How do you design buildings with a Maori heart, not just a Maori shell? How do you make your mark on the landscape in a way that affirms the Maori relationship with people and the land?

Right: Bachelor of Visual Culture Director Julie Kipa
How do you design buildings with a Maori heart, not just a Maori shell? How do you make your mark on the landscape in a way that affirms the Maori relationship with people and the land?

Right: Bachelor of Visual Culture Director Julie Kipa
The first ever Kaupapa Maori degree in Architecture being offered by innovative Maori university Te Whare Wananga o Te Awanuiarangi, shows you how.

The three-year Te Toi Whaihanga (Maori Architecture) programme is the newest of five art strands under the Bachelor's degree of Visual Culture. It has been established to meet a growing demand for architects and artists with a Maori philosophical base, te reo and tikanga. The degree incorporates core architectural disciplines including building design, art, sculpture, form making, aesthetics, landscape and culture.

Bachelor of Visual Culture Director Julie Kipa says the Architecture programme will teach up to 20 students each year how to create architectural design elements from a Maori customary base, ensuring Maori needs are incorporated at the beginning of building projects rather than at the end.

"I've seen people building marae on mainstream campuses and then try to give it a heart. But how do we build it with a heart that expresses crucial relationships between the people of the marae, the whenua and Maori philosophy at the very beginning rather than a design tag at the end."

With Masters Honours Degree in Maori Visual Art and Third World Development, Julie, also an artist, moved from Taranaki to take up the directorship. She expects the programme to appeal to those with a passion for art or design and carvers or artists who want to develop their expertise into new areas. "It's a real opportunity to make your mark on a landscape and show how we respect our relationship with the whenua and our people, by the objects we construct to symbolise this."

The course begins in February. For more information call 0508 86 36 76.

.For more information contact:
Rangipai Eruera,
Awanuiarangi,
07 307 1467 or Vivienne Merito, 027 22 66 556
Photo available by e-mailing: rangipai.eruera@wananga.ac.nz