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Dangerous Architecture Podcast | 005: Jacob Scott on building tikanga into every aspect of Māori housing developments

Jacob shares a project evaluation tool that builds on the wisdom of his tipuna Moana Jackson that ensures what gets built expresses Māori cultural values and supports Māori ways of living and being.
  • Ngā Aho practitioner(s): Jacob Manu Scott
  • Other participants:  Abigail Temby-Spence

Podcast episode image (above): Samantha McGavock, 2025.

Listen to the Dangerous Architecture Podcast | 005: Jacob Scott on building tikanga into every aspect of Māori housing developments

Guest:
Ngā Aho Kāhui Whetu Jacob Scott is principal of Scott Design and Te Ara Hihiko, and co-founded Scott Architects Tapui with his daughter, architect Hana Scott. Jacob was instrumental in the development of Te Aranga Design Principles, and is recognised for his significant contribution to contemporary Māori art and Māori Arts education.

Buildings/locations:
Te Aranga Marae, in Flaxmere, Te Matau-a-Māui (Hawke’s Bay)

Main ideas:

  • Decisions about the design and layout of any home (and actually, any building) are informed by cultural values, whether we are conscious of it or not.
  • What is considered ‘normal’ housing design, and who a ‘typical’ occupant is and how they are expected to live is informed by the cultural values of the dominant cultural majority. In Aotearoa New Zealand, mainstream housing design and expectations of how occupants want to live caters to pākehā and Western cultural values and ways of living and being.
  • Conscious effort is required to design and build housing that supports indigenous ways of being and doing. If the impact of these cultural values on every part of the building sector and housing development process is not recognised, the resulting building reinforces pākehā cultural values and ways of relating—even if the project was commissioned by iwi and intended to house Māori.
  • Architects’ unique set of skills ranges from design and construction to supporting culture and enabling communities to thrive. Ngā Aho is an indigenous design body in Aotearoa, with decades of research and experience refining design process tools to ensure all aspects of development projects are informed by mātauranga and tikanga Māori.

Resources featured:

Book pairing:

Jemisin, N. K. (2020). The City We Became. Orbit.

Episode 005 full transcript with notes:

Kia ora, and so good to be back for 2026. Today, we are talking about housing with another one of Ngā Aho’s Kāhui Whetu, Jacob Scott, the principal of Scott Design and Te Ara Hihiko. We are going to talk about Maui, the innovator. And Jacob is going to generously share and talk us through an evaluation tool that he uses with clients, to ensure projects are fully informed by tikanga and mātauranga Māori so that they enable Māori to live as Māori.

Jacob: The whole building sector is not understood by iwi governance, I don’t think. At all. All they can say is that they will pursue this project according to their tikanga. That’s it. And then they let the projects out for design-build. Eh? And it’s…it’s sad. It’s really irresponsible. And as a result, what they’re getting is a box with a door on one side, and that’s it. And there’s masses of them happening, you know? Or they’re like this over here, which are suburban, kind of like, North American.

I am so pleased to be back for 2026. This has been a much longer break than I anticipated. Over the summer, we sold our house and bought a complete do up. A seventies place, spec build: it’s plan Number 29, Reversed. Everything about this place is falling apart. So this is coming to you from my flash new recording studio, a.k.a. the spare room wardrobe. I’ve pushed some clothes to the side, nailed some foam on the door, and sitting on some cushions. The dog is outside sulking, because he can’t fit in here with me. I barely fit in here myself, actually, and I kind of can’t feel my left foot. But you know what? I think it’s. Gonna. Sound. Awesome.

[00:01:48] Introducing Jacob Scott

The conversation I am sharing today is one I recorded with Jacob Scott at the Ngā Aho hui in December 2025. Jacob Scott co-founded Scott Architects Tapui with his daughter, the architect Hana Scott, and the evaluation tool he shares in this conversation comes out of their work. Jacob was also instrumental in the development of Te Aranga Design Principles, and is recognised for his contribution to contemporary Māori art and Māori Arts education, including setting up the first degree-level programme in whakairo, raranga and raunangi; and was awarded Te Ara Whakarei lifetime membership of Toi Iho by peers for works of quality and authenticity.

