In May I visited Kohewhata Marae, just outside Kaikohe, a small rural community working hard to battle these pressures in a modern Northland with low employment, little investment and few opportunities. 

The wharenui is a modern, beautiful carved meeting house with an illuminated waka, floating up high forming the ridge beam. The wharenui has 10 blank panels, uncarved. Ngapuhi’s intention is that one panel will be carved every 100 years. Imagine: a 1000 year strategic plan, demonstrating some serious intergenerational leadership vision and intended longevity! 

Not long afterwards, I was shocked to see the disastrous Northland flooding, following the huge storms, with Moerewa cut off by a collapsed SH1. The frequency and intensity of these storm impacts are a serious marker of climate change and raise questions about just how resilient our communities really are – both urban and rural – and of the infrastructure that underpins our society’s economic health. 

We’re tough people, made of the land and of circumstance, yet we are facing a perfect storm of disruption to our livelihoods. And despite our basking in a mild climate with plentiful solar and rain(!), NZ continues to pretend that cheap, poor performance buildings, with little consideration for the future beyond meeting Building Code, are a good investment. 

Next week Auckland is hosting the ‘Building a Better NZ’ conference, three days of presentations, sharing and keynotes. I’m interested to see if the agenda is asking the really crunchy questions about our future or just fine tuning business as usual?

My presentation will look at Te Uru Taumatua, Tuhoe’s new HQ in Taneatua and also the first Living Building Challenge project in NZ along with Pegasus Net Zero Energy school near Christchurch.

I will be explaining how a strategic approach to the design, construction and operation of these two buildings, along with the clients' ‘beyond the box’ vision, offers critical insights for how we create long-term value for NZ, and importantly resilient communities. The spin offs from ‘restorative’ projects are new skills, eliminating toxic materials, Net Zero energy and water, tiny operating costs and resilience, training and community empowerment. The buildings offer a new paradigm of investment, solutions with inter-generational equity for our people and our land. I believe these last two lie at the heart of the solution to our modern dilemmas. 

I will offer a challenge to the conference: How can we role out restorative projects across all the communities of NZ?

The answer is to create 'living buildings' that will help upskill the communities and engender pride by engaging people to create ’life’ rather than undermining it. Our existing wharenuis show we have this capacity, with their 700 years of whakapapa and visions for the next 1000. These ‘living’ examples are real inspiration for us all.

I will report back with the response.