Jacob Dench, finalist
Jacob Dench, from Victoria University of Wellington, was a finalist at the 2016 NZIA Central Innovation Student Design Awards for his project ‘Te Mōrehu’.
Project description
The origins of this work lie in the tree-dwellings of the Muaūpoko iwi at Whakahoro, Horowhenua, where a once-vast and ancient kahikatea forest provided the platform for elevated living platforms. Te Mōrehu (the survivor or remnant) is a suspended architectural intervention – an orator’s platform – designed to inhabit a remnant forest that can be read as a contemporary reinterpretation of the tree pā at Whakahoro. The goal is to reawaken the story of these great trees, and the human culture that lived within them.
Citation
Jacob has uncovered a little known passage of Aotearoa’s unique history and reinterpreted it through contemporary tensioned-structure technology. His orator’s platform, a plywood pod designed for suspension within a remnant grove of mighty kahikatea, is a vehicle for the perpetuation of memory and the retelling of stories. It is an inventive work, that breaks free of standard architectural conventions; its foundations are cultural roots and its ambition is sky high.
