Jake Culbertson   B.A., M.A., Ph.C. Anthropology

Kaupapa Whanau

Tamaki Makaurau Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Art

Tena koutou,
I’m a post-grad student in the anthropology department at the University of California, Davis. I am doing doctoral research on some of the many various things that get called “Maori architecture,” but focusing on ongoing building and design projects. For the past five years I have worked off and on with a group of carvers in the Bay of Plenty and have also gotten to know and work with people building waka, restoring pa sites, and producing architecture in professional and academic studios.
In general I look at how Maori and Western technologies and concepts combine or clash in these different settings, and how the differences between Maori and Western building practices are articulated, maintained, translated, commensurated, etc. For me, this entails taking seriously the various tools and media that architects and builders produce and enlist in the processes— sketches, photos, conceptual maps, digital models, korero, carved wood, to name a few. And it also entails tending to the forces that limit or slow down the production of ideas and architectures, whether these limits are framed as tikanga Maori, emerge from the legal regimes of the state or are tied to the economic fortunes of Maori communities. Another way to pose this, perhaps, is “what kinds of relationships are necessary to produce architecture, and what kind of objects or media make these relationships visible?”
I’m always eager to learn more about what’s happening in the world of Maori environmental design, and also to share some of what I’ve found, so please get in touch if you’d like.
E nga mihi ki a koutou katoa.