Advance - Spring 2014

Spring 2014

A MaÂŻori approach Rau Hoskins on MaÂŻori architecture in Aotearoa

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News from around Unitec.

8 cover story

Rau Hoskins talks about Māori Architecture.

12 architecture

Tony van Raat on the Venice Architecture Biennale.

13 plumbing

Garry Cruickshank and Don Mardle want to bring back the use of wetbacks.

16 health

Ground-breaking research into heart size by Gillian Whalley.

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20 technology

James Oldfield on why he is using mobile devices to teach students.

23 education

Catherine Mitchell talks about her PhD research.

24 student success

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The Whai Ake programme is helping Māori students to achieve at Unitec.

28 natural sciences

Linton Winder on his collaborative project to track diseases in crops.

32 profile

Regan Potangaroa talks about his career in engineering and architecture and his humanitarian work.

35 student research

Master of Design student Oliver Kraft’s eco-label for the fisheries industry.

guest editor Josie Keelan writers Trudi Caffell, Joe Dawson design Guy Johnson cover photo Matt Crawford back cover photo Grant Southam printing The Image Centre

published by Unitec Institute of Technology Private Bag 92025, Victoria Street West, Auckland 1142, New Zealand ISSN 1176-7391 phone 0800 10 95 10 www.unitec.ac.nz

Māori research at Unitec Photograph: Grant Southam

Māori and research have been a big topic this year with the decision not to continue to fund Ngā Pae O Te Māramatanga as a Centre of Research Excellence (CoRE). Ngā Pae, as the centre is referred to generally, was first funded in 2002 and will continue to be funded until 2015. During that time it has engaged with over 1000 Māori postgraduate students through the MAI Te Kupenga programme, including 703 Māori PhD candidates who had either enrolled or graduated by 2010. Its national grants and awards programme has also provided over 670 grants and scholarships to support Māori and indigenous students and researchers working in its field of Indigenous (Māori) Development and Advancement.

See www.maramatanga.co.nz for more information

Unitec expressed support for Ngā Pae when a national hui was called by the Centre to gauge the level of support it had from colleagues and communities around the country. In giving that support, Unitec gave notice we would like to sit around the table with the universities and wānanga in the Māori research space and not be left to languish on the fringes, so to speak. So, what are we doing to contribute to this space?

This edition of Advance goes some way to illustrating that our Māori researchers are participating in projects across the spectrum, from architecture and teaching and learning, to natural sciences and education.They are innovative thinkers, who are able to bring together their education and research prowess with their Māori heritage to create projects that are unique and distinctive. I’m pleased to be encouraging and supporting them in their endeavours.

So what’s happening to Ngā Pae? Funding for Māori research was allocated in the 2014 budget.

Ngā Pae will have to compete with others for that funding and Unitec will be one of the partner entities with Ngā Pae. We have much to learn from them but we go with our brand of research firmly placed in the vocation space.

Tihe mauri ora!

Guest Editor Josie Keelan, Dean Teaching and Learning, Ma¯tauranga Ma¯ori

If you have any questions about the research articles in this issue of Advance, please contact the Unitec Research and Enterprise Office.

We’d love to hear from you.

09 8154321 extn 8574 email: kjones@unitec.ac.nz

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shorts From a Ma¯ori perspective that,” says Penetito. “They were changing the dynamics of the teaching environment. You need to be a skilled, humble person to do this style of teaching, to respect what learners are bringing into the classroom. The lecturers were out of their depth around Māori protocols, so the students took leadership in those areas. But it was always a respectful relationship, because they both depended on each other.”

She says that many of the students had very negative previous experiences of a learning environment, and were nervous about the course. In her research Penetito found that the focus on the Māori world view made the environment more comfortable for the students, with better success rates, and higher rates of student happiness.

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A Māori-centric version of the Graduate Diploma in Not-For-Profit Management for the Department of Social Practice was the focus of a recent ePress publication by Maia academic staff member Kim Penetito.

The research followed a group of 24 students, across two cohorts, who went through the specially designed version of the course, in which staff focused on the Māori world view and used Māori examples in all the teaching.

Initiated by Māori mental health organisation Te Rau Matatini to upskill their staff, the Māori-centric version of the diploma was taught by nonMāori lecturers, but with support from Penetito. “The lecturers were treading gently, not wanting to offend, and it was my job to help out with

Penetito’s goal was to capture the learning of the students in this unique cohort. “How had this been different to other courses? How were the students catered to? Did they feel it was worthwhile? The answer was, in general, a really positive one, with students feeling good about being in an environment that emphasised the cultural norms that were more common in their world, and were able to achieve better success as a result.”

Scattered Cedars Scattered Cedars

Scattered Cedars STORIES FROM THE LEBANESE COMMUNITY IN DUNEDIN

ISBN 978-0-473-26729-2

A new book edited by Associate Dean Matthew Farry sheds light on the struggles experienced by the Lebanese community of Dunedin since their arrival.

The first Lebanese settlers arrived in Dunedin 120 years ago, most of them poor and seeking a better life in a new country. Associate Dean Matthew Farry is a descendent of this line of

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Lebanese settlers, and this new book, based around his PhD thesis, is a colourful and vibrant account of their lives and struggles.

The story starts with the arrival of the first Lebanese settlers in New Zealand, mostly between the 1880s and early 1890s, and their hostile reception at the time. Described in political debate as “undesirable immigrants” who were doing harm to the country, and in general caused a “lower level of intellect, civilisation and prosperity”, they had to work hard to find a place in their new home. Farry traces the fascinating history of the Lebanese community with a care and respect that makes it a worthwhile read and a treasure for the community.

Richard Joseph, president of the Cedars of Lebanon Club in Dunedin, has called the book an informative, humorous and passionate account of the history of their community. “Matthew has the gift of being able to weave factual information with the art of storytelling. Up until he wrote this historical piece, we could only rely on hearsay and anecdotal stories, now we have a comprehensive account of our community and the significant contribution it made to the City of Dunedin.”

Todd Foundation grants for Unitec students Two Unitec Master of Osteopathy students have received funding boosts to help them complete their research projects. Daniel Archer and Debbie Prattley were awarded the Todd Foundation Awards for Excellence (Polytechnic) scholarships and are the recipients of $5000 and $4860 respectively.

Archer’s project is looking at the effect sitting for a long period of time has on people's health, and he says there is evidence to suggest that sitting for as little as two hours a day can have negative effects. People who sit for long, uninterrupted periods may be at greater risk of developing high blood sugar levels, blood fats and cholesterol which can lead to type 2 diabetes, stroke and cardiovascular disease. His 21-week study equipped six deskbound office workers with the ability to change their sedentary behaviour by using a standing desk.

Debbie Prattley, a veterinarian with a PhD in animal health, was the second Todd Foundation award recipient. In her current practice she focuses on treating horses, but through her osteopathy study she is aiming to treat horse riders as well, to ensure the riding experience is beneficial for both parties. Her research is a practical project with Riding for Disabled groups.

SHORTS

She aims to develop a protocol that riding coaches can use to assess their riders, help them to set goals and then monitor how well they have been able to achieve those goals. “I really enjoy the work I do with animals, I find it really rewarding to help decrease their pain and keep them more mobile,” she says. “There is a lot of interaction between people and animals, particularly with horses and riders, and they work best together when both are physically comfortable. Riding for the Disabled groups do fantastic work that really helps riders and their families, and I'm really pleased I can do a project that will benefit them.”

Ma¯tauranga Ma¯ori conference for ITPs In her role as Kaihautū Mātauranga Māori for the Faculty of Social Health Sciences at Unitec, TeUrikore Biddle-Ranga organised the inaugural Mātauranga Māori Conference at Unitec in December last year, bringing together 70 experts to talk frankly about Māori in education. “It was about bringing together wānanga and Institutes of Technology & Polytechnics (ITPs) to have a conversation about what mātauranga Māori looks like in our context. I wanted to get a sense of what other institutions were doing in this space.”

The conference was designed to allow networking with other academic staff, but also to create communities of practice, develop collaborations, and provide leadership in the area of mātauranga Māori. Manukau Institute of Technology, Wintec, Te Wānanga o Aotearoa, Western Institute of Technology, Unitec's 'Maia Ma¯ori Centre' and Te Wānanga o Awanuiarangi all had experts speaking in various panels and presentations. “I deliberately made it a small conference,” says Biddle-Ranga. “I’m a believer in starting small and getting it right before you even think about expanding it any further.”

Biddle-Ranga says she would like to see the successful conference repeated in the future, perhaps biennially. “It was everything I wanted it to be, in that there was a lot of sharing of experiences from the other ITPs. There was a lot of sharing of strategies to help Māori to succeed as Māori in tertiary education generally, but specifically in ITPs, where vocational practice is very attractive to Māori looking for future employment or wanting to enhance their existing skills.”

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shorts Respecting other cultures Part of the teaching curriculum for students on the Animal Welfare Investigators (AWI) programme at Unitec is learning how to euthanase animals. Students are taught how to do this on animal cadavers ethically sourced from slaughterhouses, homekill butchers, and animal laboratories, among others. For many years the department has been doing this without much thought for different world views, says Natural Science Senior Lecturer and Curriculum Leader Arnja Dale. “Once I started learning more about the Māori world view, it struck me that we were just going in and working on these cadavers, with no respect for cultural safety. We did talk about respecting the animals, and what you could and couldn’t do with them, but nothing else.”

