Brooke Wehipeihana

A living archive of place, people and taonga

“Kia whakatōmuri te haere whakamua.” I walk backwards into the future with my eyes fixed on the past.

Te Huarahi is a living archive of Auckland through a Te Ao Māori worldview. By grounding down the project to the cultural landscape and ancestral pathways of Tāmaki Makaurau, this project aims to showcase the hidden narratives of the site, while creating a sense of belonging, and a shared responsibility for preserving living knowledge.

The living archive encourages people to look with more than their eyes. It asks people to experience history through touch, sound and emotional attachment. Each spatial experience allows the visitor to wander aimlessly and experience the world that was there before, posing the question, what stories are already there beneath our feet?

Visitors move through the building in a similar way that stories, people, whakapapa and knowledge move through generations. So the building becomes less of a container for history and more of a journey through it. The guided journey isn't just a circulation route through the spaces. It is a way of understanding how knowledge travels.