The Whare

The Whare Wananga will be the new home for the national centre for training in traditional navigation led by Hekenukumai.  Up till now wananga at Aurere have been held in a marquee and a converted tin garage.

The Whare will stand close to the unique Star Compass which has long been used for teaching traditional navigation based on knowledge of the sun, moon, stars, wave patterns, wind, clouds, and birds.  It will be one of the main teaching spaces along with the Star Compass and the waka.

The Whare Wananga is designed to instantly engage the visitor in a modern Pacific maritime experience. The floor plan is evocative of a hull, while the roof line derives from the spritsail familiar on many traditional sailing waka across the Pacific.

The building provides a flexible space to welcome visitors, hold wananga, provide marae style sleeping for 50 people and cater for extended noho marae for local and Pacific waka hourua crews. It also acts as an exhibition space to introduce people to the Centre. Visitors pass through the whare wananga to the wharekai with views to the Awapoko river and the moored waka.  An important feature of whare wananga is the large north facing mahau (porch) which also acts as a wananga space and informal gathering area.   The whare will also will be a venue for education outside the classroom, small scale conferences and team building exercises.

The architects for the building are Design Tribe.  The construction to date has been funded by grants from the ASB Community Trust and the New Zealand Lottery Grants Board whose support is gratefully acknowledged.   We are also grateful for the support from Te Puni Kōkori who have funded the design, project management and consenting.