The Land Between: Searching for spatial meaning beneath the urban

Abstract

By reflecting on how we as designers can engage and represent the intangibilities of culture, and in order to expose and resuscitate the spiritual landscape, this thesis aims to challenge conventional views of physical space as a purely aesthetic or functional entity. The aim is to demonstrate the notion that conditions of space can be determined by memory and metaphor when there is a will to understand and respect indigenous values of the land. In today’s multicultural society, Māori culture struggles to find a place for these values in the ever-expanding commercial and technological advances of the global world. The increasing spread of the urban layer acts as a blanket that covers and suffocates the cultural landscape. This uncompromising expansion has disregarded the social, contextual and cultural values of Māori in Aotearoa. The impression that space is an aspect that is purely functional has, in return, disrupted the natural ethos of indigenous culture and its histories, as well as overriding the spiritual relationship the body possesses with the ever-present land and sea. The design research involves intensive investigations of spatial conditions informed by Māori creation narratives. Writing, conceptual drawing and modelling pay homage to indigenous knowledge, presence and identity embedded within Waihorotiu (the Horotiu Stream), hoping to offer an abiding acuity of meaning; and significance within the modern world. This thesis aims to give existence to the invisible. It endeavours to reinstate the connection between people and the land – going beyond the aesthetic and literal layers of built representation. Through investigation of the conceptual stages of design, it aims to extract the soul of an architecture to come. Here we encounter spirit through culture, instead of spirit through the material or physical world to reveal a spatial idea. It is an exploration process towards future possibilities.