He Pā Mataora

Learning to live with the Living Pā

He Pā Mataora will seize the rare opportunity afforded in the lead-up to the opening of Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington’s Living Pā building to explore the needs and challenges of moving an entire marae community into more climate adaptive and resilient practices.

Our research will delve into four interrelated pātaka of knowledge: tikanga, reo, ako and taiao. We hope to proliferate effective and culturally relevant examples of living, learning and working more sustainably, as Māori, within an urban, pan-Māori context. 

Our research will connect with other Māori communities that have embraced Living Buildings and exemplar sustainable practices. We will also host community wānanga, generate case studies, construct tikanga frameworks, collect a Māori language corpus, develop innovative teaching resources and create virtual reality tools — all designed to share climate  adaptation knowledge that encourages a more tika transition to a zero-carbon economy.

We’ll operationalise our findings here at Te Herenga Waka marae, and within our curricula and research programmes. Ultimately however this project is about sharing our learnings and resources with many other Māori communities, so they can be better prepared as well.

Our unique context, within a university, means it is our future students, ngā mokopuna o te pā, who will eventually take on roles as Living Pā champions. It is future students who will take manuhiri through the completed building, and its tikanga, while sharing their detailed  understanding of how it all came together.

This project in the media:

• Whāia te pae tawhiti—Te Wānanga o Raukawa visits, The Living Pā blog