The Hui in December 2025 was a big deal. It was the first time in seven years that there’d been a gathering of this size. I understand that Te Aranga Marae was chosen because, in many ways, that was the starting place for Ngā Aho. And there was a sense that from this gathering, there’s going to be a whole lot more innovation and insight and learning.

We sat down to have a conversation on the Saturday afternoon. It’s a hot day. Heaps of people have gone off to swim in a water hole, and I’m buzzing because Jacob has just taken my mate Keisha and me, through one of his dad’s buildings, the Martin House.

Jacob: Ko Jacob Scott taku ingoa. My māmā was Joan Moffitt, Ngāti Raukawa. My dad was, uh, John Scott, Architect (and he always wrote “John Scott, Architect”), was his signature. And my grandmother on my dad’s side was Kathleen Hiraani, Blake, and her father was J.T. Blake, from Te Ātiawa. My grandfather was Mangu, or Charles, or Charlie [Hutchinson] Scott from Ngāti  Whakaue Te Arawa .

And my iwi—I count as my iwi especially, related to where I reside, which is in Te Matau-a-Māui (Hawkes Bay). Kahuraunaki is our maunga, Tukituki te awa. And my grandmother was whangai’ed. As I said, she was Te Ātiawa, but she was whangai’ed into Kahungunu by a woman, Hiraani Tehei.

And my grandmother was kind of our matriarch. She and my grandfather bought or swapped some property they had, for the place in Ngā Moana where we live at the mouth of the Tukituki River, where I now live, and we’ve got our papakāinga there. My dad was born there. I’ve born and grown up there, and my kids are there. We’ve got a papakāinga there that was before papakāinga became a thing. I live and work in the realm of art design, and it turns out to be culture. And, always have done, all my life. So that’s now…I’m now 74.

And I’ll start with how we grew up. I grew up with my grandparents in our home, the Grange at Hamoana. And my dad just moved in on them with me when I was first born and then expanded the family to six kids. And we lived with my grandparents till we forced them out, you know? And we are still there. Our house was always like a railway station. And my dad came down from Auckland with me as a 1-year-old kid. Presented me on Christmas Day to the whānau; they had no idea I existed till that day. Been there ever since.

[00:06:08] Chucking him in the deep end

Jacob shares how he learned to design and build housing as a young man through that age-old parenting technique called ‘chucking your kids in the deep end’.

Jacob: So I’ve grown up with an understanding, I suppose, that life’s what you make it. And nothing, nothing just comes, but everything is possible. And if somebody else can do it, then I can too. You know? I’ve been lucky in being able to follow that all the way through. So, for example, when I wanted to build a house, I had to do the subdivision for the whānau, with my dad, and then build it all, design it myself, without any help from him. But he wanted to check it off.

Abigail: Without any help from him cause he wanted you to…to create what was in your mind? Or he...?

Jacob: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was very much an experiential learning process. Eh? So you learn by starting, and working your way through things, and doing whatever you need to do to make it happen. And lots of those times you don’t know at all that you can actually reach an outcome that’s going to be complete, you know? So, the outcome’s dependent upon you, but each stage and each step along the way is also dependent on you.

And I ran into the same thing with Para Matchitt, when I went to ask him if I could learn to carve. And he said,

“Oh, have you got a chisel?”

“Yeah.”

“Got any wood?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, go for it!” And that was, that was it!

Abigail: It shows quite a bit of trust, just saying “Just start”.

Jacob: Yeah, it does. It does. You need to have that inclination before you start. Really? And how…how strongly do you want to do this thing?

Abigail: Yeah. It would weed out the people who just ‘have an idea,’ versus the ones that actually…

Jacob: Yeah. Because Para used to say, you know, “We see a hundred people before we hit a one”. But they’re all viable possibilities.

[00:08:44] We’re not like that anymore

I asked Jacob what he thinks has changed in Aotearoa New Zealand since the early two thousands, when Ngā Aho was created.

