Tūrangawaewae | A place to stand
Authors:   , Morrish Jonathan 
Published: November 2021

<p><b>The landscape concealed beneath the concrete surfaces of our cities is replete with heritage stories representing the transformative evolution of the land, our culture and our ever-evolving society. The architecture upon these urban landscapes, however, is often only challenged to represent an architectural style (aesthetic), function (programme) or a public mask (branding) of the building. As a result, architecture tends to neglect the evolving identity of its context, allowing the stories of the site’s heritage to become lost beneath the growing layers of urban development. This thesis asks:How can urban architecture help to reawaken the transformative heritage stories that form place identity, enabling architecture as well as its inhabitants to have a place to stand | tūrangawaewae?</b></p>
<p>Place identity for Māori is embodied in the concept of tūrangawaewae––a place to stand. For Māori, the place where a person learns important life lessons and feels a connection with their ancestors is usually the marae. In this place they have earned the right to stand up and make their voices heard. In this place they are empowered and connected to both the land and to one another. Tūrangawaewae––a place to stand––embodies the fundamental concept of our connection to place (“Papatūānuku – the land”). The research site selected to explore this question is the urban area in and around Te Aro Park in central Wellington, which was once the site of Te Aro Pā. This site provides the thesis with a rich polyvalent layering of stories, interweaving landscape heritage, Māori heritage and colonial heritage within a single architectural context. This thesis is framed as an ‘allegorical architectural project’, which is defined by Penelope Haralambidou as a critical method for architectural design research that is often characterised by speculative architectural drawing. The allegorical architectural project integrates design and text to critically reflect on architecture in relation to topics such as art, science and politics (Haralambidou, “The Fall”, 225).</p>
<p>The design-led research investigation explores how an allegorical architectural project can help to enable urban architecture to reawaken the transformative heritage stories that form place identity—utilising speculative architectural drawing as a fundamental tool for enabling architecture as well as its inhabitants to manifest a sense of belonging. The thesis proposes an allegorical architectural project as a research vehicle through which place identity can be challenged and fulfilled. By positioning an architectural intervention and its context within a dialectic confrontation, it examines how an allegorical architectural project can represent and communicate the temporal and multi-layered nature of place identity within a static architectural outcome.</p>
<p>By reconnecting architecture with site, and interpreting this connection allegorically within the design process, this thesis investigates how architecture can allegorically become the living inhabitant of a site, where the site itself gives architecture its tūrangawaewae, a place to stand.</p>