Portfolio

The New Zealand Institute of Architects (NZIA), Te Kahui Whaihanga, faced growing challenges to the architectural profession, from economic volatility to climate change. Recognizing the urgent need for strategic evolution, NZIA partnered with Whakaora to facilitate a series of "co-discovery" workshops. These sessions, attended by the Sustainability Advisory Group, NZIA leadership, and staff, aimed to uncover new ways to generate value for members and the wider market.

Moving beyond problem-solving, the workshops fostered a regenerative approach, revealing the immense creative potential within architects. This collaboration led to innovative product offerings like "The Kaitiakitanga Pathway" and "Reduction Roadmap," designed to uplift the profession and its impact on Aotearoa. The initiative underscores NZIA's commitment to stewarding architectural practice towards a more relevant and regenerative future

This interactive Whakaora design session, "Regenerative Design & Development," challenges designers, makers, and stakeholders of the built and natural environments to reimagine their services and project impacts. Led by Jerome Partington, Associate Professor Amanda Yates, and Akasadaka Robison , the two-hour session explores how to ensure a thriving future for urban communities in Aotearoa and Tāmaki Makaurau. It prompts participants to consider new value and relationships in their professional work by engaging with a living systems mindset. The session also investigates how the Mauri Ora Compass can translate these ideas into essential impacts, building on existing sustainable efforts to navigate today's crises.

The Challenge: Despite dedicated efforts, our Aotearoa Design and Construction sector grapples with persistent issues: escalating waste, increasing carbon footprints, mental health strain, and supply chain fragility. We are caught in a cycle of compliance, often missing the profound opportunity for true regeneration.

The Solution: The 'Regenerative Business Summit' is your call to action. Join industry leadership ready to transcend these limitations and transform business as usual. This interactive morning session will provide insightful, systemic framing of our challenges, empowering you to uncover new potential and redefine your unique role. Learn to re-focus investment, understand living system paradigms, and grow Te Mauri ora – system wellbeing across the industry.

Outcome: Celebrate green commitments, gain clearer understanding of current limitations, and ignite the will to co-collaborate towards a viable, regenerative future for Aotearoa.

The Challenge: Traditional urban development often falls short, plagued by waste, carbon emissions, and siloed approaches. Despite "green" efforts, true, long-term wellbeing for both people and nature remains elusive, demanding a transformational shift beyond compliance.

The Solution: On Thursday, 28 July 2022, the inaugural Whakaora Our Thriving City Regenerative Design Jam brought together industry leaders, designers, and stakeholders at AUT. This lively event, rooted in te ao Māori tikanga and living systems thinking, offered keynotes from Johnnie Freeland, Bill Reed, and Dr. Amanda Yates. Participants explored practical case studies ('Ngā wero') and learned to work with the Mauri Ora Compass.

The Outcome: The Jam empowered attendees to leapfrog incremental change. It fostered new thinking, deepened professional practice, and ignited a collective will to reimagine developments. By embracing regeneration and intentional collaboration, participants gained tools to put the health of nature and people firmly in the driving seat for a truly thriving Aotearoa.

This online session in the 'Regeneration in Motion' Series highlights the inspiring Te Whakaoranga o te Puhinui project. This collaborative effort brought together iwi, Auckland Council, Eke Panuku Development Auckland, local boards, government, business, and the community to regenerate the Puhinui area. The project received an 'Outstanding Award' at the Asia Pacific International Federation of Landscape Architects awards for its integration of ecological planning and design with indigenous narratives, impressive design quality, planning processes, and innovative design guidelines. It was also showcased at COP26. Join project partners Sara Zwart of Eke Panuku, Gary Marshall of Resilio Studio, Te Pu-a-nga Maara, and Te Waiohua iwi to learn from this globally recognized regeneration initiative.

Professor Julian Agyeman, a leading voice in urban and environmental policy and the originator of "just sustainabilities," recently engaged in a developmental dialogue session in Aotearoa. Professor Agyeman, from Tufts University, USA, champions the idea that the future of our cities—their sustainability, intelligence, shared resources, and resilience—is intrinsically tied to who belongs within them, emphasizing the recognition of diversity and the right to the city. He argues that addressing both "belonging" and "becoming" simultaneously, anchored by just sustainabilities, is crucial to avoid exacerbating spatial and social inequities. This session explored how a social justice lens can fundamentally reshape urban life.

Three years in the making, Riverwoods is a feature-length documentary,  filmed and produced by rewilding charity, SCOTLAND: The Big Picture.

Riverwoods shines a light on the perilous state of Scotland’s salmon and  tells the compelling story of an inextricable and extraordinary relationship, between fish and forest.

Working together, a group of expert scientists and talented visual storytellers, reveal how Scotland’s rivers have been greatly diminished but crucially, how they could be reborn through a shared vision of restoration and recovery.

The salmon need the forest.
The forest needs the salmon.
And Scotland needs them both.

Living the Change is a feature-length documentary that explores solutions to the global crises we face today — solutions any one of us can be part of — through the inspiring stories of people pioneering change in their own lives and in their communities in order to live in a sustainable and regenerative way.

Directors Jordan Osmond and Antoinette Wilson have brought together stories from their travels, along with interviews with experts able to explain how we come to be where we are today. From forest gardens to composting toilets, community supported agriculture to timebanking, Living the Change offers ways we can rethink our approach to how we live.