Te MiruMiru - Collingridge And Smith Architects

pr oj ect N o. 004
Te MiruMiru
Phil Smith designs a childcare centre that is
literally embraced by the earth; it also takes its
occupants on a journey from darkness to light.
wo r ds
h e le n fr an ces
p h otos
project name
Te Mirumiru
Architecture
Phil Smith Architects
Client
Ngāti Hine Health Trust
Project type
Early childhood education
location
Wellington
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simo n dev it t
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2
blustery
wind and a tiring car drive slip away as
Margaret Wikaire from Ngāti Hine Health
Trust takes me inside the mound of earth that is Te Mirumiru
Early Childhood Education Centre. The building wraps warmly
around us and continues holding, just enough. I imagine
children and staff feeling soothed before they start a busy day.
The reception and the two corridors that curve around the
semicircular building are restful, cave-like spaces with earthy
tones, natural materials and quiet lighting.
The inner wall is rammed earth; the outer interior wall is
concrete lined with triangular, plywood panels and “ribs” that
reference ancestral posts in a wharenui. A grass-covered earth
mound forms the exterior south wall so the building is well
insulated. At the end of each interior “arm”, carved paintings of
Ngāti Hine’s ancestor, Hineamaru and her husband Koperu of
Ngāti Tu are a quiet presence.
At reception a star-shaped wood chandelier – backed by
purple/blue lighting – evokes the sky and larger cosmology,
although this along with the “whimsical” desk was pure design
says architect Phil Smith at a later interview. The desk and light
are also made of triangular plywood pieces. Triangles reference
Māori use of the shape in traditional architecture, art and
decoration such as tukutuku panels in wharenui, Smith says.
Carvings, paintings and woven whakariki around the walls tell
stories which are all part of the learning that engages children
and staff at the centre.
“Our ancestors are there,” says Maxine Shortland, general
manager, Mātauranga Whānui, Ngāti Hine Health Trust, by
telephone. “The way it was built was to create and tell more
stories of Ngāti Hine in a way that people get it.”
Those stories are about Hineamaru – her travels, her exploits
and knowledge, the plants she grew, such as kumara – and
about some of her children. They are stories about the natural
environment and the healthiness of food.
The name Te Mirumiru is one of these. Hineamaru gave
birth to her son Whe by caesarean section. The Mirumiru, an
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1. (Previous spread) Shadows cast through the motifs applied to the windows
at Te Mirumiru. 2. The building’s main entrance. 3. The north-facing
rear of the centre, with learning areas that spill out through double-glazed
fenestrations onto a sculpted playground.
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industrious little bird, fed and looked after Whe when his mother
placed him in a tree. Symbolically, the children who attend the
bilingual centre are fed with many kinds of knowledge.
Smith says the client wanted something modern and unique
to the iwi’s culture.
“The building was not to be based on a typical marae- and
whare-type formula. I wanted to reinterpret their culture and
traditions and come up with something completely different.
You start with whakapapa and lineage and everything gets
layered over that.”
Through consultation with the client, kaumātua and kuia,
and his own research, Smith focused on the concept of whenua
(earth, womb, placenta).
“For a childcare centre, the notion of birth and what goes
with it was a neat concept, and the idea that mother Earth,
Papatūānuku, gives birth to everything,” Smith says.
Hineamaru lived under the earth in the nearby Waiomio
caves. Another link is the underground shelters at Ruapekapeka
Pā, which the ancestor Kawiti engineered as a defence from
attack. A saying translated as “Ngāti Hine of a thousand hills,” is
also clearly picked up in the design.
Out of the shadows we enter sunny classrooms. They are lit
both by natural daylight and (when required) solar-powered
lights. The concave, north-facing wall is all double-glazed
windows and sliding doors with views of the sky and landscaped
natural environment. The glass wall represents the cut of the
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4. The multifaceted,
bowl-shaped reception
desk composed of plywood
segments. In Western
terms, says the architect,
a reception desk is basically
a vessel for important
documents and info. In
Māori, this equates to
a waka huia, or treasure
box. Says the architect:
“The form is a very loose
interpretation of such
an item, using triangular
panelling to form the bowl
shape. The material is ply,
with only two differentshaped triangles used to
make the complex form.
The pieces are millimetre
accurate and were cut and
chamfered so that they
could be glued together –
there is no frame.”
caesarean section through which Whe and Ngāti Hine emerged.
