Finding the Mauri: Reconnecting Onehunga’s aquifers and subterranean landscape to cultural narratives

Abstract

Onehunga began on the shoreline of the Manukau Harbour, at a place where bubbling springs formed freshwater pools in the fertile volcanic soils of the Maungakiekie volcanic field. Māori called this place 'one unga' - 'landing beach'.2 It was the largest Māori papakāinga (settlement) in the district, the gardens thriving with fresh produce, the shore lined with canoes and a constant supply of clean spring water that seeped through the aquifers from Maungakiekie (One Tree Hill) and Rarotonga (Mt Smart). Today, Onehunga shoreline is an industrial estate, asphalt and concrete covering its old gardens. Where children once played, trucks, buses, diggers and forklifts now scurry about. The edge of the Manukau Harbour is on the verge of becoming more industrialised by the current proposal of the East- West highway along the shoreline, which will further obliterate the few fragments left of the old shore: springs, streams and volcanic tuff crater. In the face of this disappearing natural landscape and desecrated identity, I wanted to find ways to restore the historic life essence and charm of Onehunga. This thesis searches for the mauri of the underlying landscapes at Bycroft Springs, Captain Springs, The Grotto, The Pond, Gloucester Park and the Manukau Foreshore Walkway. These sites retain fragments of the historical landscape and aquifers. Time gives the landscape a vertical dimension; quarrying into the earth is like going back into the past. How can this geological feature, with its strong associations of mauri to the Māori people, be brought back to the surface and the present? How could I, through architectural interventions, expose the natural springs, and the uncanny but sublime narratives of Onehunga and the Manukau Harbour? This thesis aims to explore new ideas of marking, recognition and ritual between the unusual forgotten underground and the current manufactured landscape. It proposes the research question: How can architectural interventions be used to reinstate a historical knowledge of Onehunga’s aquifers and subterranean landscape into a heavily industrialised setting?