Jacob: One of the things that’s changed is…I can tell it in this way. I got involved through Ngā Aho. We were asked to contribute to development of New Zealand Story, uh, Trade and Enterprise. And Karl Wixon, who I worked with closely, he was involved with that New Zealand story, seriously, after we developed a Masters (programme), Awa Toru. Awa Toru was bringing those three streams together of design, culture, and business. So, through our research into that, developing that Masters (programme) and connecting it with Ngā Aho, we got to a point where for some people there was some resonance in seeing it as a…being part of an agent for identifying who we are, and where we could go.

And, one of the things that, stands out for me is that New Zealand story was there was all those bigwigs, you know, Air New Zealand, America’s Cup, uh, all those big players in New Zealand’s, economic, trade and industry sense pulled together. And the task was to, within 45 words, describe a new, ethos for Aotearoa, for an international profile.

Abigail: Yeah. That’s quite a task.

Jacob Scott: Yeah. It was quite a task down to 45 words.

Abigail: Yeah.

Jacob Scott: Eh? It was interesting sitting in on that, because those 45 words, I’ll have to look at the date that that was, but I think it was about 2013. Those words were a terrific set of words. Boiled down, and workshopped through; really well facilitated. And they took those 45 words international, to market test them. Cause whatever we say, the ‘clean green’ thing was, kind of, gone. Eh? New Zealand needed a new profile.

And the report came back—and I remember being in the room when it came back— that, uh, it wasn’t going to fly, because it wasn’t seen as being authentic. And the rest of the world, the feedback was, that we are not like we think we are anymore. That that was a past era. That the ‘number eight wire’ thing had been and gone. That the Sir Edmund Hillary’s have been, and gone. That splitting the atom has been and gone. Eh? The sense that we could do anything, “because we didn’t know, we couldn’t”, I think it ended with a line like that.

That whole character of an inventive, uh, lively, fresh culture wasn’t authentic anymore. Feedback came back that we were tentative. Weren’t good at making decisions. Didn’t contribute to the world to build anything else, so we were very internally focused. That we’d lost our, um, lost our spark. We’d become, compliance conscious, overly, like OSH and all of those kind of things. And we were…we weren’t like we thought we were.

Abigail: Did the 45 words include indigenous people here in Aotearoa?

Jacob: Yeah, it did.

Abigail: It did.

Jacob Scott: Yeah. I could read you those 45 words if you give me a minute.

Abigail: Yeah,

Jacob: yeah.

“We’re the boldest little country on the planet, with one of the biggest hearts in the world. We’re spirited, switched on, often incredible, always credible. Born from the youngest, most beautiful land on earth, our attitude is unbound. Our responsibility as kaitiaki drives our care of people and place. Resourceful thinkers, game changers, day makers, smile generators. We’re still changing people’s worlds because we didn’t know we couldn’t”.

That was a shock, when that came back saying that’s not…and I think what’s…what’s changed is once we were like that. But we’re not like that now.

Abigail: Does it tie into this article that your dad wrote? You were saying the…the points he raised in that are still true now?

[00:13:44]  Breaking free of Western paradigms, sixty years on

Jacob is holding a copy of an article that his father, John Scott, wrote for the New Zealand Herald back in 1964. It’s a piece called, “A Place for Māori Art in Today’s Architecture”, and Jacob believes many of the points raised by his dad continue to affect our ability to innovate in architectural practice today.

Jacob: Yeah. It ties into this article of my dad, which was written in ’64, that really talks about a heap of imported paradigms, that have formed us up and are shaping us now. And even a capturing of the Māori cultural initiatives and prowess. And even the capturing of that, by that [imported paradigm].

So, I think what he’s talking about there, in terms of our arts and design, is that that Western paradigm has had a big impact on our ability to see ourselves in our own place. In the ways that we talk about doing that with the taonga, and all of the high level principles and things like that, there’s still—I mean, it’s really strong and exciting and ambitious stuff—but the actual reality of what we do to manifest that ourselves is, is, uh…we don’t know how to do that very well.

Abigail: I’m thinking back to earlier when you talked about having ideas or beliefs, but then, what actually gets stood up can be quite different.

