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Gerhard Rosenberg\u2019s M\u0101ori-centric home design had plenty of room out front for wh\u0101nau to gather. Photo: Supplied<\/p>\nWhen architect and University of Auckland academic Professor Anthony H\u014dete began testing the ancient M\u0101ori building technique known as m\u012bmiro, the results were striking. In m\u012bmiro, wooden supports are fastened together using joints similar to tongue-and-groove and then the whole structure is fastened to the ground with rope.<\/p>\n
The lashing techniques were originally adapted from those used for double-hulled sailing waka.<\/p>\n
H\u014dete\u2019s team, funded by the Earthquake Commission, simulated earthquake conditions, and the structure they had built held firm. The lashings, shaken loose in the quake, could be pulled tight afterwards.<\/p>\n
M\u0101ori designs and building techniques will be groundbreaking for housing in New Zealand in the future, says H\u014dete, who works with M\u0100PIHI, the M\u0101ori and Pacific Housing Research Centre at Waipapa Taumata Rau \u2013 the University of Auckland.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Savannah Brown, a M\u0101ori architectural designer and a PhD researcher at M\u0100PIHI, is also pushing for a much greater recognition of M\u0101ori design and technology in construction.<\/p>\n
As a small child, she loved to talk to her grandmother, her kuia, about the latter\u2019s dream house, and then draw the floor plans. It was always a big, open, home that could hold everyone, Brown says, and there was a full wraparound porch \u2013 a welcoming, sheltered outdoor space: \u201ca middle ground between outside and in\u201d.<\/p>\n
Brown, whose whakapapa is Ng\u0101ti Wh\u0101tua, Ng\u0101ti Wai, Ng\u0101ti Hine and Ng\u0101puhi, didn\u2019t know it then, but her grandmother\u2019s wish list mirrored traditional M\u0101ori design principles: openness, wh\u0101nau space, and permeability between home and environment.<\/p>\n
That childhood fascination became her career. Brown studies how M\u0101ori building principles can help address today\u2019s housing crisis. Her research looks at how past regulation and urban migration disrupted M\u0101ori design traditions and how bringing them back could create homes that are both affordable and culturally grounded.<\/p>\n
Gerhard Rosenberg\u2019s M\u0101ori-centric home design had plenty of room out front for wh\u0101nau to gather. Photo: Supplied<\/p>\n
Historically, M\u0101ori houses were communal, practical and adaptive. They were also free. Iwi whenua contained the materials they needed to build new homes; and wh\u0101nau joined together for the construction process.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But as M\u0101ori moved to cities, many families found themselves in homes that didn\u2019t fit their lives: narrow hallways, closed kitchens, and small, nuclear-family layouts left little room for wider wh\u0101nau or visitors; internal laundries and bathrooms breached tikanga.<\/p>\n
Ironically, it was an architect from Europe who first\u00a0recognised that was a problem and tried to do something about it.<\/p>\n
Gerhard Rosenberg was a Jewish architecture student in Germany during the rise of the Nazi party in the 1930s. He fled to the UK, but during World War II was deported to Canada because of his German passport and put into an internment camp with Nazi prisoners.<\/p>\n
It was an experience which gave him a hatred of big government and a strong empathy for the underdog. And when he emigrated to New Zealand in the 1950s, he saw M\u0101ori people were often the underdog when it came to their rights.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Working at the University of Auckland, Rosenberg turned his modernist eye to M\u0101ori housing. He visited communities to understand how they lived and designed a series of homes that responded to those needs.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Deidre-Brown-Rosenberg-home-interior.jpg\")
Rosenberg\u2019s Panama Rd home was sold and destroyed for development in 2022. Even the real estate agent was devastated, Deidre Brown says. Photo: Supplied<\/p>\n
Rosenberg\u2019s plans featured open-plan kitchens \u2013 radical for the era \u2013 and large verandas that allowed wh\u0101nau to gather or host ceremonies. He built in practical details: a wide front area, and a separate entrance at the back for wh\u0101nau and kaimoana. His designs, presented at the 1959 Young M\u0101ori Leaders Conference, were functional, affordable, and infused with tikanga.<\/p>\n
The Department of M\u0101ori Affairs liked the idea and built a pilot home on Panama Road in Mt Wellington. It stood for more than 60 years before being demolished in 2022.\u00a0\u200aBut it was the only one. Government policy at the time was to\u00a0\u200aassimilate M\u0101ori into P\u0101keh\u0101\u00a0society and in that environment, the authorities weren\u2019t looking to build homes geared for wh\u0101nau.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And, ironically, M\u0101ori at that time didn\u2019t necessarily want Rosenberg\u2019s designs either, says Professor Deidre Brown, co-founder of M\u0100PIHI, and one of the country\u2019s leading architectural historians. \u201cThere was resistance. Some M\u0101ori families thought they looked too much like a whare. They didn\u2019t want to stand out.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Savannah-lashing-horizontal.jpg\")
Savannah Brown (left) working on the pou lashing at Te Mahurehure Marae. Photo: Supplied<\/p>\n
Half a century later, the open-plan layouts and indoor-outdoor flow of Rosenberg\u2019s M\u0101ori-centric housing design have become the default of suburban New Zealand; and that means M\u0101ori families, often renters or without the money for expensive renovations, frequently find themselves living in homes with the old colonial model.<\/p>\n
At Te Mahurehure Marae in Pt Chevalier, new design thinking is taking shape. Te K\u0101inga Atawhai \u2013 14 homes clustered beside the marae\u2019s wharenui and whare kai \u2013 combines cultural values with the realities of medium-density housing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an intentional community,\u201d says Deidre Brown. \u201cPeople have chosen to live together, to support each other as a neighbourhood.\u201d<\/p>\n
Savannah Brown believes the next step is embedding M\u0101ori practices directly into New Zealand\u2019s regulations, as Hawai\u2018i and Canada have done. \u201cI want to see changes in our building code; changes that could hopefully make it cheaper and easier to build M\u0101ori housing.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Deidre Brown, the challenge isn\u2019t just about policy and regulations \u2013 it\u2019s also about perception.\u00a0\u200a<\/p>\n
\u201cI worry the message about the importance of good design and creating spaces that enable people to thrive is not getting through,\u201d she says. \u201cProgrammes like\u00a0Grand Designs\u00a0on TV leave people with the sense that housing designed to suit family needs is only available to the wealthy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat doesn\u2019t need to be the case; good design [should be] accessible to everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
This article comes from the latest episode of\u00a0Ingenious, a podcast highlighting groundbreaking research and researchers from the University of Auckland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When architect and University of Auckland academic Professor Anthony H\u014dete began testing the ancient M\u0101ori building technique known…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[442,498,499,500,501,156,3339,90763,90764,111,7439,139,69,90765,49,22190],"class_list":["post-131961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-housing","tag-mu0101ori-economy","tag-mu0101ori-issues","tag-new-zealand","tag-newsroom-pro","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-podcast-ingenious","tag-podcasts","tag-university-of-auckland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}