KA MUA KA MURI KA MATAI MOANA | I walk backwards into the future with my gaze fixed upon the ocean | Shayna Hingston & Logan Ross (Group 07)
Our project aims to facilitate the rehabilitation of the landscape from the layered trauma of colonisation by reimagining Mātai Moana as a recreational reserve. The intention of the project is to rehabilitate through a combination of minimal and more substantial interventions.
Our designs all refer to the concept of walking backwards into the future. This involves the acknowledgement of the past in order to begin a comprehensive healing of the landscape and the community that it sustains.
Both minimal and substantial interventions foster recreation, education and mediation. The green spaces are rehabilitated through unintrusive but restorative design, with gradual native ecology being reestablished as invasive species are gradually removed.
The acknowledgment of the site’s layered history is present throughout our project through mindful use of pouwhenua, informative plaques and temporary sculptural installations in the green areas. Areas that are more developed, such as Shelly Bay, the Coastal Road and Mount Crawford Prison allow for more substantial interventions to support ecological and sociological rehabilitation.
The Coastal Road is considered for radical reimagining as it is an inessential traffic route, serving almost exclusively as a scenic recreational route while endangering wildlife. Many parts of the road also currently have no space for pedestrians, making it prohibitively dangerous.
The design fosters community participation in the rehabilitation of the whenua, allowing for and encouraging change, while not dismissing the trauma this change springs from.
