Jade Kake is an architectural designer, writer, housing advocate, and founder of Matakohe Architecture + Urbanism based in Te Tai Tokerau Northland.
“My formative years were spent around people who genuinely and passionately believed in environmental conservation, rural regeneration and community building,” she tells Verve. “This shaped my worldview, and ideas about who and what architecture is for.”
It was an upbringing in the ‘Rainbow Region’ of New South Wales where her parents were “tree change hippies” and founding members of an eco-community.
“Through my mum – who is Māori – and my koroheke – affectionately known as ‘Pop’ – and his siblings, I grew up with a strong connection to my taha Māori,” continues Jade. “The intertwining of these formative elements in my late
How important is community consultation in designing Māori buildings?
For most of our projects, a Māori community or group is the client. For these types of projects, we facilitate
a co-design process that engages our client group in a series of wānanga. We often leave feeling as though the community has collectively made all of the key design decisions, and that our role as the architect is simply to draw it up and incorporate any other technical information.
Can you describe how Māori architecture reflects Māori culture?
I have been increasingly thinking about this as a set of four factors: whakatakoto/layout; āhuatanga/form; ngā rawa/materials; and ngā tauira/motif. I haven’t yet decided whether tikanga should be its own factor or whether this can be captured in the layout. The careful separation of tapu and noa is, in my view, the most important consideration in Māori architecture, with the related but separate concern of facilitation cultural protocol. How the building – and the spaces in between – function is fundamentally important, more so than motif or materials, which ultimately exist in support of the culturally-patterned relationships and behaviours that buildings reinforce or facilitate.
Is storytelling incorporated into your architectural designs?
We have a reasonably structured process whereby we work collaboratively with knowledge holders to identify landmarks, stories and genealogy, as well as broader cultural themes and values. From there, we work collaboratively to identify the best opportunities for expression through design, and to develop some very early conceptual thinking to present back to hapū knowledge holders for their input.
How do you adapt traditional materials for modern construction?
Traditionally, our everyday whare were light, easy-to-dismantle structures constructed of readily available materials. Pre-colonisation, wharepuni, and pātaka may have included timber elements, some of which may have been carved. However, it wasn’t until the mid-19th century that large, fully carved whare whakairo emerged as a distinct architectural typology. Unfortunately, the Tohunga Suppression Act 1907 and the raupō ordinances of the 1840s meant that much of our traditional building knowledge was lost or went underground.
The contemporary idea of hybrid materials is interesting but still largely unrealised and certainly not in a mainstream sense. Some of ways in which hybrid materials have been developed and applied include the use of muka – harakeke fibre – in uku/earth walls, and the use of native hardwoods, to create timber shingles. Some of the other areas of untapped potential include the use of tōtara bark as insulation.
And how do you balance traditional Māori design elements with contemporary practices?
I’ve had a few conversations with carvers, and generally, the consensus is that even the best attempts at traditional constructions have carvings as add-ons to the main structure. Our building industry is highly regulated, and it’s difficult for structural engineers to certify carved timber as structural elements. There’s some interesting work underway in academia which is extremely promising, but on the whole yet to be translated into practice.
How does Māori architecture incorporate environmental sustainability?
Inherently. Within our practice, most of our clients are Māori, and within the early stages of briefing there’s always
a strong drive towards environmental sustainability as a fundamental ethos, considering our impact on Papatūānuku, waterways, our non-human kin, and the lifecycle of materials. Social sustainability is often at the forefront, considering ways to utilise local, minimally processed materials and labour.
Where do you see the future of Māori architecture heading, both in Aotearoa and globally?
I’m a big fan of speculative fiction, and Māori futurism – as a subset of Indigenous futurism – is an idea that has captured our collective creative imagination. Think the cover of Pātea Māori Club’s Poi E album of 1987 – the future is Māori, and we are only limited by our collective imagination and ambition. Let’s keep working together to imagine more hopeful and emancipatory futures.
