MUCH HAS CHANGED SINCE MY LAST VISIT TO the Ōtaki-based wānanga during the filming of Te Ara a Tāwhaki for the Whakaata Māori television series The Drawing Board in April last year. The former construction site across the road is now a lushly vegetated and thriving wetland, accommodating the latest additions to the rich collection of buildings that make up Te Wānanga o Raukawa. From the original re-purposed administration offices and classroom blocks to the newly crafted building projects, every addition to the wānanga from its inception in the early 1980s has contributed greatly to its evolution, representing the culmination of some 50 years of intergenerational strategic thinking and planning.
Tennent Brown Architects’ Pā Reo, consisting of Te Moana o Raukawa, Miria te Kakara, Rangataua and Waitapu, is the latest architectural implementation to the life of the campus and, of all the architecturally aesthetic additions to the wānanga (there are now three), it is the most understated. Comprising four buildings in total, its subdued, natural material palette and softened gable roof forms are completely without the formal complexity of the diagonal external screening of Te Ara a Tāwhaki or the exuberant timber triple-diamond shapes, cladded screen and