Jacob: Yeah. What actually gets stood up? Like for example, in the architectural realm, the architectural profession is an amazing profession, you know? In that it’s a study of…it’s a cultural study: past, futures. There’s some methodologies in there, to work through things, to resolve things, to explore things. It involves development of social understandings. It develops, you know, all of the environmental considerations. And it’s about designing things to stand up, for people to live in.

Abigail: Mm. Architecture is a very interesting profession, because on the one hand, there’s all this glamor and people want to build these amazing buildings…and on the other hand, there’s this underlying sense that the way that we’re taught, and the way our practices are run, we’re not actually meeting the need—very real world needs, which is incredibly dissatisfying.

I’ve reduced my work hours so I can make this podcast independently that is everything from recording, editing and producing it. So, if you like what you’ve heard today, you can support me in one of two ways. I’m not going to lie, I have cried each time someone signed up as a paid subscriber. Yes, it helps cover software to edit and produce this, but mainly because it just blows my mind that other people are investing in these conversations on how we can all, tangata whenua and tangata tiriti, build architecture well on hapū Māori and imi Moriori lands. And the second way you can support me is to tell others this resource exists. I have a marketing budget of zero, but you will know the people who like this podcast. Please send it to them for me. Okay, let’s get back to Jacob.

[00:17:44] Recognising the cultural values behind ‘normal’ housing design

Jacob: There’s another sort of thought is that, you know, we evolved to be a country where you look around any corner, and it could be a corner anywhere else in the world. Eh? That points of difference aren’t thought about—if they are, you know, there’s some [examples], we’re in a beautiful place—but generally, Māori, in the living situations that we’re in, and the general population, are pretty average. Eh? Like, our housing stock’s not good.

Abigail: It makes kids sick.

Jacob: Yeah.

Abigail: Yeah. For life.

Jacob: I think it’s interesting when we got cultural projects is that, a lot of them involve, you know, they’re concerned about identity and concerned about connecting, but nine times out of 10, or 9.9 times out of 10, the answer to that is to put a pou in the ground. Eh? Or plant a tree. And what we’re talking about is the impact that we have, as people, on what we build on whenua. Eh?

Abigail: Yeah. Because also the, the buildings will be standing up a long time after we’ve moved on.

Jacob: Yeah. Yeah. They, they…they stand up. And that durability thing is another problematic thing, I think. Cause the expectation now has evolved to be, compliance-driven and monitored by non-architects, but with a system that looks for proven solutions.

Abigail: Yeah, there’s no number, eight wire or no being innovative if you’ve got to already use, yeah proven…[solutions].

Jacob: proven solutions. Yeah. So that’s a real killer, that we talked about, the New Zealand story. Those proven solutions are... they’ve proven to not be good; good processes or solutions.

Abigail: They’re proven to not provide the connection to place that we’re wanting, too, eh?

Jacob: Yeah.

Abigail: Yeah.

Jacob: We’re in a time now where, really, everybody’s restricted to working to catalogue solutions, eh? And that’s not good for innovation. It’s a backward step, because the people who have those ‘proven solutions’ are people who have gone to the lengths to get their products certified and documented to market.

Abigail: Yeah.

Jacob: Eh?

Abigail: Yeah.

Jacob: Yeah.

Abigail: And the other thing is, if what is, uh, acceptable solutions, if these are materials that don’t need upkeep, then how do future generations interact with that building? If…if repair could actually be part of way to connect. Yeah.

Jacob: Yeah. And now we’ve got insurance. Insurance is another thing. It’s interesting in this time of climate change because everybody expects somebody else to look after them. And in their built environment, their built places. Everybody expects somebody else to be responsible for the, for the durability and sustenance of their place. And because they think that somebody’s given them a building consent, then those people that have consented that are responsible for changing the weather, eh? And so, this whole thing of being aware and being able to live with nature—it’s gone.

[00:21:32] Shaking off imported paradigms

Jacob: I did—I’ve done a bit of work in Indonesia and that’s been interesting. I’ve learned a lot from that. Where it’s kind of like…it’s a regime of no rules. And their climate is, uh, is extreme at times. Eh? But they build light. And they build knowing that it might come down in the cyclone, or that nature is likely to hit them. So, they build light, and they can rebuild easily, you know?

