Over Budget and Overtime: Why is Now the Time for the Living Pā?

The building extension of Te Herenga Waka Marae, the Living Pā, is unique, ambitious, and future focused, but burdensome challenges have continued to push the project backwards.

An OIA received by Salient confirmed that a revised budget of $52 million for the project was approved in late 2022, an increase of $17m from the original budget of $35m approved in 2019.

$17.5m has been spent on the project to date. This marks a significant spend for the university in a fraught financial climate, with a $33m deficit and proposed staff cuts announced at the end of May.

The project has also experienced a 3-month delay since commencing on-site construction, with competition now expected by July 2024.

Multiple challenges

“We've probably got one of the worst sites in Wellington,” explained project Co-Manager Lincoln North (Te Arawa).

The Living Pā project began development in 2018, with business and concept design long preceding the beginning of construction in April last year.

Initial testing confirmed it was a difficult build site, but after removing the pre-existing Kelburn Parade villas, they realised it was incredibly variable.

“In one spot, you'll drill and hit rock in two metres. So you'll move five metres to your left, and the 12-metre pile disappears into the ground,” North said.

This, combined with international drivers, has created “the perfect storm”, said Rhonda Thompson (Ngāi Tahu). Thompson is the project’s second Co-Manager and is also a Senior Advisor in the office of the project’s sponsor, Professor Rawinia Higgins (Tūhoe), Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Māori).

Construction costs escalated over the Covid-19 pandemic, with the price of labour and materials increasing 30-50% between 2020-2022.

Living Building certification

The Living Pā is the third building in the Southern Hemisphere aiming for Living Building certification, and the first in an urban environment.

The Living Building Challenge is “internationally recognised as the gold standard in sustainable building systems,” Thompson said. For that reason, it’s “incredibly hard”. 

But, as a future focused framework, “It creates genuine sector change and research opportunities,” Lincoln said.

The Living Building Challenge is organised into seven performance areas: place, water, energy, health and happiness, materials, equity, and beauty. All of these contribute to restoring a relationship with the natural environment by creating a building that provides significant good.

“It’s not really about building a building. It’s about what it can inspire a community to do,” Thomspon explained. The Living Building values align with Māori values in relation to the natural world. Perhaps this is why all Living Building projects in Aotearoa have been conceptualised and led by Māori. Thompson poses a central question in the building’s purpose: How do you be a better ancestor?

Attempting the Living Building certification in an urban environment “does raise very particular challenges”, North explained.“Our site is doubled down really tight, and [is] on a steep hill and not totally exposed to the sun.” An example of those challenges are closed loop water systems. All water treatment must be done on-site, a feat much easier to achieve in a rural environment.

Why is now the right time?

“Arguably, we’re perfectly timed, but really ill timed,” said Thompson, citing the project’s approval just prior to the pandemic in 2019. “We got in just before people knew all the stuff was going to tank out.”

The Living Pā is one of the most ambitious of the university’s Capital Works portfolio, and the sole remaining large project, with the rest pulled in the context of the university’s $33m deficit. The university has a $1.4 billion property portfolio and has annual budgets of $60m-$80m for property services. “Is it a good use of resource[s]? I mean, we're always gonna say ‘yes, it is’. And you can’t go back once you get past a certain point,” North said.

“If we're a university that perhaps is lagging behind in terms of attracting new students and with upholding our traditional student base, then [the Living Pā] creates that sense of a unique location, [and a] specific university for the future,” North said. “And so, importantly, it upholds our responsibilities under the Treaty [of Waitangi], and as a civic university taking responsibility for the future of Aotearoa.”

The Living Pā is a flagship project, proving that it can be done and paving the way for the construction sector, Thompson explained. “People want change. We don’t just want rhetoric around doing things better. We need people to be early movers, because governments and regulators can’t do it by themselves.”

In addition, Thompson said, the Living Pā extends the ability of the Te Herenga Waka Marae to become a place for discussions for the future. “All these really hard things that we're facing as a people, as a nation or globally, like climate change, depleting resources, inequalities, and injustices…. Those are really big problems, and a marae is a great place to go and have discussions about that.”

Te Herenga Waka Marae has been active since the 1980s, and is awaiting redevelopment within a competitive Capital Works portfolio, Thompson explained. “We’ve waited our time. The marae has waited it’s turn.”

For more about Te Herenga Waka Marae, see this link about its history: https://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-VUWMarae1986.html