The children make this journey from dark to light every day in
their learning and development.
Smith’s interest in Māori culture had been piqued during
holidays in New Zealand. His background training and practice
in England were also useful for this project.
“Growing up in the UK surrounded by heritage you almost
overlook it – the church in the village I lived in was 1,000 years
old. When I became an architect, I had to deal with it. If you try
to do something new and modern and different it’s hard – the
planners are all against you if you are doing things in cities.
So, if you do anything different you learn to do things that
are reinterpreted from context. You have to put a convincing
argument together as to why you want to do something that
isn’t traditional, unless it’s a little pointy roofed, slate-roofed
cottage. If you can’t justify it you’ll never get it through
planning. That is what I was doing for [Ngāti Hine], really. You
look at the context, you look at the wider landscape, you look at
all the clues you can, you pull them all out, you reinterpret it and
you go, ‘This is it.’ I think in New Zealand that’s not something
we really do. It’s a different way of looking at things – something
I’ve done when you don’t have any choice.”
From a design perspective, Smith says the interior reflects
a lot of the symbolism and goes a bit further in that “some of it is
almost pure design because we liked it.” And then there are the
practicalities of a modern educational facility.
5. A cave-like hallway
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designed to reference
ancestral burial caves.
The hallway panelling was
inspired by tuku-tuku wall
panelling.
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6. Exposed concrete construction and
natural ventilation allow the building to be
passively cooled in summer. All classrooms
are naturally day-lit and need no additional
electrical lighting.
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The centre has capacity for one hundred children from zero
to four years. Smith has designed many childcare centres and
knows all the rules and regulations. There are four classrooms
named after age-related birds: babies – pōtare (kingfisher);
two-year-olds learning to talk – tūi; three- and four-year-olds pūkeko and kiwi respectively. A kitchen is centrally placed and
there is a teacher timeout space. Smaller rooms for separate
functions such as sleeping, changing and toileting have splitlevel stable doors off the main classroom areas. The colour
palette is simple and most materials left unpainted, which Smith
says would make the place too busy. Concrete provides thermal
mass, which soaks up the sun, and underfloor heating is solar
powered, drawn from panels on the roof. Smith also designed
the “tamariki-centric” furniture.
Plywood panels with holes on the ceiling absorb noise
(acoustic levels are under-specified for childcare centres, Smith
says) and all the pipe work runs behind the middle panel.
“In a passive building there is nowhere to hide anything,”
Smith says. “You have to find some way of putting services
through, and concealing them isn’t the easiest thing. Panels
also screen the lights. The building is up for a Green Star rating,
which they think could reach a six and be a first for childcare
centres in Australasia.
The centre is a significant step for Ngāti Hine Trust towards
helping local people achieve their aspirations, their higher
educational and life goals.
“I’m really excited by it,” Shortland says. “We want to do
more of these. We want to see what difference this makes for
our tamariki and families’ learning. We want to see about the
transitioning from here to the primary school, which we have
good links to, and we just know from a sustainable point of
view, working with council, that this building will not need to be
replaced for a long time. It will be maintained. The building has
to be resilient with the kids.”
They are also talking about the idea of situating houses in
the side of a hill.
“Why not do miniature Te Mirumiru?” Shortland says. “They
would be cost effective long term. We know that they would be
beneficial to families.” u
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pr oj e c ts
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d e s i g n s tat e m e n t
The brief came from a Māori client, and the aspiration for the
design was that it should be a truly modern representation of
both Māori culture and this particular iwi, without resorting
to the typical pastiche of Western form overlaid with
Māori carving. Equally, it should have the Māori concept of
kaitiakitanga – guardianship of the environment – at its heart.
The concept set out to capture the genius loci (spirit of the
place), drawing inspiration from local landscape, cultural and
societal cues.
The design narrative is based on Māori creation tradition
that all life is born from Papatūānuku under the sea, the islands
of New Zealand seen as placentas from her womb. Just as in the
whakapapa tradition, many layers of meaning and relationship
are overlaid on this – the building is literally sculpted from
earth into a womb-like mound with a cut made in one side
symbolically representing the caesarean birth of Ngāti Hine’s
ancestor, Hineamaru. It is from this opening that the iwi’s
mokopuna poetically enter the world of light to play outside.
