HE TOHU E XHI BI T I ON

Studio Pacific Architecture won the Spatial Purple Pin for their He Tohu Exhibition, which stores some of Aotearoa’s most important documents and makes them available for public display. We spoke with Studio Pacific’s Peter Mitchell about the project.

What can you tell us about

commissioned by the New Zealand Department to display, preserve and interpret Aotearoa New Zealand’s most precious The balancing of achieving the technical requirements while making the documents readily accessible for all, and

The documents in of the United Tribes of

them alive for future of the documents for There is something very powerful about being able documents which have so profoundly shaped, and three documents are highly

of these aspects could documents away in the dark to be protected while being accessible, they had to be legible, and they had to live where all New Zealanders the taonga’s (treasures)

What was the idea

The document room is conceived from the idea of a and meaning embedded

by moments between people who have interacted, are commemorated within diagonally to the building’s concrete grid, gives a wero generated using algorithms using CNC routers look cultures and the debate of

Entrances are natural light with right angle pounamu strip references the concept of he tatau pounamu (greenstone door the curvilinear form is as if the documents themselves A dark, subdued space Light washed walls provide natural warmth in the

The taonga sit freestanding in the document room as each holds its own mana (power) that needs to be respected and allows for free

Fabricated primarily windblown from Cyclone Ita, harvested by helicopter and constructed using

What was the greatest

desires of the brief – requirements to protect the documents while also making the documents readily accessible for all, and The importance of the taonga demanded something

How long did it take

What was it like working with some of Aotearoa’s most important

It was quite a simply an absolute privilege to have the opportunity to work on a project with such opportunity to engage in the design process with a number of highly talented and knowledgeable people who were all ready to share with us what they knew and

What does this say about

in much the same way we approach any project – searching for a unique, site and believe that the quality of the design response is dependent on an understanding of the project unique and much of this will come from a

this project with an extended engineers Dunning Thornton and services engineers closely with the Fletcher Building Interiors team and it was their skills that brought of the result is very much a