While this need is usually met by whakapapa (genealogical) connections to marae, it has more recently been served through the design and construction of multipurpose buildings or complexes on tribal land. Over several years, Tennent Brown has co-designed projects with hapū, iwi and Māori-led organisations to enable tūrangawaewae, the maintenance of mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge), respect for tāiao (the natural world) and inter-cultural reconciliation.

Tennent Brown’s Te Wharehou o Waikaremoana, co-designed with Ngāi Tūhoe, represents the iwi’s assertion of its mana whenua status in Te Urewera. The building’s opening in 2017 marked the iwi’s physical return to this whenua following seven decades of exclusion while the region was a national park. Te Wharehou o Waikaremoana is an iwi administration hub and space for Ngāi Tūhoe to express manaakitanga (hospitality, kindness) towards visitors to Te Urewera, a region now co-managed by the iwi and the government. Working collaboratively, the architects and iwi translated Ngāi Tūhoe’s kaitiakitanga of Te Urewera into a Living Building Challenge project (petal certification), one that demonstrates great care in material use and construction processes. The design is inspired by tikanga (custom) and the local natural environment, especially the nearby Onepoto Bay lake basin. A draped roof recalls the basin’s shape, while strong, anchoring pou-like elements at either end of the building represent the basin’s sandstone slabs and are also an assertion of tūrangawaewae. Burnt timber cladding expresses ahi kā (occupational fires).

Tennent Brown and Ngāi Tūhoe carried forward Living Building Challenge principles into their next project, Te Tii Ruatāhuna, a multi-purpose community hub opened in 2018 that brought much needed shopping, fuel, radio broadcasting, a children’s playground and accommodation facilities to the Ruatāhuna township. The architecture is both well-designed and humble — a combination of qualities not often celebrated in architecture. Kaitiakitanga and Ngāi Tūhoe’s staunch independence are apparent in the self-sufficiency of the complex’s solar energy, on-site wastewater treatment and rainwater collection systems, which are all processes that align with Tennent Brown’s sustainable design approach.

Tertiary campuses are important sites for the development and expression of contemporary Māori architecture, in keeping with their role in maintaining mātauranga Māori. Tennent Brown’s long-term relationship with Te Wānanga o Raukawa in Ōtaki has produced a series of notable buildings that continue the practice’s focus on co-design, tikanga and kaitiakitanga values. For Māori, new architecture is never without precedent. For Tennent Brown and Te Wānanga o Raukawa’s 2012 Ngā Purapura sports and lifestyle learning centre, that precedent was Rangiātea. Rangiātea is remembered by some iwi as the central Pacific departure point for Polynesian ancestors migrating to Aotearoa; it is a place of origin remembered in the whakataukī (proverb) ‘E kore au e ngaro he kākano i ruia mai i Rangiātea’ (‘I shall never be lost, I am a seed sown from Rangiātea’). Ngā Purapura’s design acknowledges the whakataukī through the inclusion of a multifaceted timber kākano (seed) pod for nohopuku (reflection). Tennent Brown, working closely with kaumātua and senior academics including Meihana Durie, used ‘Te Whare Tapa Whā’ (‘The Four Sides of a House’) hauora (wellbeing) model as the design basis for the four rooflines above the section of the building adjacent to the sports hall. Ngā Purapura, the name of the complex, recalls the famous, star-like purapura whetū tukutuku (stitched wall panels) in the nearby Rangiātea Church.

Above: Ngā Purapura – Te Wānanga o Raukawa, Ōtaki, 2012. Photograph by Paul McCredie.

The ‘woven’ timber façade of the stunning Te Ara Tāwhaki building, opened in 2018 at Te Wānanga o Raukawa, is reminiscent of kete whakairo (patterned baskets) and, more specifically, ngā kete mātauranga e toru, or the three baskets of knowledge. From outside, the inner workings of the building can be glimpsed between and underneath the timbers, revealing a whare pukapuka (library), student services hub, teaching space and whakairo rākau (wood carvings), originally carved by Te Whetū Mārama o te Ata Kereama for a whare whakairo (decorated meeting house) that was never built. The whakairo rākau represent the three iwi that established Te Wānanga o Raukawa and are arranged in a whare whakairo configuration in Te Ara Tāwhaki. Their presence provides mana and meaning to the building, creating a dialogue between Māori customary architecture and contemporary architecture.

Sensitivity to place and stories does not necessarily have to translate into architecture that recedes from view. Indeed, sensitive narratives sometimes need strong architecture to initiate discussion. This was the path that Tennent Brown took for the design of Te Whare Hononga, opened in 2023, a place of reconciliation between Pākehā and Māori described as ‘the house that binds’. The building’s larger site, Pūkākā hill in Ngāmotu New Plymouth, has a long Māori history, beginning with its settlement by Te Ātiawa in the 15th century and construction of a pā in the 18th century. The Anglican church established itself on Pūkākā in the early 1840s and 20 years later supported a garrison of British troops brought to the area to fight against Māori during the New Zealand Wars. The architects, working with the church and mana whenua, Ngāti Te Whiti, created a building where these difficult histories could be shared as part of a journey towards reconciliation. The concept of binding, manaakitanga and engagement is reflected in the façade design, inspired by the intersecting weave of kono (plaited food baskets) and tāniko (twined, geometric patterned textiles).

Māori communities and organisations are commissioning new types of buildings to support resolutely Māori kaupapa (initiatives) concerned with tūrangawaewae, mātauranga Māori and tāiao. Tennent Brown has supported their clients’ kaupapa in several co-designed projects, developing a unique collaborative approach and design language in the process. Kaumātua and other community members are intimately involved in the design and realisation of the spaces for manaakitanga, learning and reconciliation. The striking formalism of Tennent Brown’s work with Māori is often an architectural reinterpretation of taonga Māori, such as pou and kete in the projects discussed here, that represents the concept of tūrangawaewae and custom of manaakitanga, respectively. Through taonga, tikanga and collective engagement, a new architecture emerges to serve present needs and future aspirations.

Professor Deidre Brown (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Kahu), FRSNZ, FNZIA, 2023 Te Kāhui Whaihanga New Zealand Institute of Architects Gold Medallist, Co-director MĀPIHI Māori and Pacific Housing Research Centre, University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau.