TANIA WEST

Auckland is currently undergoing densification requiring more medium-density housing solutions to meet the national housing shortage and make way for new housing stock. Glen Innes is known as a predominant state-housing community with new medium-density developments such as Talbot Park exposing the future of Auckland’s housing fabric. Currently the majority of people who require and occupy state housing in Auckland are of Maori and Pacific ethnicity. This is largely seen throughout Glen Innes, which is one of the first post war suburbs to be built in Auckland and location to hundreds of state subsidized state houses.

Housing whether public or private not only provides a place of home and shelter but also plays a central role in the expressions of social structures, identity and culture. Therefore housing from a communal scale to the design and use of space at the unit level impacts and influences social and cultural expressions. The existing state-housing solutions researched in Glen Innes are predominantly a response and reflection of European traditions of living in nuclear families, the importance of ‘privacy’ and the concept of individual land ownership.

This thesis research explored how Pacific and Maori culture, architecture and notions of space can be introduced and integrated into the provision of state housing in Glen Innes? The design proposal introduces the conversation of Pacific and Maori concepts into a dialogue of medium density housing in Auckland.