What makes an organisation, and any community, are its people. This is imbued in the name—Te Herenga Waka (the gathering of canoes). A marae and a university where people come from all over the world to form a community.
One of the things that makes Te Herenga Waka Marae unique is the vision set by the first Professor of Māori Studies, Sir Hirini Moko Mead, and others. That vision was to make our marae a living marae and a space for te ao Māori at the University. A marae where students could apply their learning in a culturally safe environment, practice the language and the culture in real life situations, and in doing so protecting these taonga and shaping the future they want.
At Te Herenga Waka, we are always looking for initiatives that can support us to be who we are meant to be in our everyday lives and create a better future. Many organisations, iwi, industry and government and communities—and more importantly, our young people—are all searching for holistic and evidence-based models to address the big issues that confront our society, including the changing climate, depleting resources, injustices, and inequalities.
We know that we need to make more conscious choices for the environment and for the legacy we’ll leave for our mokopuna and the many generations that will follow. The actions we take today will always impact on the next generation. So, the question we need to ask ourselves is, how do we ensure that we will be good ancestors?
The International Living Futures Institutes® Living Building Challenge® (LBC) is one of the major distinctive features of the Living Pā. Going far beyond the green buildings most people are familiar with, the LBC is internationally recognised as the built environment’s gold standard. It is a philosophy that seeks to advocate for and create projects that actively ‘do good’, as opposed to ‘doing less harm’.
This is an incredibly enticing prospect that represents a paradigm shift and enables the creation of exemplars. Not only are our designers and building contractors being challenged to meet the LBC’s benchmark, so too will suppliers, maintenance contractors and occupants. The framework’s reach spans over the entire building life cycle, and industry and our community should be better for it. But the Living Building Challenge is HARD. It will test us out. This begs the question, why did we select the LBC path and not a green star type building?
The LBC is a great structure to teach and uphold the value of kaitiakitanga, and to restore and reveal inside people a real regard and relationship with te taiao (the natural world) and things beyond themselves.
As a values-based proposition the Living Pā is designed to deliver environmental, people and business benefits, and hope.
It will be a high performance, human-focused, whenua-focused, healthy, resilient place to be in. It will be the home to te ao Māori at the University, and a place where many people can come to connect to the language, kawa and tīkanga of the marae.
The Living Pā is not just about building a building. This project expects a big reset in baselines and it requires action. It is about applying knowledge and innovation to make the change for the future we want, Mō te āpōpō—For a better tomorrow.