Abstract:
“Villa to Village” proposes an alternate reality for Auckland’s inner city suburb of Ponsonby. In the 1960s, Ponsonby had a significant Pacific population. Pacific Islanders were initially drawn to Auckland as a result of labour opportunity in factory work. Ponsonby was of particular attraction, with low rental prices and close proximity to the harbour and wharf labour. Ponsonby’s Pacific community thrived, establishing churches, community groups and strong networks. Over the next decades, however, the suburb went through major gentrification and Pacific families were forced out of the neighbourhood as a result of increasing rental prices and infamous Dawn Raids. This thesis explores how Ponsonby could have retained a Pacific presence if different developmental processes were in place from the 1970s and Pacific Island families had not been forced to move out. The speculative nature of this project will provide a lens in which we can examine what an inner city Pacific village would look like. Through a Samoan lens, “Villa to Village” examines: Pacific architecture in its place of origin and its recontextualisation in Auckland; hybridity of Samoan and colonial architecture; and the ways in which Pacific families dwell within homes and communities. By studying a Pacific way of living, this project seeks to redesign and alter Ponsonby’s building stock to better accommodate Samoan families. The scheme operates at both urban and architectural scales to convert a villa-lined inner city block into a village. This transformation takes place through landscape infrastructure, new building and alteration. We do not exactly know how a modern Pacific architecture might manifest. “Villa to Village” tests ways that a modern Pacific vernacular might be realised and how this vernacular interacts with Ponsonby’s existing colonial architecture. In a nostalgic and provocative sense, “Villa to Village” weaves past, present and future to imagine what could have