So three years ago, they implemented a new system. “We started acknowledging the mauri of the animals before using them in teaching,” says Dale. “We now do a karakia and waiata prior to the animals being used, and we have procedures around the use of water. Students have always cleaned their hands before and after they’ve been working with the dead animals, and they have gloves and lab coats as well. But we started using water as a purification system before and after dealing with dead animals as part of whakanoa, which is different to just cleaning your hands for hygiene purposes. It’s purely voluntary, but what we are doing is allowing for the cultural safety aspect of dealing with dead animals. I thought it was a really positive addition to our programme. We didn’t make a big deal about it, we just did it.”

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When the Ma¯tauranga Māori conference was announced, Dale, along with Lecturer Jessica Walker and Senior Lecturer John Perrot decided to talk about their changes to the programme. “It was just to let people know that we’ve incorporated it into our programme and we’ve had lots of good feedback.”

Their presentation was well received, and they have since decided to expand their research to incorporate other aspects of cultural safety in the process of euthanasia. “A few years ago we took part in a unique mass euthanasia project. It involved 13 Unitec students working with Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (now Ministry of Primary Industries) and New Zealand Food Safety Authority staff to manually euthanise about 5,500 chickens and ducks. They were all students on the Animal Welfare Investigators programme, and were hand-picked for their maturity and responsibility, and their willingness to participate.”

The students were briefed beforehand, looked after during the process, and debriefed directly afterwards. Then they assessed the students four days later, four months later, and one year later. “We found there was a significant physiological and psychological effect on the students. The experience was hard physical work for the students, they had really sore hands, and by the end they were physically and emotionally exhausted.”

But after the presentation at the Ma¯tauranga Māori conference, they decided to go back to the original students and see if there was any difference between the ones who identified as Māori and those who didn’t.

“We went back to our original mass euthanasia research, and pulled out the students who were Māori, and looked at their responses in comparison with non-Māori. We had three Māori students of 13 and we did find some differences in their responses at each point. It was quite interesting and we need to look at it some more.”

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Photograph: Grant Southam

Natural Sciences researchers John Perrot, Arnja Dale and Jessica Walker.

They have since joined with TeUrikore BiddleRunga, the Kaihautu ¯ Ma ¯tauranga Māori for the Faculty of Social and Health Sciences, and are now about to embark on some major research around animal euthanasia and the Māori world view, as well as looking at the Māori view of animals in general. “That’s to do with Animal Welfare Investigators, because when they deal with animals on a marae, it can be a very different experience. Under the Animal Welfare Act 1999 you can’t go on to a marae unless you are invited or you have a search warrant - there’s a whole cultural rigor that goes around it. But anecdotally there’s a different view of animals, and so we wanted to explore that a little more, just to inform practice. We’re big on applied practice and applied research, because it informs how we teach, and it also improves current practice and understanding.”

What we are doing is allowing for the cultural safety aspect of dealing with dead animals.

They will be presenting their research at the International Indigenous Development Research conference at the University of Auckland in November, one of the biggest of its kind in the world. “We’re honoured that we’ve been given the chance to present at the conference, and we’re excited to be talking about some of our research outcomes.”

Navigating Ma¯ori literacy

They utilised waiata or a story from each of the regions they were in, says Easton. “The Bay of Plenty Polytechnic workshop is a good example.

We altered our delivery to coincide with the context of the educators in the Tauranga Moana area. The historic story was about unrequited love and the movement of Mauao (Mt Maunganui) as he moved from an inland forest, travelling down to the sea to drown himself. Our karakia and story were about that journey. From the stories we extracted a range of literacy and numeracy concepts to build peoples’ Ma¯ori and English vocabulary, and then the participants retold the story as a visual dramatisation.”

He’s also been busy with a number of other projects, including a review and the implementation of the National Certificate of Adult Literacy Numeracy Education for Te Wānanga o Aotearoa and being invited to sit on an NZQA working group to redevelop national adult literacy and numeracy projects “A lot of this work has come from that original TEC project.

I have also been invited to work on a National Ma¯ori Literacy and Numeracy Strategy project through the National Centre, University of Waikato in partnership with Te Whare Wa¯nanga o Awanuiarangi.”

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Since creating ‘Using the wharenui for reading literacy and language development - a project

by Unitec’ model for Māori and 'Ko Te Frangipani' model for Pacific literacy and numeracy development for the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) in 2012, Herewini Easton has been presenting examples around New Zealand on behalf of the National Centre of Literacy and Numeracy for Adults at the University of Waikato. His workshops included a broad range of educators from agencies and institutions including community agencies and private training organisations (PTOs). “My brief was to give ideas on how to use Māori concepts to help the educators with their Māori learners, so a lot of the ideas came from our TEC project,” he says.

He’s also part of the organising committee for a Māori and Pasifika literacy and numeracy wananga-fono symposium being held at Unitec in September. “It’s called Navigating the Literacy and Numeracy Oceans: Understanding the Currents. The metaphor for that is a waka hourua, which is a two-hull canoe. It’s two canoes bound together by a strategy. One canoe is Māori, the other one is Pacific, and we navigate together. I think we need more Māori and Pacific navigators, people who can seek out the terrain, see those things around them and circumnavigate us forward.”

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COVER STORY

A Māori approach Rau Hoskins' recent trip to Venice as a member of the successful New Zealand national Venice Architecture Biennale team is just the latest research project in a successful career spent focusing on Māori perspectives of architecture.

Concentrating on a Māori world view of architecture wasn’t so much a choice for Unitec Architecture Lecturer Rau Hoskins (Nga¯ti Hau, Nga¯puhi): it was a calling. “I’ve always had this focus on Māori architecture, because I saw the need. I saw the gap, and I saw that Māori clients were not being well served by design professionals, because they in turn hadn’t been well served by their design courses.”

Photography: Matt Crawford

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When he studied architecture at the University of Auckland, Hoskins noticed a distinct lack of Māori content. “In my intermediate year I had taken Māori society courses with Rangi Walker, and become politicised to the point where I wanted Māori architecture to be part of my architecture curriculum. At that time it really wasn’t, although we did have some lecturers who had some sensitivity and knowledge of Māori architecture issues, but they weren’t necessarily teaching it at that time.”

Hoskins grew up in Wha ¯ngarei, and was part of the Māori renaissance that began in the 1960s.

“Our marae at that time was just getting back on its feet, so I was involved as a child in what it meant to bring a marae back after being mostly unused for a number of years,” he says. “I was part of a generation that was lucky to be part of that renaissance in terms of language and culture – and even architecture, although architecture has come later and it’s taken longer, because you can’t build architecture without resources.”

After spending some time out in the industry, Hoskins returned to Auckland University to do his masters and began teaching part-time. “We were able, along with Lecturer Tony Ward, to set up a dedicated Māori architecture course, called Whaihanga, and we were able to teach Māori studio projects to both Māori and non-Māori students. I did that for four years from 1993-96.”

Every year, they do a real-world studio research project that is located in the Māori community.

“The projects that we do are quite diverse, but they always have a hands-on building aspect as well. We renovated an historic bach on Rangitoto Island; we built a bush hut structure; we built a whare nikau, which is a traditional domestic Māori house out of nikau fronds. We get to do some pretty interesting engagements with local people.

We try to make it really beneficial and useful to the communities we’re serving.”

Hoskins defines Māori architecture as anything that involves a Māori client with a Māori focus.

“I think traditionally Māori architecture has been confined to marae architecture and sometimes churches, and now Māori architecture manifests across all environments, so we have Māori immersion schools, Māori medical centres and health clinics, Māori tourism ventures, and papa kāinga or domestic Māori villages. So the opportunities that exist now are very diverse.

The kaupapa (purpose or reason) for the building and client’s aspirations are the key to how the architecture manifests."

All their projects fall under the guise of action research methodology, which involves trying different methods, seeing what works, making changes and trying again. “For instance, every building project we do is action research. Our investigations into domestic Māori building techniques using materials like raupo ¯, they were action research; we had to research the techniques, talk to elders, go into the swamps, experiment with different techniques, improve our approach, and then come up with a finished product that was useful and durable.”

This means their research projects are generally very practical, says Hoskins. “The thing about traditional Māori learning and technologies is that it’s always applied to a real solution. If you’re learning to be a carver, you start by carving something simple, but it has an outcome. You’re not playing around making nothing and then discarding it, you start by carving something

simple that can be used, and then progress to something more elaborate.

“So a Māori approach to research is always located within the real world, and relative to solving real issues. The thermal technologies associated with raupo¯ are incredibly interesting because it’s a very good insulator, and if you bundle it or panel it, it can create a very warm and dry dwelling. That’s a piece of research that Māori did themselves when they arrived a thousand years ago and found a much colder climate than they were used to. That research went on, and then we went through a colonisation process, which progressively removed us from those technologies, so we’ve been involved in a re-learning process. We’ve been able to get beside the few remaining experts who are still alive, which has been really important for us in this process.”

So a Ma¯ori approach to research is always located within the real world, and relative to solving real issues.

It’s important, says Hoskins, because it’s an alternative way of thinking to the mainstream.

“We have an on-going housing crisis in Auckland.

We are socially conditioned to expect that a house is going to cost a minimum of $300,000 to build, and we’ll have a mortgage of minimum 25 years. In New Zealand we are conditioned to believe we have to have a building of a certain standard, and we spend our adult working life paying for this huge mortgage, with all the stresses that brings. Māori come from a position where they had land that was available to them, resources were plentiful, dwellings were built in weeks - no more than three weeks for a domestic dwelling, sometimes as little as three days - and no mortgage. The research question is ‘Who is the fool in this equation?’