Further layers become evident as one progresses through the
78
7. The north elevation
at dusk, with learning
environments fringing the
playground.
building – the entrance bridge representing the iwi’s waka, the
cave like hallway recalling the ancestral burial caves and the
carved ribs representing ancestors.
According to kaitiakitanga, sustainability is an integrated
concept in Māori culture, so all symbolic features in this design
have many passive environmental purposes: all glazing (double)
is oriented to the north for maximum solar gain, whilst the
super-insulated earth roof results in minimal heat loss, which
is further assisted by the unheated circulation space placed to
the south. For maximum internal comfort, exposed concrete
construction and natural ventilation allows the building to be
passively cooled in summer, with minimal heating in winter
provided by a solar hot-water underfloor system. All classrooms
are naturally day-lit and need no additional electrical lighting.
All rainwater that falls on paved surfaces is retained and used
for toilet flushing. All wastewater is treated on-site and used
for irrigation of the Green roof and earth bank. The building
is being submitted for a Green Star rating and is expected to
achieve a high five star level. p h i l i p s m i t h
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pr oj e c ts
flo o r p lan
1
Entry
2
Reception
3
Learning areas
4
Bathrooms
5
Playground
3
4
3
5
1
2
3
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8. A star-shaped form surrounds the aperture of a Solatube.
3
s ectio n
p r o j e c t d e ta i l s
Architecture: Phil Smith Architects (UK)
Design team: Phil Smith, Chloe Pratt, Grayson Wanda
Project manager: Mita Tipene
Builder: H.E. Harnett Building
Childrens loose furniture: Adorn
Fixed cabinetry: Kitchen, reception, star feature,
triangular wall, ribs, bathrooms, storage, laundry and
kitchenettes designed by Phil Smith; fabrication by
Guyco Joinery, Whangarei
Surface coverings: Resene
Windows and doors: Altherm Aluminium Northland
Solatubes: Hometech
Flooring: Polished concrete
Climate control: Sunflow underfloor heating
Lighting: Lighthouse Remuera
Architectural hardware: Ingersoll Rand
Artwork: Ngāti Hine Health Trust
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MS 20431 Interior
pr oj e c ts
pr ojects
7. Exposed concrete construction and
natural ventilation allows the building to be
passively cooled in summer. All classrooms
are naturally daylit and need no additional
electrical lighting.
d e s i g n s tat e m e n t
The brief came from a Māori client, and the aspiration for the
design was that it should be a truly modern representation of
both Maori culture and this particular iwi, without resorting to
the typical pastiche of western form overlaid with Maori carving.
Equally it should have the Maori concept of ‘kaitiakitanga’
(guardianship of the environment) at its heart.
The concept set out to capture the genius loci (spirit of
place), drawing inspiration from local landscape, cultural and
societal cues.
The design is based on Maori creation tradition that all
life is born from Papatuanuku (earth mother) under the sea,
the islands of New Zealand seen as placentas from her womb.
Just as in the whakapapa tradition, many layers of meaning
and relationship are overlaid on this – the building is literally
sculpted from earth into a womb like mound with a cut made
in one side symbolically representing the caesarean birth of
Ngati Hine’s ancestor, Hine ā Maru. It is from this opening
that the iwi’s mokopuna poetically enter the ‘world of light’ to
play outside. Further layers become evident as one progresses
through the building – the entrance ‘bridge’ representing the
tribes waka, the cave like hallway recalling the ancestoral burial
caves and the ‘carved’ ribs representing the ancestors.
According to ‘kaitiakitanga’, sustainability is an integrated
concept in Maori culture, so all ‘symbolic’ features in this design
have many passive environmental purposes: all glazing (double)
is oriented to the north for maximum solar gain, whilst the
super insulated earth roof results in minimal heat loss, which
is further assisted by the unheated circulation space placed to
the south. For maximum internal comfort, exposed concrete
construction and natural ventilation allows the building to be
passively cooled in summer, with minimal heating in winter
provided by a solar hot water underfloor system. All classrooms
are naturally daylit and need no additional electrical lighting.
All rainwater that falls on paved surfaces is retained and used
for toilet flushing. All wastewater is treated on site and used for
irrigation of the green roof and earth bank. The building is being
submitted for a Green Star rating and is expected to achieve a
high 5 star. p h i l i p s m i t h
82
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