Talking about wai: Ngā Tohunga Wai Āwhā

The Aotearoa Festival of Architecture 2025 is putting an extra spring in the step of all forms of architectural practice around the motu this September, with a diverse programme that in its first week incorporated an NZILA Branch event: Ngā Tohunga Wai Āwhā - Engaging Māori Stormwater Experts.

Held at the Te Aro Campus of Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington on the evening of 2 September this energising event - organised by staff Victoria Chanse and Robin Skinner - was promoted as an opportunity for students and staff alike to improve levels of mātauranga Māori and Te ao Māori understanding around waterway design and planning.

With adept moderation provided by Stu Farrant of Morphum Environmental, the panel featured a community advocate, a chartered engineer and a registered landscape architect: Marty Andrews (Ngāti Ruanui, Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa and Ngāti Pākehā), Dr Emily Afoa ( Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Maniapoto) and William Hatton (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Rongomaiwahine, Ngāti Raukawa ki Te Tonga).

Top row, left to right: Stu Farrant, Dr Emily Afoa; bottom row: Marty Andrews, Will Hatton
Image credit: Stephen Olsen

Each brought their own insightful perspectives to the how and why we engage with wai/ water - particularly in the context of urban settings.

Story-telling and language emerged as strong themes.

Marty Andrews got the ball rolling with his pūrākau about the singularly influential moment in 2017 when he encountered digital artist Kedron Parker's Pōneke sound installation homage to the Kumutoto Stream and how it "struck a curious nerve" in him.

Eight years later Marty is now dedicated to devoting part of his life's mahi to restoring the mauri and mana of the Kumutoto Stream through the Kumutoto Stream Restoration Project as the kaiwhakahaere mo ngā kaitiaki o te awa o Kumutoto. (He even has a tattoo of the stream on his arm now).

It's a passion that revolves around the realities of the schisms of a colonised Wellington being turned from "a city of fresh water to a city of no water". Or as Marty put it: "We walk on concrete instead".

When Emily reflected on her 'long journey' to engaging with water she spoke to her involvement with the Wai Ora Kāinga Ora research partnership through the independent kaupapa Māori research centre Pūrangakura and the important difference between working with taiao (nature) compared to modifying taiao.

Will Hatton traced his path into the realm of water and landscape architecture to as far back as encounters with Punahau / Lake Horowhenua and lasting memories of whānau, through to being a student completing his MLA in Wellington with a thesis titled ‘Haumanu Ipukarea reviving tūrangawaewae, identity and place’ [PDF link] seven years ago and on to his subsequent work at Boffa Miskell.

The korero soon moved into a challenge from Stu Farrant to panelists to share their whakaaro on what can be done differently to elevate understandings of the place of freshwater (not piped) and stormwater (piped) in our cities, as well as how to sustain energy for these conversations.

In referring to terms like 'stormwater' and 'overland flow paths' Emily lightheartedly despaired at the engineering profession's lack of creativity in naming things and its adherence to rule-making.

Emily advocated for an intentional move towards "re-languaging" how we think about water and to keep bringing back the original names of known waterways. She also noted that the fragmented nature of our seen and unseen waterways isn't helped by a "mishmash of ownership".

The power of language was foremost for Will too, who emphasised that not enough is done to understand and talk about the intuitive ways in which water cycles work.

Emily and Will both underlined the need to ensure engagement with mana whenua and communities as an upfront part of every process related to waterways, and that input on values and principles should not be excluded from matters of public infrastructure.

"(To ensure this) there has to be a confidence to hold space and ask questions ... and to do the best we can within the constraints we face," said Emily.

There are occasions too when using words carefully and truthfully can make arriving at positive outcomes easier. On that point Emily recalled an anecdotal instance when advice was provided to keep a waterway open because it would be cheaper than piping it. Whether one word made the difference or not, it was cheaper.

Given the topic of managing stormwater is more and more intrinsically entwined with impactful climate change events, the panel held some hope that this might begin to give rise to embedding better long-term thinking than the prevalence of short-term election-cycle thinking.

As "younger siblings to the environment" Emily cautioned against the attitude that climate change is something that humans can "engineer ourselves out of".

Will cited common sense, nature-based pointers or tohu, that are constantly staring us in the face, for example think of kahikatea as evidence of wetlands/ swamps. Such tohu should be telling us, he suggested, "don't build a whare there, or you'll be down the awa".

And prompting questions like: Why are these spaces like this? Why are they reacting like this? What actions are causing these reactions? Are we reading the whenua and the wai? Are we daylighting the stories that the landscape and water tell us?

"We're so lucky to have an encyclopedia of knowledge based on lived experience to draw from (towards unique thinking)," added Marty.

This was a good cue for the part of this event where the audience, made up primarily of university students and staff, could seek guidance from the panelists on getting to grips with future challenges impacting our city environments.

Will Hatton was able to attest to a raft of projects in Tāmaki Makaurau that signify emerging practice and made a special mention of a work of public art by Graham Tipene designed to give life to the memory of water titled Waimahara.

Marty Andrews, soon to hold a celebration of the first year of the Kumutoto Restoration Project, made his advice to tauira simple:

"Get away from the laptop or books and get out on to the whenua. In terms of community groups we can never have too many hands".

Learn more…

Marty Andrews and the Kumutoto Restoration project

Relevant LAA articles

Water-related conferences

Waterways, Education, #Around-the-motuStephen Olsen