“We’re not saying that we can go out and build whare raupo ¯ - firstly because the materials aren’t available, and secondly because our social expectations have changed. But we feel that it’s important to understand where we have come from, both in terms of our approach to housing and housing solutions, and also in terms of the design, the technologies that we use and the materials.”

The next step for Hoskins was to mesh the traditional knowledge with the modern problems.

COVER STORY

His next move was to Unitec to help set up Te Hononga, the Māori Architecture and Appropriate Technologies Centre, which focuses on research and design projects with a Māori focus. “In 1999 I came on board as a part-time staff member at Unitec and we took over a physical space in building two, and that space remains today as the site where Māori support, pastoral care, and a cultural space and a design studio is located. I collaborate with my colleague Carin Wilson, both of us are part-time, to deliver courses and run Te Hononga.”

The result was the Nano Whare, which started as a studio project two years ago. “It’s another piece of action research. It’s becoming an artistic exploration, and quite a high-tech one at that. It’s an exploration of architectural design suitable for someone who doesn’t live inside all day but needs a comfortable place to return to at the end of the day, in the way domestic Māori whare were used.

They weren’t places that you sat in all day, you only went into your personal domestic whare at night, or if it was raining. You didn’t spend time in there; you were out gardening, hunting, fishing, socialising, or whatever else. The Nano Whare is a modern response to the early work that we did on whare raupo ¯ and whare nikau.”

COVER STORY

Not only has it been a modern design responding to a modern problem using traditional ideas, the Nano Whare has also been a learning experience for everyone involved. “Students designed it, and then some of the students have carried on being involved in the construction of the building. It will be exhibited, probably down at the Auckland waterfront. We’re planning to invite people like the Mayor to go and stay in it for a night to see what it’s like.”

This year’s studio research project is a restoration of an earth floor wharenui at Te Poti Marae on the Whanganui River. “It hasn’t been used in 70 years but we think it’s still salvageable; it was abandoned when the river road was built in the 1940s and the river itself stopped being the main highway. The new road drained a lot of life from the river, and corresponded with a time of Māori urbanisation. A lot of the marae on the right bank shifted across the river, but this one didn’t, they just abandoned it.

The finished exhibition at the Venice Architecture Biennale.

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“One of my main drivers in terms of the design is for students to come up with ways that this marae, despite its isolation, can continue to live and be kept warm through activity. That’s an important part of the process: we don’t want to just do this nice renovation, and not actually fix anything, so that it stays cold and under-utilised.

That’s a big challenge for our students and the Marae Trust: how can we design facilities that mean this place will get used, and how can they schedule activities that ensure it's used regularly?”

"The exhibition was a chronology of Pacific and Ma¯ori and New Zealand architecture, which clearly articulates our architectural origins in the Pacific."

Hoskins has been involved in many projects with this strong focus on Māori architecture, both through his own practice DesignTribe, but also through Unitec and the studio. In 2011, he presented an award-winning 13-part series on Māori architecture that is still considered an excellent resource for those wanting an introduction to Māori architecture. “I also co-wrote the Māori housing design guide in 2002 for the Housing New Zealand Corporation. We created a matrix of parts of the western house and where there were potential cultural conflicts, as a guide to designers.”

Rau Hoskins (middle) in Venice at the Biennale.

This exhibition has the potential to generate some really good dialogue around the architecture of Aotearoa.

“I was very comfortable with the central theme, and was able to work with the rest of the team in terms of content, identifying projects that spoke to that theme. We commissioned the design, carving and construction of a whatarangi, which is a particular type of Pa¯taka or elevated store house, which housed a model of the Auckland War Memorial Museum – a storehouse within a storehouse. It acted as a core method of conveying the theme of the exhibition which was the exchange of Māori architectural technologies and design principles with European architecture.”

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As well as the whatarangi, the exhibition consisted of fire-proof fabric suspended from the ceiling in a tent-like formation, and covered in printed architectural images, photographs, plans and drawings on the walls and ceilings.

There was also an image of the world centred on New Zealand and the Pacific, showing a whole new perspective, mostly of water.

The exhibition will be in Venice until November, and then there are plans for it to be exhibited in Paris, before heading home to New Zealand.

“I’m keen to have it come back to New Zealand because of the conversations that we can have,” says Hoskins. “The exhibition has the potential to generate some really good dialogue around the architecture of Aotearoa, where it’s come from and where it’s going. They would be discussions that we don’t normally have here, because we don’t have a venue or a focus for those types of discussions in New Zealand.”

COVER STORY

Last year he was invited to be part of the inaugural New Zealand project team for the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale, the biggest and most prestigious architecture exhibition in the world.

“New Zealand was invited to be present at the Venice Architecture Biennale and a team from Mitchell Stout Architects, led by David Mitchell, won the bid to lead the project. They asked me to join the team to provide specialist Māori advice. It’s something that David Mitchell has been talking about for quite some time: the way Māori architecture has borrowed from European architecture, and the way that New Zealand architecture has borrowed from Māori and Pacific architecture to give us an emerging architecture style that is distinct from its Eurocentric origins.

The exhibition was a chronology of Pacific and Māori and New Zealand architecture, which clearly articulates our architectural origins in the Pacific.

Hoskins says that he feels privileged to have been part of the Venice Architecture Biennale team, but also to be able to work with such a strong Māori focus. “I think obviously I’ve got the best job in the world, because I get to be part of making Māori aspirations into physical reality in a changing and dynamic society. We’re not just about reproducing what’s been done before, because the culture and the technologies have moved on and the aspirations have moved on as well. If you understand Māori architecture you can be better equipped to design for Aotearoa. You can be part of a movement that is seeking to make our architecture more distinctive and more of this place. You will be a better designer for this country, for our cultural dynamics, creating architecture which is uniquely grounded in Aotearoa."

Rau Hoskins Lecturer Department of Architecture

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Architecture shines in Venice New Zealand was represented officially for the first time at the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale – and Architecture Head of Department Tony van Raat was the man who made it all happen.

Head of Architecture Tony van Raat (above right) with Teena Pennington, CEO of NZIA. ARCHITECTURE

For the first time ever, New Zealand had national presence at the Venice Architecture Biennale when it opened in June 2014, and the man leading the push to make it happen was our very own Architecture Head of Department, Tony van Raat.

It’s the culmination of years of work by van Raat, who says he was very pleased with the result.

“I was very satisfied that we finally succeeded in getting what has been the first New Zealand national entry into this exhibition. It’s the biggest and most famous architecture exhibition in the world, with more than 60 countries participating and a number of non-national entries. I think it’s important that NZ participates in the global discourse in architecture. We have a right to be there, we’re part of the global conversation and we should be heard.”

Van Raat was appointed Commissioner for the exhibition, and acted as a point of contact for the New Zealand and Italian governments and the Biennale authorities. “I was also in a sense the client, representing the New Zealand Institute of Architects. I met regularly with the creative director and his team, they’d present the work to us, and we’d discuss it.”

The creative director was architect David Mitchell, who won a competitive bidding process for the role, plus a hand-picked team of fellow architects.

“David’s team are all eminent in their fields,” says van Raat. “They included, among others, David’s partner Julie Stout, who is an adjunct professor at Unitec, Professor Mike Austin who is a lecturer at Unitec, Ginny Pedlow and Rau Hoskins, who are both part-time lecturers at Unitec, and David Mitchell’s son Julian, who is a graduate of Unitec.”

The curator of this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale was Rem Koolhaas, an award-winning Dutch architect who is celebrated around the world for his innovative designs. “Koolhaas proposed the theme ‘Fundamentals’, which was about two things. First that modernism had

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become ubiquitous in the world, and all national architectures were growing together and becoming more similar. But also that architects needed to concentrate on the fundamental elements of architecture – windows, doors, hallways, balconies, things like that.”

In response, Mitchell’s exhibition resisted Koolhaas’s proposition, says van Raat. “New Zealand has a unique and distinctive history, a fusion of European architecture and the architecture of the South Pacific. The main characteristic of European architecture is mass.

Heavy, weighty buildings grounded to the earth by their substance. By contrast Polynesian architecture is lightweight; light, delicate, fragile, floating roofs, made of ephemeral material, often with no walls, sometimes looking like the upturned hulls of their boats. So David traced the lineage of the two histories and illustrated how they have fused in New Zealand into a modern architecture that is lightweight, not relying on mass, which reflects both the fundamental interest that modernism has in technology and materials, and the fact that we are a land of lightweight materials and buildings.”

According to van Raat the exhibition was a testament to the talent on the team. “I think it represented New Zealand very well. The team that put it together was made up of couples, young people, old people, men and women, Māori and Pakeha. They represented that fusion of people, and that way of working in a social fashion that is typical of a lot of the best things about New Zealand; that feeling that we are on some level a bit of a family. It’s a pleasing sense to have; it’s very comforting and you feel you’re amongst friends.”

The exhibition will be on display in Venice until November 2014.

A hot issue A gap in the current regulations around the use of wetbacks has led to new research in the plumbing and gasfitting department.