Abigail: Sounds like the ownership is then on the people building for themselves, rather than...yeah.

Jacob: That’s right. Yeah. That’s right. There you’ve got a very, um, I think compared with who and how we are as citizens of New Zealand, those people in, in those countries are very adaptable and innovative.

Abigail: And knowledge on how to actually construct your house would be something that’s essential to pass on, whereas it’s not something that’s often passed on [here].

Jacob: Yeah.

Abigail: Yeah.

Jacob: So, they’re aware of those things and they’re aware that they’re likely to need to do that. So, they have capability. Mm. They haven’t subjected themselves to a…a position of hopelessness. They don’t have insurance. But yeah, it’s interesting how that sort of, shows as you know, in terms of cultural difference, you know, and skills.

One of the things that’s happened is that we’ve lost that ‘can do’ ability and attitude and belief, and that’s a big thing. That’s a huge thing. And so lots of times I noticed, educationally, you don’t think we can do it unless somebody else has done it before. So, we look for precedents.

Abigail: Yep.

Jacob: Eh?

Abigail: Yeah. That is architectural education. Yeah. Yeah.

Jacob: We look for precedents, and if those precedents aren’t visible, then those things become ‘no go’ spaces. So, they become, you know, they’re easily thought of. And one of the things that’s happened to us in the design sense, I suppose, I think is that our Māori arts are clearly visible in identity, you know, and identifiable, and the stories that come with those easily accessible.

And I think we’ve fallen into a trap, of believing that’s the be all and end all. Eh? So, we need to, in respect to our tūpuna, copy and repeat. On my marae at Matahewi, Maui is our tupuna. Maui the Maverick. Maui the innovator. Maui the game-changer. It gives us a nice new gene to, kind of like, be able to stand up in the world and go, why not?

[00:24:46] Learning past practices to fuel innovation

I love what Jacob’s saying here, that to innovate we need to learn all we can about our different ancestral practices to regain skills and knowledge of crafting buildings and relating to people and the more-than-human world, so that we can understand how and why they were used, in the context they were used in, to help us discern which of these practices and ways of relating can inform our creative practice in the present.

Abigail: Because settlers have become super conservative as well. And so one of the things I’ve appreciated spending time with people like Carin is, because I’ve learned how important whakapapa is, it’s sent me looking in my heritage, as someone who is pākehā—and my whakapapa is English, Scottish, Welsh, Cornish, Irish—it’s kind of opened a door for me to, to…to realise that the current way of practicing architecture is not all there is. It’s not the pinnacle and it’s not the end result of ‘progress’. And that actually, we had better ways of caring for people, and caring for the…the land we were on, on the other side of the world.

Jacob: Hmm. Yeah. And it, it…Where I’ve stepped into now is, I’m interested in work and opportunities that enable us to stand things up. That I feel good about, you know, doing, not things that are kind of, are less than I’m capable of doing.

I work hard to kind of, have a lot of cups of teas and a lot of conversations and do a lot of homework in order to try and get that opportunity to make that, to—to function like that, you know? So, a lot of time is spent, involving yourself in other things that people are doing, other than that specific project. Of being part of the community, contributing generally. Eh? In all sorts of ways.

Getting believable is, is, is a thing. And I think that, um…I’m, I’m dismayed that, the profession of architecture hasn’t kind of stood its ground and made itself believable. So nationally, the profession is silent in terms of identifying its particular skill set. Eh? And where that fits in the world. Which dismays me because that set of skills that architects have, you know, bring things together from a whole point of view, it kind of describes it.

But being able to operate like that, there was a time when we did have a person in the community that did that stands out if you’re looking for precedent, and that was the tohunga whakairo. Who understood the issues of the time, and could kind of stand something up and build something that, uh, responded to what needed to be said in that time. And communicated, you know, bringing the past into visibility, identifying future directions, connecting things up, and be able to do that in how the structures sit on whenua, all the way up from there. To create the spaces in between, you know, for, for people to function and then learn uh, without having to be told all of this.

