Fresh from the Field – Puna Kōrero – by Unitec School of Creative Industries
For June & July we are focusing on Design & Te Ao Māori on the Design Assembly website – featuring interviews with Māori designers, project features spotlighting their work & design processes, to thought leadership articles that inspire and challenge the Aotearoa NZ Design community.
Connecting the local community to the whenua and puna of Te Whare Wananga o Wairaka. The Puna Kōrero project brought the exterior of Te Noho Kotahitanga marae to life over Matariki and looks to disseminate place-based knowledge and narratives as the ecosystem changes over time due to urban intensification.
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The Brief
The current and former campus areas of Te Whare Wananga o Wairaka (Unitec – Te Pūkenga) are undergoing massive change because of the Carrington Residential Development, an urban intensification project that will eventually account for tens of thousands of new residents and visitors in this area. Puna (stream or waterways) nurture life in and around their flow paths, but they are also vulnerable to the negative consequences of the prevailing urban development paradigm. Many puna traverse the campus, connecting it with other parts of the Albert Eden local board area and beyond.
The brief was to develop a project to engage staff, students and local communities in meaningful ways with the whenua (land) and puna (pool/spring) of Te Whare Wananga o Wairaka, so as to facilitate positive experiences of te taiao while educating the public about the cultural and ecological significance of this place.
The Design Response
In responding to the brief, we developed two design outputs which were launched as part of Unitec’s 2024 Matariki celebration:
- An Animated Projection Mapping Experience on the Architectural Surfaces of Te Noho Kotahitanga Marae
- Content Development and Launch of a Mobile App for Campus-Based Digital Storytelling.
Design Output 1: Puna Kōrero Drawing and Animation Projection Mapping
Facilitated by Emma Smith and Hohepa Renata with the support of Tanya White, Leon Tan and Peeti Lamwilai, students from Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Ngā Maungarongo and Unitec School of Creative Industries were introduced to some of the key visual narratives of the wharenui of Te Noho Kotahitanga marae and invited to create drawings in response to these visual narratives as well as the surrounding natural environment.
Drawings from this collaborative workshop were then developed into animation sequences by Peeti Lamwilai and Bachelor of Design and Contemporary Art (BDCA) students, Marina Fepulea’i, Oleana Lavea and Samantha Waddell. These animated sequences were projection-mapped onto the wharenui exterior surface during the Matariki celebration event programme. The goal was to bring the marae exterior to life with the expressions of the children and young people who live and study here, who are the future of this place.
Design Output 2: Puna Kōrero App
Developed by Cris de Groot and Bachelor of Design and Contemporary Arts (BDCA) students, Anahera Van Leeuwen and Stephen Liu with the support of Tanya White, Marama Haines-Te Whare, Hohepa Renata, Daisy Bentley-Gray and Leon Tan, the Puna Kōrero App seeks to make knowledge from and about the whenua and place more accessible to the public. The mobile app prototype initially tells feature-rich (audio, video, photo, text) stories of 6 locations, including wahi tapu, within the campus domain. Depending on funding, this app may allow for GPS-triggered content delivery. The longer-term goal is to develop this into a platform for disseminating place-based knowledge and narratives as the ecosystem changes over time due to urban intensification.
Puna Kōrero Website:
https://www.unitec.ac.nz/about-us/matariki-celebration-puna-k-rero
Project Team:
Leon Tan
Tanya White
Hohepa Renata
Marama Haines-Te Whare
Daisy Bentley-Gray
Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Nga Maungarongo
Emma Smith
Peeti Lamwilai
Marina Fepulea’i
Oleana Lavea
Samantha Waddell
Cris de Groot
Anahera Van Leeuwen
Stephan Liu
Michael Craven
Project Partners
Albert-Eden Local Board
Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Nga Maungarongo
