Toitū te Marae

Toitū te Marae investigates the vulnerability of Aotearoa marae, exacerbated by he huringa āhuarangi (our changing environments) and compound injustices resulting from colonisation. 80% of marae are situated in low-lying or coastal flood-prone land, demonstrating their disproportionate environmental risk. Toitū te Marae explores indigenised architectural practices to identify strengths that enhance te ao Māori resilience. This experimental, practice-led research is grounded in kaupapa Māori methodology. The process arises from the non-linear time and space of te kore (the unknown), te pō (the potential) and te ao-mārama (the revelation) and is documented across five phases: He Tangata - the people, first and foremost, kōrero, wānanga, noho, hui and hīkoi around the motu.

He Whenua - te ao Māori does not exist without a site: macro analysis of climate-affected locations with a focus on Te Karaka, Tairawhiti.

Pūrākau - learnings from the past.

Exhibition and Installation – socialising the research: consolidating provisional learnings.

Design - the physical building is less critical; explore the three r’s: raise, return, relocate and finally, the speculative projections of the past and future.

Toitū te Marae poses a fundamental shift in existing architectural practices attending climate change and necessitates re-evaluating and adapting established norms. It entails experiments by testing uncharted methods for a robust indigenous architectural practice. The findings assert that marae are the resilience of Aotearoa. Contra to prevailing Eurosphere practices, for Māori architecture, the physicality of the building is not the priority; resilience emerges with the taonga, whakapapa, and mana whenua. Resilience in a kaupapa Māori context is about looking to the past enabling efforts to move forward. In the quest for utu (reciprocity), kaitiakitanga (guardianship) is a crucial principle.

At this pivotal time, architecture does not hold the answers to he huringa āhuarangi (the changing environments), yet, it can change the pūrākau (narrative) of how we live within our built environments. This research demonstrates how indigenous architectural practices offer tactics toward bringing about reciprocal spatial environments in the resilience of Marae.