A Place to Navigate With / In: Negotiation of Architecture and Urban Environments in Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

What might our urban environments look like when designed in a partnership between tangata whenua 'people of the land' and tangata Tiriti 'people of the Treaty'? This question responded to criticism that contemporary urban environments in Aotearoa New Zealand remain as either European colonial or western constructions that give little recognition to Māori spatial narratives that inhabit and imbue these places. Of critical importance to how these future environments are constructed, it is argued that both design processes as well as their outcomes must be explored, in an ongoing negotiation with mana whenua.

As historic Treaty grievances are settled, this thesis was inspired to look towards the possibility of a future urban partnership. Specifically, this thesis asked: 'how can architecture and its practices support an equitable negotiation of the design of urban environments in Aotearoa New Zealand, between tangata whenua and tangata Tiriti, and specifically, mana whenua and myself as Pākehā?'

This thesis drew on fields of research and practice that address different parts of this question, defined as ‘research at the interface’ and ‘spatial agency.’ These fields investigate the negotiation of different systems of knowledge at the interface between settler and indigenous peoples, and methodologies for deconstructing traditional relationships between architecture and the communities and environments it is within. At their intersection, this thesis proposed a ‘place to navigate with / in,’ being a place of negotiation both with and in the environment, and where navigation was used to capture the intentions of the negotiation; asking ‘where are we now, and where are we going next?’

The researched developed in three phases, where transformational shifts of methodology and context occurred during critical reflection following each design phase. The conclusion of this research discovered that the very systems of knowledge of the designer must be themselves deconstructed and transformed in a design negotiation 'at the interface'. This discovery was also an opportunity; to develop a new perspective of how an ‘epistemological bridge’ may be constructed between worlds, of Te Ao Māori and Te Ao Pākehā, as a pathway of an 'allied other' leading towards a negotiated meeting place. The designed outcome of this research was thus both a proposed series of interventions as a 'place to navigate' with and in an environment, and a methodology for their construction, forming a new pathway to - and spatial narrative of - this place.