According to Cruickshank’s research partner, Building Trades Lecturer and eLearning and Distance Learning Specialist Don Mardle, these limitations mean that no one is entirely certain about the most efficient and safest way to install wetbacks. “The problem with the system not being detailed in the standards is that although our building code is performance based, since the leaking buildings debacle, councils and

Now, energy is much more expensive, there are concerns around emissions, and all sorts of new regulations that require more information.

Photographs: Grant Southam

territorial authorities will only accept what is in the standards,” he says. “They’re worried about insurance implications, that kind of thing, so you need to have absolute evidence that something is going to work before they will allow you to install it. So what used to be a very popular form of secondary heating has largely disappeared, because what was previously the most popular system is not written down in the regulations.

It’s not that they don’t work, or aren’t a great way to heat your hot water. It’s that the consenting authorities don’t want to take liability for something that’s not currently written into the code.”

Plumbing and Gasfitting Lecturer Garry Cruickshank and his research partner Don Mardle in front of the wetback system they designed and built themselves.

When Cruickshank and Mardle looked into it, they discovered that the problem isn’t just that information was left out of the codes – it’s that no-one really knows what the best practice is.

Research has never been done on this subject before. “Because it was an easy system to install, and everyone knew it worked, and wood burners and other solid fuel heaters were pretty much ubiquitous around the country, so long as they worked, nobody really cared,” says Mardle. “But now, energy is much more expensive, there are concerns around emissions, and there are all sorts of new regulations that require more information, but that information doesn’t exist.”

And it’s not just about ensuring wetbacks work efficiently – it’s also about safety, says

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PLUMBING

Wetbacks used to be a popular form of passive water heating – just hook them up to your wood burner and they heat your hot water cylinder at little extra cost. But in recent times, the use of wetbacks has been reduced due to lack of information on best practice, says Plumbing and Gasfitting Lecturer Garry Cruickshank. “Wetbacks have become less common for a variety of reasons. Primary among these is the fact that wetbacks are barely mentioned in the building code, G12, where only one limited example of a directly adjacent system is given. Added to that, the standard for Australia and New Zealand, AS/NZS 3500 part 4, has different rules around wetbacks, and neither of them mentions most types of wetbacks; they’re very sparse with their details. The Building Code and the Standard for instance specify different pipe sizes.”

Cruickshank. “The crucial aspect is that they’re an uncontrolled heating source. That means you can’t turn it on and off, they just keep going if the wood burner is being used. That presents a whole range of safety issues, and if they’re not installed correctly, occasionally they do explode.

You need strict rules to cover that eventuality, but what they don’t do is give any real sense of any of the other issues like pipe size, pipe configuration or pipe gradient, which could also impact safety.”

PLUMBING

Once they realised there was a serious gap, Cruickshank and Mardle designed a research project to test the various wetback systems, in order to provide the missing information around best practice for installation and secured funding from Unitec's Strategic Research Fund.

“There has never been, as far as we can find, any proper research done to gather empirical evidence on how they’re supposed to work best and properly,” says Cruickshank. “There are different versions of pipes, and the diameters you’re meant to use, and the distance you can go between the wood burner and the hot water cylinder, and the gradient of the pipes. There are also other systems, such as over-under – where the wetback and the water heater are separated by another wall, and the pipes have to go over the ceiling and under the floor – and indirect systems which have coils in the hotwater cylinders to act as heat exchangers. They’re not mentioned in any code or standard at all. It’s done, but there’s no written detail about how you’re meant to go about it or any of the rules. It’s just made up by most plumbers as they go along, based on experience.”

» contact Garry Cruickshank Lecturer Department of Plumbing and Gasfitting

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The team will set up and test a variety of different scenarios and configurations, says Cruickshank, and gather empirical evidence on the optimal practices for installing and using wetbacks. “We’ll use different pipe diameters and configurations, with different types of water heaters, both direct and indirect, and adjacent and over-under systems; a whole range of different scenarios to gather information to say, once and for all, what the best or most efficacious diameter is, what works best in terms of distances between the wetback and water cylinders, that kind of thing.”

Why are they going to all this trouble, just to allow people to install wetbacks again? The benefit to a passive system like a wetback is that it’s something that can be used as part of an exisiting heating system, says Mardle. “It’s a sustainable energy issue. In many parts of the country, people use solid fuel heaters as their primary heat source. And there is an abundance of sustainably available firewood, so it makes sense to add an efficient wetback so you’re heating water from your fire source, rather than using electricity or gas. For people who are already running a wood burner, it makes perfect sense, it’s a passive way to get more out of the fire than just heating a room.”

There has never been, as far as we can find, any research done to gather empirical evidence on how wetbacks are supposed to work best.

For the purposes of their research project, Cruickshank and Mardle have built a wetback system, including a ‘fire box’ similar to a wood burner, into which a gas burner has been fitted.

This enables them to measure and control the energy input and temperatures inside the unit.

They also have temperature and flow sensors on the hot water cylinder and pipes to take readings automatically, with all the information recorded in a data logger. “We also have temperature measuring devices on the flow and return pipes,” says Mardle. “That will give us information about the increase in temperature over time, but it will also confirm whether the water is surging. There is anecdotal evidence that water surges through pipes rather than simply circulating with a regular flow, so just by looking at our real-time data, we will be able to see if that is true.”

It was important to use gas rather than wood for the tests, says Mardle, because they needed to be able to control the exact energy input. “As long as we have exactly the same scenario for each of the tests, we have useable comparative data.

We’re controlling not so much the temperature, but the energy input. So as long as the energy input is constant, then the measurements that we get on flow and temperature give us the basis of comparing systems.”

There are a number of implications to the research. “We want to publish this information and make it available to industry,” says Cruickshank.

“There are also a number of organisations who will be interested, especially the ones who install wetbacks. We want to let the general public know they’re still an option, because there is a lot of misinformation out there. We also have an external sponsor, Rheem, and we’re testing some of their equipment. Our data will inform how they go to market and the details on some of their systems.

“But our main goal is to have irrefutable data that we can send to the standard-setting organisations with a view, if necessary, to reviewing and rewriting the standard, including a greater range of systems, which will then in turn increase the likelihood of wetback use around the country.”

What is a wetback?

Wetbacks are essentially a simple piping system which uses basic principles of physics to passively heat a vessel of water – cold water is denser than warm water and is pulled downwards by gravity, in turn pushing warmer, and therefore less dense, water upwards. In a wetback system, a wetback unit is placed at the back of a wood burner and linked to a storage cylinder via flow and return pipes. The coldest water is pulled down from the bottom of the vessel into the wetback by gravity, where it is heated by the fire. As the water in the wetback is heated its density decreases. Cooler (heavier) water from the storage vessel above falls (due to gravity) through the return (lower) pipe and pushes this heated (less dense) water through the flow pipe and up in to the top of the storage vessel. This process is called a thermocycle.

A wetback can lower electricity or gas bills in a household through using an energy source already in place – a wood burner. “The primary objective of a wood burner is a space heater. It’s heating your rooms.

A wetback in the back of it will take some of that heat, and will either boost or completely heat the water in your hot water cylinder.”

Indirect and direct systems A direct heating system means the water that is pushed into the pipes in the back of the wood burner and then back into the cylinder is the water that is actually being used to drink and wash in – it is being heated directly. An indirect system, however, separates the water flowing to the wetback from the water actually being consumed, using a coil of copper or stainless steel pipe as a heat exchanger. The indirect system is not currently mentioned in either of the codes, and different manufacturers offer opposing and often incompatible views on how systems should be configured. This research aims to settle that argument.

COVER PLUMBING STORY

With this kind of exact measurement, they will be able to test a number of scenarios and determine best practice. “We’ll also compare the performance of the different wetback systems in a series of graphs. It doesn’t really matter how long it takes to heat the water or what the temperatures are; all we need is exactly the same circumstances, so we have direct comparisons between one system and another, or one set of pipe diameters and another. Then we can say ‘These are your efficiency levels, this is where efficiency drops off, or this is where it can be improved’.”

Over-under systems An over-under system is where the wetback and wood burner are in a different room to the hot water cylinder and separated, for example, by a door or wall that prevents the conventional flow and return pipe configuration. In this case the flow pipe needs to go overhead and the return pipe needs to go under the floor. It’s a much more complicated system that requires longer pipes and very specific and often complex piping configurations. These systems are also not currently mentioned in either the building code or standards.

VENT

HOT OUT

WATER CYLINDER

ROOF LINE

WOOD FIRE WITH WETBACK ELEMENT

COLD IN

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Leading with the heart New research by Associate Dean of Research Gillian Whalley shows that our standards for healthy heart sizes could be more accurate.

We all take our hearts for granted until something happens. And if we do have heart problems we expect our doctors to diagnose the problem and work with us to fix it as soon as possible. But what if the heart-size chart used by your doctor to determine the health of your heart was only accurate for a particular ethnicity? That’s the idea behind the latest research by Professor Gillian Whalley, Associate Dean of Research in the Faculty of Social and Health Sciences.

According to Whalley, one of the standard ways to determine heart health is using an ultrasound.

“It measures how big the heart is, the volume of blood inside and how thick the walls are.

But you need to be able to determine if those measurements are abnormal or not – if there’s disease. So doctors rely on charts that have a normal reference range for men and women.

HEALTH

It’s only now that researchers are realising we could be doing it better, says Whalley.

“It’s all about averages. It’s about categorical definitions of normal, mild, moderate, and severe.

Ultrasound has become very quantitative, and we’re doing all these really complex measurements, but we actually don’t do this as robustly as we can because we’re just saying, well, actually it’s a bit too big.”

