Category: Spatial
Location: Bay of Islands, New Zealand

The “Pepeha”, a way of introducing one by sharing one’s connection with the people and placesimportant to them, is a traditional Maori method of understanding one’s identity.

This connection is much threaded within the lives of maori people, from growing, harvesting,celebrating, and the passing down of knowledge.Besides Te Rawhiti marae, Bay of Islands, is a peice of land that once held great maori settlementprior to european arrival, and seeking for greater bondage with its heritage through fosteringliving spaces for maori children that grew up in city settings.

Thus, the brief became to design avillage, but not just a village, that ties the value of Pepeha into a immersive experience to helpMaori children reconnect within their land.The kite flying tradition is translated as a symbol of the harvesting, learning, and celebrationMaori iwi exercise as means to connect with their land on the basis of everyday living. A seriesof three installations are weaved into the village fabric, above market lanes, besides residentialunits, and net to sea shores, to foster creative exploration of the land that may lead to onecompleting the homefinding process along the way.