Victoria University unveils multi-million Ngā Mokopuna building on anniversary

Victoria University of Wellington's multi-million Ngā Mokopuna building has been unveiled on the 38th anniversary of the opening of the university's marae.

The eco-friendly, self-sustainable building is just the second in Aotearoa built to a 'living building' standard which takes a year to achieve.

Co-project manager Lincoln North said it's more than just a building.

"The process of designing, constructing, occupying the building is all considered within the realm of how do we balance ourselves with nature, with the environment? How do we understand everything we do to be more equitable than the things that we have been doing?"

"It is a high performance building when you talk about sustainability, but actually as a bigger picture, it is about being more in balance with nature."

Ngā Mokopuna has been designed to be fully self-sufficient through rain water that's filtered through a closed-loop water system.

Plants on the outside of the second level will be watered by that system and will eventually climb up the steel frames connected to the roof.

The steel and timber structure has no toxic materials - 95 percent of the project materials from start to end have avoided landfill. It will achieve net positive energy using solar power.

All timber was sourced from Aotearoa, North said.

"You can see from the way that the building is designed, it breathes. So it naturally ventilates it breathes much like any other organism, and at its best with the plants on the facade and the planting around it, you'll feel like you're in the forest."

"The air will come past you when you're walking through the building, it'll be dampened like sitting under a canopy of a tree, the timber plays a a wonderful role in dampening sound and providing that sense of being earthed in the building whilst also getting a lot of natural depth of light. It makes you feel like you're kind of in the forest."

One of the builders from LT McGuinness Brad Ryder (Ngāpuhi) said the project was a 'one in a million' opportunity, which he got to do with his 'right hand man.'

At the opening, Ryder and his partner Paula Taui carried the picture of Joseph (Joe-joe) Hemopo (Ngāti Porou) who passed away from cancer before the grand opening. Ngā Mokopuna was the biggest build for Ryder and Hemopo, who have worked with eachother for nearly two decades.

"He was my gentle gorilla."

"It's pretty emotional, pretty awesome just to see the final product and come to the end. This is the second most sustainable building in New Zealand so it's pretty impressive," Ryder said.

While he was a part of the team who dealt with steel, he said the building is mostly sustainable timber.

"There's a lot of timber, a lot of screws, it was just off the hook. Everyone was so proud to be here because they knew how big the job was."

"Our mokopuna will come [to the Living Pā site], we have our own whakapapa here for the fact that their koro built it," Taui said.

From construction consultants to audio and visual equipment and everything in between, the overall cost was $61 million.

The new three-storey building is a part of the university marae, which includes the whare whakairo of Te Tumu Herenga Waka.

Victoria University Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Māori), Rawinia Higgins (Tūhoe) said the Living Pā comes with a mantra.

"Mō te apōpō for a better tomorrow, for a better future and nothing says that more than Ngā Mokopuna."

"Ngā Mokopuna is the original name of the dining room when they Te Tumu Herenga Waka opened 38 years ago today. And so they made a makeshift dining room inside one of the old villas that was here and Ngā Mokopuna was around all the descendants who would come and connect themselves to the wharenui."

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