Researchers have realised that if you’re taller your heart is bigger, if you’re more muscular your heart will be bigger, and this will affect your diagnosis. “There have been articles in the news around the fact that the front rowers in the All Blacks are technically obese. But they’re not. They’ve got really high Body Mass Index (BMI) scores, but BMI doesn’t work in different ethnicities because of the distribution of muscle.

So we looked at that and found that the most important factor for your heart size is actually your muscle mass, or what’s called your fatfree mass, which includes the skeleton and the muscles. Other people have shown that fat-free mass differs by ethnicity, so Asian people have a lot less muscle mass than Europeans and Māori and Pacific are on the other end of that scale with more muscle mass.”

"Researchers have slowly realised that if you’re taller your heart is bigger, if you’re more muscular your heart will be bigger, and this will affect your diagnosis."

Whalley’s first piece of research in this area, in collaboration with researchers from the University of Auckland, began in 2012. “We started doing research in New Zealand, but we realised that we needed hundreds and thousands of people to be able to do it properly and we only had four hundred people split across five ethnic groups. So we approached researchers worldwide who had done population studies of normal people using ultrasound – no cardiovascular disease, no high blood pressure,

no diabetes – and asked them to participate in our study. We ended up with a database of about 23,000-plus individuals, involving 32 studies from every continent.”

The results from this study, which they called Echo-Normal, backed up Whalley’s hypothesis about the correlation between heart size and ethnicity. “We found that if you look at the Asian countries, their range of heart sizes is very different compared to the North American people from whom the normal reference values are derived. There are also differences between Asian groups, South Asians and East Asians for example, and with black Americans as well. So we’re seeing wide ethnic differences. But not between Europeans in European countries – for example, Italians, English, Germans, white Americans and Pakeha New Zealanders are all the same.”

Whalley says there are some interesting differences between women and men as well.

“In general women’s hearts are smaller but in some of the Asian cohorts they’re not. In the Indian cohort, actually the men have quite small hearts compared to the women. So the interaction between genders is also interacting with ethnicity, which is probably interacting with body composition. It’s not as simple as the charts on heart size make out.”

The charts doctors have been using are based on research from North America, using Caucasian subjects, and don't take into account differences between ethnicities.

COVER HEALTH STORY

These charts – and medicine in general – were strongly influenced by America. They have the big societies and organisations and they publish the guidelines which are based fundamentally on North American Caucasian people.”

And while Whalley says the differences can sometimes be small, they’re important. “They’re of a magnitude that would make a difference to whether you get treatment for a heart condition or not.”

They’ve been spreading the word about their discoveries since late last year. “I recently presented some of the data at the World Congress of Cardiology in Australia. One of our favourites has been the European Society of Cardiology, which is a conference that attracts about 25,000 people every year. It’s been an important vehicle for us and they’ve allowed us to present the main results there, and we’re continuing to present sub-analyses. We’ve also presented at the American Heart Association, which is another 20,000-participant conference and again it’s been an important venue.”

But it’s not always plain sailing when they present their research findings to researchers and practitioners at these conferences. “At first they’re often shocked, but then they go, ‘Oh that makes sense’. When we present it, we tell the

Photography: Matt Crawford

» spring 2014

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story and by the end they’re almost ready for the result. But it is very confronting, because we’re saying that what they’re doing now is wrong.”

And while for some it might mean what they’re doing now is wrong, for others it’s just an affirmation of what they’re already doing.

“Interestingly, when we present this data, Asian cardiologists will say, ‘I knew that’. What they’ve been doing is not following guidelines. The international guidelines say treat at 40% and they’ve been treating at 45% or 50%, because they knew that was abnormal in their patients. But if they were really questioned on it, they couldn’t justify it previously.

Now they have some evidence to be able to say, no, that is abnormal in our population.”

HEALTH

Gillian Whalley will use the results of ultrasounds on healthy Pacific and Ma¯ori patients to determine a healthy heart size baseline in these ethnic groups.

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The next phase of the research is to get more baseline data for New Zealand. Whalley is aiming to determine a baseline average heart size for Pacific Islanders and Māori.

“It’s research, but it has to be delivered as well, because otherwise there’s no point doing it. So we’ve partnered with the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand and they have agreed to write a guideline based on our results. If we find that the results are different for Māori and Pacific Islanders to Europeans, they will then publish a statement saying we need to use the new results.”

need 150 men and 150 women in each of those groups. The reason we’re doing a new European cohort is because we want a validation for our study, to make sure we are doing things the right way. We’ll also be able to compare the data with our international study.”

According to Whalley, it will be like a mini-health check for participants. “They will answer a few questions to make sure they don’t have diabetes or high blood pressure. We’ll ask them about any current medications, whether they smoke, although we’re not excluding smokers because technically they haven’t got any disease.

We’ll take a height and weight measurement.

We’ll measure their blood pressure and do an ECG recording of their heart. Then they’ll have an ultrasound, which most people really enjoy because they get to see their heart.

“Most people will be normal, and have no problems, so they will get a report which will go into their hospital record and be useful for the future. Around 2-3% of participants will be abnormal, and require some sort of referral – we know that from other studies. So we’ll be able to help with early detection of potential heart problems.”

Whalley is also partnering with Dr Sue Crengle, a public health physician at Waitemata District Health Board (WDHB), and an expert in Māori health. “She came on board really early on, as well as the heads of the cardiology services at Waitemata and Counties Manukau DHBs. That’s important because we need their support and we need to use some of their systems to do the research. When we go out and screen people we’ll find some abnormalities and we need to have a process for looking after those people.”

While they are still in the planning and fundraising stages of the latest research – Whalley is currently waiting to hear back about Heart Research Council funding – she says one thing they are already planning is to purchase a portable ultrasound machine. “At the moment we’re telling people to go to either Middlemore, North Shore or Waita¯kere Hospital to have an ultrasound. But the feedback we’re getting from some of the GPs and the Māori practices in particular, is that if you can go into the communities, more people will go in the study.

So we’re trying to find funding for that, and hoping somebody might actually support us or lend us a machine.”

They’re aiming to recruit 900 healthy people between the ages of 18 and 50 for the study; 300 Māori, 300 Samoan, 300 European. “We

With all of this research, the main outcome for Whalley is the potential for saving lives. “A lot of current treatments for heart disease rely on

We need to be really cautious about how we use these measurements in different ethnic groups.

She says these results are just the start of new research in this area. “Research up to now has been using the previous reference ranges. We’re getting data now that’s richer and really quite different. It won’t be a different conclusion; it will be a tighter conclusion. That’s the thing about science: despite what people seem to think, science never has the whole truth, it never has the final answer. It just has an answer that’s a bit better than the last one. All we can do is just add, make it a bit better than we had before, and every time you do that, you get a bit closer to what you should be doing.”

HEALTH

ultrasound measurements as a threshold. So when the measurement gets below a particular level, that’s considered abnormal enough that you need treatment. What we have learned is that we need to be really cautious about how we use these measurements in different ethnic groups. And that’s really important because it’s about timely management of disease. The sooner you provide the treatment, usually the better chance you have of prolonging someone’s life.”

Despite these results, Whalley says it’s unlikely to change the way health practitioners use ultrasound for years yet. “I think that five years from now, we’ll be using ethnic-specific reference ranges. That’s kind of exciting because it’s a direct result of this collaboration and that means our research has been really practical and useful.”

Know your heart Your heart is located in the centre of your chest between your lungs. Its muscular walls pump blood continuously to all parts of your body. The size of your heart can vary depending on your age, size and the condition of your heart. The heart beats around 60-80 times every minute. Sometimes our hearts beat faster or slower depending on how healthy we are and whether we are exercising or resting.

A normal healthy adult heart is usually the size of a clenched adult fist.

Some diseases of the heart can cause it to become bigger.

♥ Cardiovascular disease (heart, stroke

♥ Obesity is a risk factor for a number

and blood vessel disease) is still the leading cause of death in New Zealand, accounting for 30% of deaths annually.

of diseases including coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes, high blood pressure, osteoarthritis and some cancers.

♥ Every 90 minutes a New Zealander

♥ One in 20 adults has been

dies from coronary heart disease.

♥ Many of these deaths are premature

and preventable.

diagnosed with coronary heart disease.

♥ That’s 176,000 adults.

» contact Source: New Zealand Heart Foundation (www.heartfoundation.org.nz)

Gillian Whalley Associate Dean Research Faculty of Social and Health Science

» spring 2014

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The digital future Making iPads compulsory for first year business students is just one part of a new digital strategy initiated by the Department of Accounting and Finance. Senior Lecturer James Oldfield explains.

TECHNOLOGY

According to James Oldfield, Senior Lecturer in Information Systems for the Department of Accounting and Finance, using iPads in the classroom is less futuristic and more realistic than some might think. “It’s a huge challenge but we can’t ignore it. The old attitude of having a basket at the front of the class and making students put their phones in it just isn’t going to fly anymore. You’ve got the ability to either move with the mobile technology that’s coming into the classrooms and take advantage of it, or you can try to fight it. I certainly think that taking advantage of the processing power and the connectivity that these devices bring is a much better option for me as a teacher. So I’m quite happy to help others who are like-minded.”

Oldfield is currently doing his PhD research centred on e-Learning and mobile learning, creating a new model for using technology to teach students. “Mobile learning includes a range of different principles and practices that have been developed over the last few years.

