What are the benefits of bringing together a global community like the UIA World Congress?
The perception of our ‘tiny little country at the other side of a very large ocean’ is a funny one because we’re all discussing the same big issues. Our projects – and the thinking behind them – are rigorous, sophisticated and thoughtful and this surprised people at Congress; like they don’t have a barometer for where we sit in the world relative to them.

Perhaps the most important potential for a platform like UIA is to create dialogue around the interdependencies of nations, our impact on the environment and how we use resources. This is especially relevant to the Indigenous Peoples Work Programme and the capacity that Indigenous people have to bring our ‘old-world’ knowledge to ‘new-world’ thinking. We add another layer of understanding about relationships to the environment.

A lot of people still approach resources as things that sit outside themselves, as things we buy and sell. The Indigenous world view is very much that we live in relationship to these things, which contributes to the global conversation in a powerful way. It’s something the UIA has by no means tapped into – there’s a resource it doesn’t know it has.

Architects have incredible potential to create great opportunity and beauty, and also environmental harm. We are generally a group of people who are empathetic, caring and careful in thinking about our environmental impact, so it surprised me how many people don’t know about Indigenous thinking. That probably comes back to Eurocentricity, which is hard to avoid at a platform like Congress.

What are the benefits of groups like the IPWP?
There’s so much that Indigenous people have to contribute to the global conversation of architecture and care for environment. Architects in Aotearoa have many examples of Indigenous concepts being applied in the built environment – projects, processes, case studies and design principles, such as Te Aranga. As a Working Group, we have the potential to bring together an archive of information that demonstrates to the global industry what Indigenous people are doing, and to help influence not just architecture but procurement, client relationships and processes. We have people like Dillon Kombumerri from the Office of the Government Architect in Sydney who has worked on the Connecting to Country Framework. If it’s implemented by the New South Wales government, it would require all projects to undergo a Connecting-with-Country process.

Architecture can sometimes be blinded by the sparkly, shiny objects we make, as opposed to the people and places we design for and with. The IPWP has a lot to offer the industry. Dignity, agency, inclusion and diversity are words that are thrown around a lot at places like UIA, but Patrick and I both experienced outright racism while we were there. Patrick is one of less than 20 Indigenous registered architects in Canada, we have 66 registered Māori architects, and there are less than 20 in Australia. The level of discrimination we received was initially surprising but, given the statistics, maybe not entirely. 

What are your thoughts on the Copenhagen Lessons? Are some less visible, such as indigeneity and architecture?
When you pass the lessons through an indigenous lens, a lot of them are inherently how we live. It can feel like they state the obvious, and it’s still about treating the outside world as something we can control, manipulate and change, as opposed to living in relationship with it. In my opinion, the Copenhagen Lessons are a starting point, but we’d like to make them more relevant to an Indigenous world view for the betterment of the planet.

What does the Working Group want to prioritise ahead of the next UIA summit in Spain 2026?
Firstly, we want UIA to acknowledge UNDRIP [the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act]. We would like to see what leverage that could give us within UIA – could we, for example, support Indigenous people who are fighting against a pipeline running through their land?

Our second priority is that we would like the Working Group to become a permanent Commission. Currently, it isn’t guaranteed a place within the UIA’s core priorities. As a commission, it could advocate for a better understanding and care of Indigenous knowledge and architecture.

In Copenhagen, the Working Group discussed compiling a statement of aspirations and provocations that we’d like to see implemented globally within the industry, ideally with examples of how they have been implemented in our respective countries. We think this would be a clear way to re-enter into discussion in Spain.

Finally, the Working Group aspires to have more Indigenous practitioners as UIA members. For example, there are no architects from Te Moana-Nui-a-Kiwa [Pacific Ocean], although we are changing that this term with the nomination of Tuputau Lela’ulu to the Working Group. There are no Sámi architects from Europe, and there were no Indigenous practitioners from Australia. We’re working hard to address that and widen the discussion.

What does Congress and its outcomes mean for Aotearoa?
It puts Aotearoa on the map in terms of what we can contribute to the global conversation. A lot of relationships have been made and strengthened, and many of our issues are universal. We have the capacity to demonstrate leadership at a global scale, which could benefit many countries. I would love for more members from Aotearoa to participate in global dialogue – we don’t live in a vacuum and are much more connected than we think.

Our government isn’t as ahead as it could be but, as a country, we are quite good at thinking about our relationship to carbon, regenerative design and sustainability. Right down to small practices, we have a lot of lived experience in that space because, broadly, we care and have a connection to our country that I think is part of our social fabric. I also believe this is closely connected to how well understood Te Ao Māori is within our society. There is Indigenous leadership here and we have so much to share, demonstrate and connect on.

What can the industry improve on?
We could do some deeper thinking, some wānanga on how we get closer to that relational conversation with the environment. For example, what would happen if we approached all projects with views of kaitiakitanga beyond the very basic understanding or translation of kaitiakitanga meaning sustainability? I would love for our curiosity to deepen and the empathy for Māori, Māori knowledge and the Māori experience to deepen with it.

It would be fascinating to pull apart our understandings of both the Māori and Pākehā worlds. There’s an interrelationship that we need to get better at talking about – I think it will impact our relationship to materials and construction of buildings and places. As a membership of 4500 people who care enough about architecture to belong to Te Kāhui Whaihanga, it would be amazing to have deeper conversations about relationship to whenua and wider Te Moana-Nui-a-Kiwa. I don’t think we consider Te Moana Nui enough or the damage we are doing.

Conversations in Copenhagen centred around climate change and sea-level rise, but there’s ignorance that entire nations will sink and people will be physically displaced from their nationhood. People in Europe have no idea about this and are not having to have conversations about what would happen if their own countries disappeared. But I’m not sure we are really leaning into that, or the role Aotearoa plays historically and into the future.

They are difficult conversations but that’s what global dialogue does – it cracks open the egg beyond your own country. If I’m not changing the way people think about architecture at a platform like UIA, then what is the point?