Papakāinga in the 21st Century: Going up

Concept design for vertical papakāinga. Image: Design Tribe Architects.

A series of four podcasts focussed on Māori housing has been produced by Becky Kiddle with support from Desna Whaanga-Schollum and Jo Smith as part of the Ako ahu team in the Kāinga Tahi, Kāinga Rua (KTKR) research programme.

The role of the Ako Ahu team is to support KTKR researchers to build a community of interest related to the current housing issues facing diverse Māori communities and to help create research that our communities might find relevant, and ideally, transformative.

Māori housing is a complex issue and requires a whole of landscape (systems) research approach that is embedded in kaupapa Māori methodologies. The Ako Ahu team worked to use pūrākau (storytelling techniques) to synthesise research findings across the three whenu of papakāinga, hauora, and whai rawa to identify key issues, concerns, innovations, and educational opportunities relevant to Māori housing. Understanding how this work connects with others is one of the steps towards developing more sophisticated solutions to critical issues such as housing needs. The Ako Ahu’s remit was to build and share knowledge throughout the KTKR research programme as well as build a broader community of interest in KTKR activities. These podcasts are one of the outputs of the Ako Ahu team. Post production assistance by Thom McIntosh

Papakāinga in the 21st Century: Going up

Building papakāinga in urban settings where land is expensive and in short supply, is the focus of today’s papakāinga. Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei have been grappling with exactly these questions on their Orākei whenua. Dr Rebecca Kiddle explores with Anahera Rawiri from Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, alongside researchers Rau Hoskins and Irene Kereama-Royal, the notion of a ‘vertical papakāinga’. They have been working to understand whether this apartment housing typology fits well with the ways that Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei have historical lived and how they want to live in the future. This innovative exploration builds on their existing papakāinga development that draws on medium density housing typologies to use land efficiently and house as many of their whanau as possible.