Oldfield is currently doing his PhD research, centred on e-Learning and mobile learning, creating a new model for using technology to teach students.

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They incorporate the benefits of mobile devices, the ability to share and to enable students to collaborate in ways that are quite different from traditional teaching practice,” he says.

He’s taken an existing educational model called Authentic Learning, which takes a practical approach to learning, and layered it with other models including Cognitive Tools, which focuses on how computing devices can be used to improve our thinking and enable us to create more elaborate things, and Mobile Learning which outlines the critical success factors to improve educational outcomes using mobile devices. “Authentic Learning is basically how the apprenticeship model works for a tradesperson, where they are learning through doing and in the same kind of environment that they would in a job. Cognitive Tools says that the computer is a tool to help learning and thinking, just like a hammer is a tool to help build a house. My final model, which I call Authentic Mobile Learning Theory, looks at how best to utilise mobile devices in an educational context.”

Students don’t learn the components of the iPad, they learn how to use it in a business context.

He’s been using his model for the last four semesters with his first-year students. The first semester was a trial to see if it would work. The next two semesters were part of his study and data gathering for his PhD. “The first iteration with my students for the PhD was 2012. At that point we had 65 students for each of those two semesters. Each student was loaned an iPad for the whole course. I interviewed the students at the end of each of the two semesters, and had really good feedback, really positive.”

His first study with the iPad was when it was first released in 2010. “I did some research with iPads and trialled them for several iterations, through different courses, along with a colleague at the time, Tom Cochrane. When the iPad first came out it was relatively limited – it didn’t have a camera, it was very new and there were only so many applications – mostly it was around enabling students to blog and participate in some in-class activities. We developed some resources as well; I developed video content, in addition to slightly more static books.”

As part of Oldfield’s research, the department has upgraded the skills of its staff. “We loaned our staff the iPads over the summer – the ones that the students had been using – and that was very successful. We wanted to do more with mobile devices in our teaching and it was critical to have staff able to use these devices.

So in 2011 the department invested in an iPad for every staff member.”

It was a bold move: iPads had only been around for a year, and the iPad 2, with its extended features, had only just come out. “We expected that they would be big in the classroom, and we were looking ahead. Even though they’re consumer devices, there’s a range of ways you can use them in an educational context. In 2011 we established a Community of Practice with staff and their iPads, looking at what they could do within education – we were just trying to build that overall understanding and explore how we could better use them.”

Oldfield has now focused some of his research around this staff involvement. “I presented a paper at a conference called ASCILITE [the Australasian Society of Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education] looking at the iPad Community of Practice and how we use that model to help inform our staff. Mobile Learning Theory highly recommends empowering staff by giving them experience with how mobile devices work before trying to make use of them in a classroom environment. It’s common sense really; if you are comfortable with how the device works, it will be easier for you to embed it into your teaching.”

TECHNOLOGY

Based on his Authentic Mobile Learning Theory model, Oldfield focuses on teaching his students how to use iPads to solve business problems. “If you think about trades students, they learn how to use a hammer to build a house; they don’t learn all about the anatomy of the hammer. It’s just a different way of looking at the technology and its role in the classroom. Students don’t learn the components of the iPad, they learn how to use it in a business context. So in other words, rather than learning what the tool does, you learn how to use the tool for a specific context.”

Once Oldfield had trialled the project using the borrowed iPads, the Department of Accounting and Finance and the Department of Management and Marketing decided to take the next big step and make it compulsory for all students starting the Bachelor of Business to have an iPad. “My PhD research was in effect the pilot, and now we’ve started instituting this across the whole programme. This year was the first semester of what we call iBus.” There was some backlash initially as students reacted to being asked to purchase an iPad, says Oldfield. “But once they realised how it was going to work, they were happy. Basically in those five courses there’s no longer a textbook requirement. We did an estimate of the cost for students across those five courses and realised it would have cost them around $600 if they had to buy textbooks – which also happens to be the price of the smaller iPad that we recommend.”

To replace the textbook requirement, they have developed iBooks that work specifically on the iPad and are designed for a New Zealand environment. “We found that we just didn’t need some of the textbook content. A lot of the books are relatively dry and tend to be based overseas, so we end up redeveloping a lot of content ourselves. Effectively by giving away these books instead of having them buy textbooks, we’ve neutralised the cost of students buying

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the device in the first place. The hundreds of dollars the students are paying for these print textbooks, we would prefer them to spend that on a device like an iPad which we use far more than just a textbook.”

And it’s not just the written content that benefits the students. “With an iPad you can embed videos and different types of media into the books. For example, some of my books have interactive survey polls that they can answer and then it gets gathered up at the front. And it’s easy to do.”

I feel that we should be leaders in this space rather than followers.

TECHNOLOGY

Oldfield says they didn’t make the decision to focus on iPads lightly – but they wanted to ensure equity of experience for all their students.

“That was important to us. It meant that every student would come equally equipped with an equal opportunity to get access to content and to engage in activities throughout the class. The iPad is the leading tablet device in education and business, and it has leading scores on customer service satisfaction surveys. They’re durable, they’re supported in terms of software updates, they have more software available than other tablets, and they have improved security over other tablets. We also made special deals with local suppliers to ensure the best prices for our students, and we have loan devices for any students who aren’t able to purchase one for whatever reason.”

» contact James Oldfield Senior Lecturer Department of Accounting and Finance

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They’re still in the first semester of the new requirement, so there is no actual data on how the students have found it as yet, says Oldfield.

“It’s really difficult to actually measure whether they learned more or not, because you can’t control the variables. What I have noticed is that I’ve had a lot of positive feedback from the students. I’ve had improved levels of engagement in the classroom that I can visibly see and anecdotal evidence from staff. My moderator for the course actually looked at samples of student work and said it was much better than the work they were creating even two years ago. The quality of the work our students are creating is definitely improving. The feedback we’ve received from students has convinced us that iPads offer a huge range of benefits in education and it’s encouraged us to move towards a model

where we expect to use them throughout the whole programme.”

Through his PhD research, Oldfield is now involved in an Ako Aotearoa National Project Fund research project, looking at applying the mobile learning theory in a range of different contexts. “It involves $300,000 of funding spread over two years, in a split contribution between Ako Aotearoa and the institutions involved: AUT, Unitec, Auckland University, Massey University, EIT and Otago Polytechnic. I’m working with four different lecturers at Unitec and helping them to embed mobile learning principals into their teaching. It means we’ll be getting mobile airplay units (MOAs): big screen televisions on wheels that have Apple TV connected so you can use your mobile device via the television to share your content with others.”

The ultimate aim of the research is to refine a set of principles for mobile learning. “We’ve got a range of different disciplines, and we’re trying to apply the mobile learning model in those different contexts. We’re using those experiences to refine and disseminate the model.

We’re making the findings of the research public through a range of different channels that will make it easy for people to use it. There will be collaborations occurring within the project across different institutions, and quite a few lessons learned from different approaches that each of the institutions have had with different cohorts of students and perhaps different teaching models. It’s all quite exciting.”

For Oldfield, it’s all about ensuring his students are equipped for their future. “Business is adopting a lot of consumer technology and so is education. Devices like tablets and smartphones have changed the way people operate, the way institutions and organisations operate. Tertiary has been slower to adapt to that change. There’s a real need for us to make sure we are keeping up and I feel that we should be leaders in this space rather than followers.”

First generation PhD students For students who are the first in their family to attend university, it can be a daunting and overwhelming experience. But what about when those students go on to doctoral work? Catherine Mitchell talks about whether it’s a level playing field for PhDs.

Three years ago, Mitchell started a PhD in Higher Education. “My study investigates the experiences of first generation students within doctoral education. I’m interested in the academic identity of these non-traditional students working at the highest level of study within a tertiary institution.”

A first generation student herself, Mitchell says she’s fascinated by the experiences others in the same situation have at this level. “I’m investigating ideas around social mobility, connection to community and wha¯nau; essentially what it means to be a first-in-family student at this level. I’m interested in whether students have built up so much ‘academic capital’ by this point that it’s all a level playing field. Or does privilege still operate in this kind of context? How do students experience that? And what are the ways these students are successful and what role do they play in wha¯nau, families and communities?”

Mitchell has used three sources of information for her study. “Firstly I have self-narratives – reflections of my own experiences. I linked that to the narratives of others, through interviews I did with 15 doctoral candidates.

Finally I’m looking at representations of university in film and literature, to assess the representations of the tertiary environment that first generation students might have had. One of the things that I’m interested in is how they imagine university, because how we imagine things speaks to the possibilities we see, how we understand it.”

What she found in her literature review is that first generation students are more likely to be diverse, not conforming to the traditional stereotype of tertiary students. At the postgraduate level, where there are fewer students, those from a first generation family are even more likely to stand out. “American research suggests that first generation students within doctoral education are likely to be ethnically diverse, often women from working class backgrounds.”

I’m investigating ideas around social mobility, connection to community and wha¯nau.

EDUCATION

In her role as a Learning Development Lecturer, Catherine Mitchell (Taranaki) helps students from all levels improve their academic writing, giving them the skills to impart the knowledge they are learning in their courses. “I think we have amazing students at Unitec and it’s really challenging and interesting and rich to work with them, I love it. I get to walk alongside the students as they develop at whatever level they’re at.”

Her own research mirrors these international conclusions. “My emerging argument is that first generation identity in New Zealand, while rich, diverse and more complex than the literature has addressed to date, nonetheless has some key underpinning ideas. There are some quite remarkable stories of endurance and commitment to education and hopefulness.

