2024

Material Reverence: Valuing material histories, and scars of the Muriwai landscape

Lilli Pritchard

Close up land image 1
Whenua of Muriwai

This thesis brings reverence to the material histories of the Muriwai, a rough west coast landscape embedded with rich culture, history and experiences. Using cyclone Gabrielle and resulting landslips as a catalyst, it explores history, movement, and scars of the land, questioning the appropriateness of current modes of architectural production and how practice might better accommodate material properties and histories. Muriwai is a tapestry of woven material, culture, ecological and historical threads that create the whakapapa of the area. 

It engages with the physical materials of Muriwai while acknowledging the traumas and scars etched within the landscape. The resulting architectural interventions mark the land and establish interactions between people, whenua and ecosystems. It emphasises land-first, recognising that the land itself is the history, the client and the architecture. 

Long section
Imagined Section of Muriwai - using materials of the land

The thesis recognises materials, history and land of the Muriwai drawing on new materialism and deep historical approaches. The research works with the whenua, to value, pay tribute and memorialise histories of the land. Muriwai is understood as the client recording memories of the past and opportunities for the future. 

This research engages with Muriwai through models, collages, rubbings and drawings using the whenua to document moments of the landscape, leave marks and preserve parts of history. The section drawing, as a conventional architectural tool, establishes the connection of the built environment with a historical-material approach to the land. Landslides are examined as nonhuman sections, revealing the physical layers beneath the surface and exposing histories. 

The research examines the iron sand from the Muriwai beach, native kauri timber bringing reverence to the previous kauri forests, volcanic lava rock from Maukatia Bay, sandstone from Muriwai Sands Quarry and wai from the freshwater streams and moana. Copper is an introduced material and is employed as a mediator to tie the land, history and designer together. Each material is honoured through crafted vessels influenced by waka huia, valuing the material history and connection between the land and people. The landscape is a repository for history and traces of life - Muriwai becomes a waka huia for the experiences of the people, environment and ecosystems that interact with the land. 

The result is architectures that mark, record, and intervene with Muriwai, emphasising interconnectedness with the land, people and ecosystems rather than exclusively prioritising human needs. Five architectural interventions respond to the materials held within the vessels, revering the histories of each microsite. Each design acknowledges, marks and records the movement, history and stories of the whenua within their immediate context as well as Muriwai as a whole.

 
Process images
Material Investigations
Plant section
NGAHERE SANCTUARY - A space for the restoration and healing of the native forest
Moari bay section
TE TOKA - Walkway and screens valuing the lava rocks at Maukatia Bay
Pou section
MEMORY POU - a monument to the lost domesticity, a memorial of the 128 homes that were red stickered due to cyclone Gabrielle
Quarry section
THE SEAM - A woven gabion column designed to mark the depth of the abstracted of material in the Quarry