[00:28:41] Building on Moana Jackson

Jacob and Hana Scott from Scott Architects Tapui developed this evaluation tool that people can do as a group or as individuals, that build on ideas of Matua Moana Jackson’s. The tool is called ‘Key Principles for Practice Moving On,’ and Jacob has generously made this tool available to us with the request that you acknowledge or reference both Moana Jackson and Scott Architects Tapui. And you can find this tool and John Scott’s article in the New Zealand Herald included in the transcript for this episode.

Jacob: The whole built environment is dominated now by a regime that factionalises everything. You know? Somebody just looks after the doors and somebody else just looks after that, and somebody else does that. Somebody does the engineering, somebody does the, you know…

And the world of the architect is generally seen, I think, as being a pain in the neck to have in the mix for a builder. Which, you know, a builder has PBRF, professional building certification, but the architect doesn’t necessarily have it. It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous, but I think that the profession needs to stand itself up and claim some of that space, but how we gotta do it, is by doing a better job.

So that the mahi we do says it. And you’re standing things up every day that are physical, visible, tangible, touchable. So, it comes down to how good are we at doing that, consciously attending to those things.

Abigail: Yeah. I really like how you phrased it before about making, was it making the past visible?

Jacob Scott: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, I’ve come around to Moana Jackson. He’s parked up in our urupā (burial grounds) at our marae out here, and, um…My dad’s in there too. They’re only a few meters apart. I’m interested in the conversations they might be having, but, um…

I’ve come to kind of pick up on Moana’s, kind of, key principles for Māori moving forward as a, as a…all that scholarly research and stuff that he’s done. And I’ve just got it here. And he, he, he puts things into different words. So, he’s got us down with some key development ethics moving forward.

So, one is having imagination and striving to achieve poetic vibrancy.

Two is change, to promote and seek solutions that bring about change.

Three is honesty, to be honest about the histories of research, the origins and purpose. They get an understanding of why this is like this, all of that sort of stuff. Be straight up.

Time. Recognise whakapapa as a basis for the interconnectedness of all things.

Locatedness is crucial to explaining and defining outcomes in the Aotearoa context. So, who are we and where are we? You know, we are not…we don’t need to emulate other things.

Power. Acknowledge the power of research decision-making, funding and education.

Prior thought. Value our tīpuna, peers and wise ones throughout te ao (the world or Māori world?) who offer up ideas and perspectives.

Moral choice, and this is a big one, I reckon. Ask any question of any part in the progress we ask ourselves, will this be right? Is it tika, is it moral? And we could do that every day, every did that every hour of every day. You might be starting to get something.

Courage. Describes courage as the breath you take before you make a difficult decision, that’s courageous enough for you to enable.

Celebration. To have joy in what we have to keep, and what we may hand on.

I now look at the mātuaranga that we have. And if I look at things through this kind of lens and evaluate anything, at any moment in its development or evolution, and run it through—ask these kind of questions of it—they’re my touchstones now. Eh?

Abigail: Mm-hmm.

Jacob: Mmm. Because they connected to Te Maihi o Te Whare (the Māori and Iwi Housing Framework for Action). They really identify the mauri, that life force, and they really identify that in different words. They identify the whakamana, the empowering of whānau, intergenerational stuff.

They articulate tino rangatiratanga in a different way. They bring it down to simple words and they identify what’s tikanga: doing the right things in the right place at the right time. Eh? They put us in a…on the spot in the moment, responsible for addressing these things.

Abigail: And whanaungatanga is the one that we…

Jacob: Hmm. Yeah. Delivering things through a whakapapa lens. And when we extrapolate those out into projects. And we can do that in terms of project by project. Like in terms of Pā Harakeke (design framework) here and some of these projects we’re doing here, we kind of like have together figured out what this could look like to us with this project.

Are we utilising Māori cultural knowledge, and the best we can find? Are we applying strategic design thinking? So, we’ve looked at these things to be further articulators of this.

Abigail: Mm-hmm. Are those worked out with the community you’re designing with?

