Pushing the architectual boundaries

Lama Tone and Charmaine Ilaiu are pushing the Architectural boundaries. They are the only Masters Research graduates of Pacific descent in the world. PETER REES reports.

While travelling the world with the Manu Samoa rugby team in the late 1990s, Lama Tone used to admire the buildings he came across. It was always his childhood dream to be an architect. Artistic in his youth, Lama had done some drafting work for an uncle.

But his towering 6’6” (1.98m) frame was kept busy by his rugby and basketball commitments. In 2001 he sustained a career-ending neck injury. It was a sad way to end his career, but it allowed him to commence architectural studies at the University of Auckland the following year at age 31.

He is set to graduate this year with a Masters in Architecture (Research) which will allow him to put his ideas into practise in a profession short in Pacific expression. “He will be the expert in this field when his thesis is complete, and his advice
and work will make a huge difference to how Pacific people live and the way Pacific is represented in our buildings and built environment,” says Dr Deidre Brown, Senior Lecturer at the University of Auckland School of Architecture and Planning.

Lama’s focus is on incorporating Pacific ideas and concepts into the design of New Zealand buildings, to reflect the country’s climate, culture and unique place in the Pacific. It is a challenge for Lama being one of the few Samoan postgraduates in the field and without mentors or design models.

But his dedication to the task reflects his passion for the subject and his commitment to correct the architectural oversights that exist today. “New Zealand is slowly climbing out of more westernised approaches to architecture, thanks to a new-found sense of itself and a readdressed interest in its Maori/Polynesian roots,” he tells SPASIFIK.

“New Zealand is an island in the Pacific and our architecture needs to reflect that in a contemporary and sustainable way. I think Pacific architecture is about community…the connection and engagement of people coming together under communal spaces is an important factor. Maybe the mainstream could learn something from Pacific architecture in how Pacific people have sacred connections with their dwellings, surroundings, land, people and culture.”

Born and raised in Mangere, south Auckland, Lama traces his Samoan heritage to the villages of Vaimoso, and Lufilufi .

Evolving the Fale Tonga

After completing her secondary school studies at Auckland Girls Grammar in 2001, Charmaine Ilaiu knew she wanted to do a degree that satisfied her creative juices. As a child she drew floor plans and was fascinated by how people would live in the spaces they inhabited. So studying architectural design wasn’t a hard decision to make.

Her Otara upbringing helped influence how she planned to use her architectural degree. “Growing up in Otara, I became not only interested in Pacific architecture and art but also in community development. I have a strong interest in being a social entrepreneur,” she tells SPASIFIK. The 25-year old recently completed her Masters in Architecture (Research), where she researched the way in which Tongans have appropriated Western architectural ideas and themes into their own buildings.

Charmaine came up with a theory that there are six archetypes of the contemporary fale tonga, including the “fale amelika” - a design based on the American suburban home; the “fale tufi tufi ”, which is part of the Tongan diaspora and involves building houses out of materials sourced from New Zealand demolition yards; and the “fale hufanga”, which draws on refuse and rubbish to erect homes.

“The ‘palangi’ or western homes seen in Tonga are not architectural assimilation, but rather an act of appropriation as Tongans readily respond to social and technological change,” she explains. Dr Deidre Brown described Charmaine’s thesis as “a groundbreaking study that takes into account the many ways that the Tongan and Palangi cultures have influenced domestic fale, and discovered customs and practices that have never been written about before in any field of scholarship.”

Charmaine is currently thinking of a PhD topic. She wants to focus on “understanding how people, particularly of Pacific cultures, relate to their indigenous dwellings in their island homelands and the contemporary structures built by modern societies in the diaspora of Pacific communities.”

Charmaine is currently working on an exhibition on Polynesian ‘otua, or gods, scheduled for 2012, with curator Dr. Mike Gunn from Saint Louis Art Museum. Preparation involved two weeks spent in Tonga at the start of 2008. Charmaine hails from Tatakamotonga in Tongatapu, but was raised in south Auckland.

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