The students talked about the complex social environment of the university and about being lulled into a false sense of security; and then every so often they get a reminder that they don’t belong in quite the same ways and they don’t come from quite the same places.”

Whatever the outcomes of her research, Mitchell says she believes in the power of tertiary level study. “I believe that education can transform people’s lives, even if it’s a little bit earnest to say that. It has transformed my life, and people choose to study to follow their dreams in a way.

I want to contribute to that with my research.”

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The voice of students The Whai Ake programme at Unitec was recently profiled by Ako Aotearoa – the National Centre for Tertiary Teaching Excellence – as a successful retention programme. Former Whai Ake students and Director Ma ¯ori Community and Student Engagement Carol Ngawati explain why.

STUDENT SUCCESS

Whai Ake students form a kapa haka group, and perform at various events throughout the year, including the Maori graduation event in April.

Opposite page top: Whai Ake student Jaycee MaunsellMcMenamin has now completed her studies, and is working for her iwi Nga¯ Puhi.

Opposite page bottom: Photography student Te Toki Te Paki (Nga¯ Puhi/cook islands) was involved in the production of the Ako Aotearoa video.

"It's more than just a scholarship it's a life-changing experience."

That’s what recent students have said about the Whai Ake i te Ara Tika mentoring programme at Unitec, now in its fifth year.

The programme, based around the tuakana-te ¯ina model of older and younger sibling mentorship, aims to provide a strong support system for Māori students new to the tertiary environment. Director Māori Community and Student Engagement Carol Ngawati (Nga¯ti Po¯rou) says the underlying goal has always been Māori success. “We know that if they stay, Māori students are successful, so keeping them here is critical. In the last couple of years we’ve had between 95-100 per cent retention of our students on Whai Ake.” The Whai Ake programme involves a $2,000 scholarship for the first year students who are accepted (generally 20 mentees), a 15-credit paper in Te Reo, plus on-going support, including a weekly Thursday night gathering at the Unitec Marae. It’s designed to create an environment where the students feel comfortable and bond with each other. “It’s deliberately a specific age group,” says Ngawati. “They’re young people, meaning they’re generally under 25. There’s enough of a range that there are older and younger ones – because the tuakana-te¯ina idea is a powerful tool – but they don’t feel like they have their mothers or aunties with them telling them what to do.”

And the reason they’re creating this particular environment is very specific. “The Whai Ake

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programme is about ensuring that Māori students, wherever they come from and whatever their background, have a smooth transition from their home and school life to their new tertiary environment,” says Ngawati.

“It provides a home, it provides a family, and it provides connections and a place to belong.

We do all this because we want to grow Māori student leadership capability, increase first year completions, and increase Māori student retention in tertiary study.”

The basic foundations of Whai Ake include whanaungatanga – a connection to each other, manaakitanga – an environment of care, and whakapapa – their family connections. These core elements are a critical part of the Whai Ake model, and staff ensure they exemplify these elements every day. “We want our students to know they’re valued and appreciated, whatever world they are in. It’s not about teaching them in the traditional sense, but just being in an environment that values all things Māori. And they grow within that.”

It's more than just a scholarship - it's a lifechanging experience.

Another vital part of the programme is the older-younger sibling mentoring, says Ngawati.

“The younger one follows the older one, and the older student has the whole responsibility of leading. We learn to stand on one foot before we can teach someone else to stand on two. So the mentors get trained, there are deliberate teaching methods they use as a mentor. But the other aspect of it is that if you know someone else is watching, you try harder. You have

reciprocal responsibility for another human being.

It’s like when you become a parent, you start to change some of your habits, because your child is watching.”

When Ako Aotearoa – the National Centre for Tertiary Teaching Excellence – asked for multimedia research outputs on teaching and learning, Tiana Ngawati, the Whai Ake co-ordinator at the time, led a project to create a video from the perspective of the students who were part of the programme. Their aim was to show how a programme using traditional Māori principles has been used to promote Māori success at a tertiary level, and how it can be used by others to garner the same result.

Former Whai Ake participant Nikki Timu was one of the students who spoke about her experiences for the video. “Everyone was saying the same things. It’s about whanaungatanga; it’s about noho marae; it’s about knowing and naming your world; it’s about connecting to your roots; it’s about having an opportunity just to be Māori in a Māori space; it’s about students on a journey together towards achieving their degree.”

Timu says the programme gave her support, friendship, and leadership opportunities she wouldn’t otherwise have had. “Being a part of Whai Ake enabled me to achieve more.

You’re surrounded with people who are likeminded, who are experiencing the same struggles as you, and who have perspective on how to work through those struggles – and that’s key to navigating your way through tertiary study in general. It was just a really diverse group of people who were all on a journey to finishing their degrees. Having that support system in place encouraged success.”

Now a lecturer in the Centre for Interdisciplinary Scholarship at Unitec, Timu says that Whai Ake has become an integral part of who she is. “For me it’s really hard to put Whai Ake into words. It’s a feeling that you get.

STUDENT COVER STORY SUCCESS

The result of the Whai Ake initiative has been far better than expected – Whai Ake students aren’t just passing, they’re regularly achieving huge successes, and not only in the classroom. “On the whole, they’re coming top of their classes,” says Ngawati. “What I’ve seen the biggest growth in is leadership, and the scholarships outside Whai Ake. They’re getting IBM Scholarships and being Māori Student Representatives, and they’re winning awards for their work, including the Kora Award for Landscape Architecture, the McAndrews Scholarship, and two Women’s Weekly Scholarships.”

STUDENT SUCCESS

"If they have self-belief they can do anything.

Belief in themselves as being valued as Ma ¯ori, regardless of what that is, whatever they bring, that’s awesome."

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Another former Whai Ake participant, photography student Te Toki Te Paki, also worked on the production for the video. “For me there is no other place than Unitec if you want to feel like you’re at home. The students involved with Whai Ake are there to help each other through their studies, because the reality is if you’re a new student you don’t want to be alone. So it helps you have that support, someone to text who is your own age and more at the same level.”

For me there is no other place than Unitec if you want to feel like you’re at home.

The sense of connection that students like Timu and Te Paki feel for Whai Ake is common, says Ngawati. “There’s a word that describes it, mana motuhake, and it’s about people having selfbelief, a place to stand. If they have self-belief they can do anything. Belief in themselves as being valued as Māori, regardless of what that is, whatever they bring, that’s awesome.

We want them to value being Māori, to learn a bit of reo, and know the protocols. They can then take that in their kete of knowledge as they leave here, and for the ones who haven’t had that opportunity before, it becomes a meaningful part of who they are. It becomes part of them as parents; they take it into their workplaces, into their lives.”

Auckland. Whai Ake has contributed to her self belief. She doesn’t care if it’s never been done before: if she thinks it needs to be done, she just goes ahead and does it.”

Aja-Moana Allen (far left) from Nga¯ti Wha¯tua is another Whai Ake graduate.

The programme has seen continually increasing retention rates, culminating in a 100% retention of students for the programme in 2013. Interviews and surveys with the students are also used to gain insights into the student experience, and continually improve the programme. “Students tell us that the key benefits and success factors from their perspective are learning about te ao Ma¯ori (the Ma ¯ori world), whanaungatanga and leadership,” says Ngawati.

Ngawati is often approached by people wanting to replicate the success they’ve had with the Whai Ake programme. “Why shouldn’t all students have that opportunity to feel valued as soon as they walk in the door?” she says. “There needs to be the incentives for students, the on-going support, training and guidance over the year. I’m happy to help others to support their students within their programmes using these elements.

That really is success – when Māori ways of being and doing become the norm.”

STUDENT SUCCESS

It’s a part of my beliefs, my identity. I am a part of Whai Ake; I know that I will continue to be part of Whai Ake and the legacy that it’s leaving. It very much breeds who I am as a person now, rather than just being a scholarship programme I was involved in.”

The ultimate goal for the Whai Ake programme is for more Māori students to achieve even more in their respective fields – Ngawati believes in aiming high. “If you’re going to bow down to anything, let it be a lofty mountain. My goal is for 100% successful Māori. We support them, they support each other. We all made a commitment to them, to help them get over the line, because we need them as Māori leaders. They are important to their iwi and to their hapu ¯ and to us as a people. That is the way it is, we need every single one of them.”

A natural progression from the confidence that Whai Ake gives the students is the leadership roles they are then able to take on. “An example is Jade Martin, a third year accounting student,” says Ngawati. “Jade came in with limited Māori experience, she was a reserved, unassuming young woman, and now she has an IBM scholarship, she received another scholarship to go to a Māori Accounting conference in Wellington, and she’s since set up a Māori student network across the other tertiaries in

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Protecting our crops Here’s a scary thought: Each year around 30% of the world’s crops are lost to pests and diseases.

But scientists from Unitec, Massey and Lincoln are investigating ways of detecting the presence of destructive fungal diseases in crops much earlier than ever before, giving farmers a powerful new tool in the fight against a pervasive enemy.

NATURAL SCIENCES

Photography: Jae Frew

As with human health, early intervention is critical – and if you can’t get a speedy diagnosis, taking the appropriate measures to fix a problem can be difficult. In the case of many diseases that threaten crops, from avocados and apples to brassicas and tomatoes, as soon as you can see the problem, it’s probably too late. “You need to get in right at the start because it’s easier to control a problem when it isn’t widespread – you have a real opportunity to control it effectively early in the season,” says Winder. “The amount of crop loss globally caused by pests and diseases is frightening – roughly around 30% of crop yields around the world are lost in this way.

