One of New Zealand’s leading Pacific architecture scholars says Aotearoa needs more Pacific representation in the profession, arguing it is critical to creating spaces that reflect the needs and values of Pacific communities.
Leali’ifano Dr Albert Refiti, a professor of art, design and material culture at AUT, has spent decades teaching and researching architecture in Aotearoa.
“As a Pacific Islander of Samoan descent, it’s been really lonely as one of the more senior Pacific people working in the area, until maybe 10 to 15 years ago. But there is now a steady group of young Pacific people coming into the university to study architecture, and in practice,” Dr Refiti said.
Despite that progress, Refiti said Pacific people remain underrepresented in a profession that helps shape the way Pacific communities live, work and connect.
“A lot of architects are planning, making very big decisions about how we live,” he said.
Albert, Francis, June 2024
Dr Albert Refiti – supplied image
‘As Pacific peoples, we tend to use houses quite differently.’
Dr Refiti explained that many homes in Aotearoa have, historically, been designed around conventional ideas of housing – not taking into account the ways Pacific families often use and share space.
“As Pacific peoples, we tend to use houses quite differently, and to date, there’s been very few types of housing that have catered to our communities,” he said.
“They were usually lumped in with everyone else in a very conventional box, with square metrics and the distribution of functions of bedrooms and lounges that are based on a very conventional real estate optimisation of space,” Dr Refiti explained.
“Now, as Pacific communities, when we first came to New Zealand, the three-bedroom or four-bedroom house in the suburb had a garage, and that garage was very important in terms of functioning as the meeting house for the extended families.”
Refiti said those informal gathering spaces have evolved over time, becoming important spaces for large family events, such as funerals.
“The more of us that get into the profession, the more we can begin to make decisions on how to make houses that are proper for us,” he said.
The art of ‘names’ – a way to make ancestors, connections, live again
Dr Refiti said Aotearoa is becoming more receptive to incorporating Māori and Pacific perspectives into architecture and urban design, following examples set by Māori architects and designers.
Among the projects he highlighted was the Fale Pasifika at the University of Auckland, where he served as a Pacific consultant, and the proposed Fale Malae in Wellington, a development that would sit along the waterfront and serve as a communal Pacific space.
Projected image of the Fale Malae Trust cultural centre
Fale Malae Trust
Albert on Vaiusu Fale, 1998
Dr Albert Refiti – supplied image
The university’s Fale Pasifika: the Pacific sense of self thrives on interaction, closeness, and connection.
The University of Auckland
“I know some architects … who are very much trying to do work in that space, where we know that our tradition is very different and very important, and we know very well that…the discipline we are working in, is very much focused on progress,” he explained.
“But what we are trying to do in that space is acknowledge that our notions of development and technologies are very different. We always honour some aspect of our traditions, knowing the places we come from and the people we are descended from… in our buildings, the spaces we make, the atea, the malae … and also the naming,” Dr Refiti said.
“That’s one aspect I think Māori and Pacific have to teach the rest of the world – simply using a name to designate an element in the build fabric immediately make those ancestors, those connections, live again.”
Alongside fellow researchers, Dr Refiti has also spent the past four years travelling through Hawaiʻi, Tahiti, Samoa and Aotearoa documenting traditional architectural knowledge.
The research is expected to culminate in a book, tentatively due for publication next year.
The research examines common architectural elements across the Pacific and includes an unpublished manuscript by renowned scholar Te Rangi Hīroa (Sir Peter Buck) exploring Pacific building traditions.
Reflecting on the work, Dr Refiti said the most important lesson had been the importance of maintaining relationships and cultural knowledge through architecture.
“I think the one that is in the heart of most of our thinking is relationships, connection, vā, and how they have to be continually renewed, talked about, remade. We don’t make remake enough of our traditional art forms, and it’s been showing up in the arts – and I think architecture is following behind.”
He also warned that traditional building knowledge risks being lost unless it is actively practised and taught.
“We have to remake some of these buildings, because some of the tohunga, the tufuga, who made these back in the 50s and 1960s have passed away, and very few of us are doing that anymore, and I hope that out of our teaching and this research, some of that can return.”
Refiti will be among the Pacific scholars and architects presenting at a major international architecture conference in Auckland this September – in:situ, hosted by Te Kāhui Whaihanga New Zealand Institute of Architects – where researchers and practitioners from across the Commonwealth will discuss design and architecture in the Pacific region.
