Aotearoa New Zealand government housing authority Kāinga Ora and students from the Unitec School of Architecture was conducted. The studio uses a real-life proposition, an 18-ha development site in the Tāmaki regeneration zone, as a study case. The site is susceptible to flooding and about to be intensively redeveloped, and thus exemplifies the two identified problems. Using the methods described above, students carried out a number of site investigations, shared interdisciplinary group analyses, and tested the effect of climate change (especially flooding) on the existing site and the impact of the intensified development in exacerbating flooding. The result was a new awareness by landscape architects and architects, that in the face of climate change, the two practices are irrevocably intertwined
Decolonising landscape architecture education in Aotearoa New Zealand
No full textAotearoa is growing rapidly with expansive development occurring across the country as the creative and design industry responds to support the diverse needs of the growing population. This enables opportunities for emerging practitioners in the built environment to engage with communities and develop their cultural literacy and contributes to the wider shift in architecture education. This paper discusses the cultural values-based approach developed for a design studio where Unitec’s Department of Landscape Architecture partnered with Panuku Development Auckland on the Kia Puāwai a Pukekohe town centre transformation project. Core to this partnership the students have explored current and new approaches to understanding how to engage with mana whenua and understand placemaking as key elements of community development and urban regeneration. This design studio acts as a platform which creates space to enable students to engage in real world challenges and projects and develop relationships with real clients. Creating real world learning opportunities on both sides of the partnership. This creates opportunities for students to design and address social and cultural issues. This process also allows students to immerse themselves in contributing to and shaping their own living environments. They cover problem definition and identification of latent opportunities; brief generation; site analysis; master-planning processes; ‘local’ scale design responses and relevant instrumental design theory. This case study provides a series of tools regarding diverse approaches to integrating inclusive studios which aims to inform better longterm outcomes to deliver and build capacity and capability in landscape architecture
Introduction and contents for special issue of Multimodal Communication 10 (1)
No full textIn this article we introduce this special issue of Multimodal Communication. We briefly describe the founding of the Multimodal Research Centre and the journal Multimodal Communication before introducing each of the articles featured in this issue