Lake Waiorongomai is a medium sized dune lake found along the kapiti coast. It has spiritual ties to the local iwi, so I began this project talking with them and discussing their hopes for the future of the land, along with their history and traditions. There were many stories about this land, so in a group of a few people we decided to write them down and translate them onto a map of the site. This gave us a great ability to be able to view the land like a landscape architect, but also see the stories and customs that the people of the land know of. 

The people of the iwi have a great interest in education and guardianship of the land, this lead me to the idea of creating a horticultural school on the site. Through a phase of analysis I found that the land would be suitable for a horticultural school, but more importantly I found multiple places where a school could be located on this site based on a map of the oral narratives. This gave the indication that the school could be spread out over the land, rather than in just one spot. There was a history of a transferal of knowledge on this site, basing parts of the school in these locations seemed right.

The main school was designed to have a series of welcoming spaces, like a traditional marae would have. Alongside the entrance spaces are plants which are traditionally used for food, medical supplies, or which denote education. Directly in front of the school is recreational areas, surrounded by planting beds used to grow vegetation close to the school. The building would be tucked at the foot of a hill, and would be lost in the vegetation surrounding it.

Horticultural schools need space to plant and grow various species in various different soils while having facilities to maintain them and study their growth. This land offered a variety of different conditions to grow in, but visually and ecologically it had been made barren while being farmed. I was looking for a way to be able to utilise the landfor education, but after a plot has been utilised what has grown isn’t removed, but allowed to continue growing to repopulate the land.

To allow this to happen small structures would be erected on the land which help facilitate education and maintenance while students are studying the plants, and provide for a public educational space after the land has been used. A structure would sit within a field of modular planting beds which could be left to grow outside of their boundaries after the class has stopped using them. This structure could be removed and moved to another site, or left to provide shelter for visitors. The idea behind the modular planting beds is over time plants will grow in areas where they are best suited for, with soil types changing quickly in a dune lake like this it is uncertain exactly what might be best for where. With a modular exploration like this, classes could plant, maintain and study plants, while making educated decisions on what to plant where, leaving the plants with the ability to supersede the class itself.