Jacob: Yeah. Yeah.

Abigail: Right. So there’ll be different aspect that different communities would draw out out. So that’s really located in place and people.

Jacob: Yeah. Yeah. And [the] project. Yeah. And then that gives us an ability to—any time—ask any question of any part of the process and go, “Hey, we are talking about this here.” End of this kōrero we just had on this thing, “Are we covering off these things? Give me a one to 10”. And lots of cases instead of having 80, we might have 10.

Abigail: Keeps everyone involved accountable.

Jacob: Yeah. And we can talk about what this means. I’ve resorted to trying—where I can—to kind of work like this. And working like this means also having cognisance of the things like the WAI262. You know, indigenous property and the arts and all of those aspects that have…they’re busy trying to define, where the nation is trying to find how to engage in cultural decision making or evaluation of cultural decision making, in this design zone. Eh? In terms of what gets stood up. So, in terms of Te Whai Hiringa (Primary School), and this site, this is our agreed group or individual evaluation tool.

Abigail: That’s fantastic. Thinking ethics in terms of relationship. Yeah.

Jacob Scott: Yeah.

Abigail: Thank you for sharing that with me. Cause I—wherever I can read Moana Jackson I do, but I have never seen that before. Um, they’re very provocative and evocative. Yeah.

Jacob Scott: So, I’m really aware that, you know, he’s a tupuna in my marae. In our marae. Eh? So, we kind of feel like we are connected enough to…we’ve got some responsibilities to kind of pick up where he left off, really.

[00:37:56] Book pairing: The City We Became

The book I am pairing with today’s conversation is The City We Became by N.K. Jemison. Jemison is a Black American author and this novel—it’s the first of two books in her Great Cities series—captures this episode’s idea so vividly: that the cities and buildings we construct are physical manifestations of cultural values and ways of relating. There is no such thing as a ‘culturally-neutral house design.’ All homes make certain ways of living and relating possible and other ways of living and relating difficult or even impossible.

The City We Became follows five avatars who discover they are the living manifestation of the character of their borough. I walk the dog around Te Pane-a-Mataoho, most days. And when I was reading this book, these avatars have this connection not just to the landscape they are on, but to the human built urban form on top of it. It just made me stop and look out over Tāmaki Makaurau and realise that for all its flaws, and terrible housing, there is still a city worth loving.

[00:38:08] What architects can give to iwi housing developments

Jacob: The people that are here, now, I trust them. Eh? Cause I know that they all have been through whatever learning processes, have been of study and stuff like that. So, they kind of like, they know all of this stuff, and they’re on a quest to connect and stand up. Invest their time and energy and lives, and that they care about the things that we are talking about, that not only stand up our culture, but help us as a culture to evolve and develop. Eh? And help us to live well in our place.

You know, it doesn’t have to be…we can do these things simply. The simpler we can do them, the better. But we’ve kind of like, um…most projects that I see now that—and I want to talk about papakāinga, in particular—are generally disappointments. Lost opportunities.

Abigail: Yeah. Which takes us back to the bureaucracy or the way that it, our building industry, is regulated, right? Yeah. It’s from observing some of my friends, it’s just so damn hard to provide or to get…to get these amazing designs that are culturally fit-for-purpose actually through, so they stand up.

Jacob: Yeah. And we’re sort of in a, in a…trapped in this time where we acknowledge mana whenua, and we want to do that, really sincerely want to do that. But generally the, I would say the mana whenua organizations aren’t up to speed, in terms of being able to process or understand the complexity of the tasks that need to be pulled together.

And so they’re part of this…they’re big part of this factionalisation. The whole building sector is not understood by iwi governance, I don’t think. At all. You know, but we…we have this ‘work with’ thing. So, we’ve gotta work with that, but we need to somehow give ourselves the balls to get into that space with those who are adjudicating on these sorts of things.

Because they’re not employing architects on their staff. They’ll have somebody on their staff that is given the job to, kind of, work through the, you know, the papakāinga opportunities and stuff like that for themselves. And all they’re interested in is functioning like a project manager. Getting their line item ticked off within the given time, within the given budget. That’s all that they can monitor. The procurement policies, and the supervision of procurement, it needs attention. Eh? It happens there.

Like, we’re doing a project, we’ve been working on a project at the moment, a 40 house subdivision for an iwi. I won’t mention which one. But they, uh, all they can say is that they will pursue this project according to their tikanga. That’s it. There’s no other evaluation or assessment or identification. And then they let the projects out for design build. Eh?

Abigail: Yeah. It’s such a different outcome.

Jacob: Yeah. And it’s…it’s sad. It’s really irresponsible. And as a result, what they’re getting is refugee housing. You know? You drive around here, and all of the papakāinga are identifiably simple. A box with a door on one side, and that’s it. Eh?

Abigail: And a refugee on your own whenua.

Jacob: Yeah. It’s on your own whenua. And there’s masses of them happening. You know? Or they’re like this over here, which are suburban, kind of like, North American.

Abigail: Yeah. It looks like settler—

Jacob: Eh?

Abigail: It just looks like the settler architecture that’s been rolled out in the States and Australia, and now here.

Jacob: Yeah.

Abigail: Cause they’re not culturally-neutral. You and I know this, but yeah. They’re based on cultural values, but it’s around a certain size whānau and a certain way of living.

Jacob: But they’ve got a Māori name on the street name. Eh?

Abigail: Oh, that’s all right then!

Jacob: Yeah. And they’re blessed. And the sod is turned and them think they’re fantastic cause there’s something. They’re just something. But that’s all they are, unfortunately. And there’s something that…it’s very hard to find good examples, eh? Very hard to find, of any papakāinga, I think. People love living in, you know, or they say they do. But they don’t know... they don’t know what they don’t know.

Abigail: Because you imagine something so much better.

Jacob: Yeah. Yeah, easy. Easy. And what’s happening, you see, is with district plans, if you’re doing a papakāinga [project] in this district, then all the conventions—planning conventions, compliance—lift off. Because the work that we did early on identified that, hey, this is a chance to establish a community of interest. Eh?

And this is a chance to look at the site and see and explore how we can design and place buildings and establish a setup so that it encourages relationships.And acknowledges the whenua. And utilises the key elements, you know, where the sun is, and all of that sort of stuff.

But all, all…none of that gets…people haven’t, uh, don’t understand that we don’t have to subdivide and then have boundary, um, boundaries the way they are [used in settler housing developments.] You know, that we can actually have mixed use on our sites. Eh?

Abigail: Yeah. The potential for imaginative uses. Yeah.

Jacob: Yeah. You know, that you can earn a living on site, or have some income generation, you know? Yeah. All of those are part of what papakāinga are; have been enabled to do.

A massive ‘thank you’ to our guest today, Jacob Scott. I hope you have found Jacob’s wisdom is sparking some innovative ideas. And if you know someone who would also enjoy hearing him, please share this episode with them.

Now, if you or your iwi are looking at building some housing, and you want to know how homes can be designed to enable Māori to live as Māori, you can contact Jacob through Te Ara Hihiko, which you can find at hihiko.nz. Jacob also knows Māori architects and designers all around the motu, so he may be able to put you in touch with a Ngā Aho member in your local area as well.

As always, if you head to the Dangerous Architecture website, dangerousarchitecture.rocks, you can find a full transcript from today’s episode including links to resources and organisations mentioned.

I have another design resource to share with you. And that is Kāinga Ora’s preliminary Māori Design Library project files. I did some digging, and they’re now available to the public under the Official Information Act. There are some useful diagrams in there about how to lay out different parts of the home to separate tapu and noa functions horizontally and vertically, and what is needed to be able to hold a tangi, for example.

The Māori design library got canned with the new government. So, there isn’t a final Māori design library, but there is a preliminary one, and it goes through different housing typologies, standalone to terraced housing, from one through to four bedrooms, how to arrange multiple dwellings on the same site, and well worth digging through them.

That’s it from me. My left leg is now entirely numb.  Tapadh leat a charaid, ngā mihu nui, thank you for spending the last hour or so with me. Tīhei mauri ora.