“The issue of food security and increasing world populations means we need to come up with ways of reducing the loss. One way to do that is to provide farmers with diagnostic tests that allow them to decide how best to manage their crops.”

The DNA technology we are using has its widest application in the diagnosis of infectious disease in humans.

Winder, an agro-ecologist specialising in entomology, has teamed up with Massey University evolutionary biologist Professor Pete Lockhart (also an adjunct Professor for Natural Sciences at Unitec) and Lincoln University agricultural ecologist and statistician, Dr Simon Hodge. Together, with help from $20,000-worth of Proof of Principle funding from the Agricultural and Marketing Research and Development Trust (AGMARDT), they have found a better way of detecting fungal diseases in crops before they can get a foothold.

The project has also been supported by Dr Charles Merfield, based at the Biological Husbandry Unit’s Future Farming Centre (located

on the Lincoln campus) where field trials are being conducted, and Lincoln’s Dr Eirian Jones and researchers from LandCare and Scion Research who provided the team with samples to test in their system.

Using DNA sequencing technology they have found a way to make rapid diagnoses of diseased crops – before the rot sets in. Once the research is fully tested and realised (field trials to prove the theoretical findings are underway) it will provide a tool that many farmers will be able to easily use.

According to Lockhart, their new method for applying existing technology is more effective and addresses more problems.

“The DNA technology we are using has its widest application in the diagnosis of infectious disease in humans. However the technology also has great potential for other areas,” he says.

“We wanted to make it work for agriculture, in particular in the detection of fungi, which are a major problem for New Zealand’s agricultural sector.”

The process involves the extraction and high throughput sequencing of DNA from pathogens present in plant tissue, water or soil. Using novel laboratory protocols developed by the team this can be done very quickly. The sequencing provides a reference genome for the organism and the means to develop rapid diagnostic tests which take around 30 minutes. These simple tests can then be applied in the field to signal whether or not a disease is present, and whether the farmer needs to take action. If a clean bill of health comes back, an unnecessary ‘just in case’ spray can be avoided.

Using DNA sequencing technology they have found a way to make rapid diagnoses of diseased crops – before the rot sets in.

NATURAL SCIENCES

One way to help farmers in their on-going fight with disease and pests in their crops is to provide them with tools to nip problems in the bud, says Unitec’s Head of Natural Sciences Professor Linton Winder. An interdisciplinary research breakthrough by Winton and his research partners means a solution that could help the farming community could be at hand.

High throughput sequencing uses a small benchtop machine – made by biotechnology company Illumina – to analyse between 12 and 15 million pieces of DNA within 26 hours. The equipment for this is available in New Zealand thanks to a $35m investment by the government to establish a national infrastructure (www.nzgenomics.co.nz/) for New Zealand scientists.

The team’s methodology, which is under wraps pending potential commercialisation, can be used in two ways depending on what you are looking for, Lockhart says.

When evidence of a specific disease is needed they are able to make very rapid diagnostic tests which can identify the causative agent of a

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disease or a problem in around half an hour.

A second, more comprehensive approach is also possible which is applied when it is not known exactly what to look for.

NATURAL SCIENCES

Winder says eventually the process will be as simple as a farmer heading into a field or crop, taking a sample of a seemingly healthy plant, mashing it up and putting it through a machine that will tell if a disease is present or not.

The comprehensive test is not as fast as the rapid diagnostic test, says Lockhart, with a time frame of two to three weeks for the results. But from the larger test a series of targeted, rapid tests can be developed. “The way we think these two approaches might work in practice is at the beginning of a growing season or at different periods there might be a comprehensive assessment made and based on what you find, you would develop the rapid tests. That might mean surveying a few orchards or fields a couple of times during the year and developing the rapid tests based on those results.”

Winder says eventually the process will be as simple as a farmer heading into a field or crop, taking a sample of a seemingly healthy plant, mashing it up and putting it through a machine that will tell if a disease is present or not. “You could buy a little hand-held detector, walk out into a field and within 30 minutes it will tell you yes or no, is that disease there and do you need to spray or not? That gives farmers a huge competitive advantage because it means they can choose early on how to manage and control that disease by applying a fungicide or managing that crop in an appropriate way.”

Lockhart began looking at the high throughput technology in 2010, but in a more ‘blue sky’ research capacity. Combining his skills as an evolutionary biologist with Winder and Hodges’ experience in applied science meant they were able to take these findings and put them to practical use for the farming community. Results have come quickly since they started working together in late 2013.

And Winder says these methods will continue to progress at a similarly rapid rate. While the comprehensive test takes up to three weeks now, that is lightning speed considering where things were just three years ago. “Although the complete profiling will take two weeks at the moment, in two to three years it will take much less time

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than that. The rate of technological change is absolutely astonishing, especially in biology.

“Over the next few years all this is going to become more efficient, more effective and more rapid. There is a lot of maths behind the sequencing; you’re trying to match up complicated data sets against publicly available ones, but the maths is becoming thousands of times quicker as well. And as the techniques become quicker and quicker they become more and more valuable to the farmer.

“The great thing about the AGMARDT grant is that it allows us to try and provide New Zealand farmers with a competitive advantage because we are developing these techniques now. It’s so valuable having these seeding grants.”

The speed of change so far is easily demonstrated. “Three years ago, the machine ran for a minimum of two weeks and up to four weeks before the data even came off it. And you’ve got to have 2-4 weeks of uninterrupted power. Sometimes little things would go wrong and you’d have to set up the machine again, and then wait again.”

It then took up to six months to get the data matched against the public reference sequences, a step made much faster when a colleague at a German university developed a method of matching the sequences 10-20,000 times faster than previously possible. “All of a sudden we could get results back quickly,” says Lockhart.

If you could dramatically reduce the amount of sprays being used globally that would be huge.

While this will present farmers with a tool that could boost productivity and reduce the spray bill, it will also help produce healthier crops. “I think a lot of good could come from this,” Lockhart adds.

“Because the rapid tests are relatively low-tech there is the potential to put it in a lot of hands.

If you could dramatically reduce the amount of sprays being used globally that would be huge.”

Winder says rapid diagnostic testing could drastically change the way farmers look after their crops. “Modern agriculture tends to over-use pesticides. It creates pests and diseases that are resistant to the very

compounds we are using. We self-generate the problem in many respects.”

While fungal diseases have been the focus of the study so far, there is much greater potential for the technology. It could be used to test for the presence of insects, and also in border security where the arrival of soil and produce pose risks to New Zealand’s biosecurity. Being armed with a hand held, rapid diagnostic testing device means bio-security staff could better assess risks through routine monitoring of soil and plants brought into the country. “One of the biggest bio-security problems concerns the soil brought into New Zealand in ship containers. They’ve got no idea how much of a problem it is really but it’s something that could be assessed quite easily,” says Lockhart. “Anything you don’t immediately recognise you could have a test for.”

NATURAL SCIENCES

“Modern agriculture tends to over-use pesticides.

It creates pests and diseases that are resistant to the very compounds we are using.

We self-generate the problem in many respects.”

Having proved the theory and with field testing underway the time has come to take the project to the next level. “The question was, 'Can we quickly and efficiently obtain the genetic information that is needed for making these tests?’, and we have shown that it can be done. We’re confident we can do it now. The next stage is to start engaging with the farming community to find some key diseases they really want to tackle.”

Linton Winder Associate Professor Department of Natural Sciences

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Disaster Architecture He’s been travelling to trouble spots around the world for the last 15 years, using his specialist skills to help in the wake of natural disasters and war zones.

But Architecture Associate Professor Regan Potangaroa would be horrified if you tried to call him anything other than someone who wants to help out.

Associate Professor Regan Potangaroa has been a consulting engineer for the last 30 years, with a career that has provided a vast array of challenging experiences, and an intimate knowledge of both engineering and architecture. He’s also travelled to the world’s toughest locations as a humanitarian volunteer in the wake of natural disasters and wars. “I’m actually on the interface between structures and architecture,” he says. “What I find in my volunteering work is that my engineering and structural qualification gets me into the situation and my architectural background then means I can assess the situation from that perspective.

It’s the problem we always have, where what we provide as engineers is a house, when all people want is a home.”

Potangaroa started out in engineering, gaining a Master’s degree from Canterbury University, then, while living in Wellington, moved into architecture, completing a Master of Architecture

PROFILE

at Victoria University. His PhD was in both architecture and engineering through James Cook University in Australia, looking at natural dilapidation in high rise buildings in the tropics.

“I was the first Ma ¯ori PhD in the building industry, which is kind of interesting,” he says. “I think I was also the first Māori postgraduate in engineering, certainly out of Canterbury, so things have come a long way since then.”

He spent most of his career as an engineering consultant, before moving to Unitec’s Department of Architecture about ten years ago. He first started volunteering for disaster work when he was doing his PhD in Australia. “I joined REDR, which stands for Registered Engineers for Disaster Relief, a register of engineers who are prepared, at short notice, to go into disasters. Suddenly I found myself in all sorts of unusual spots throughout the world, from Pakistan and Syria, to Indonesia and Sudan. In Pakistan we got taken hostage, and I’ve been medivac’d about five times now because you just don’t have medical facilities out the back of nowhere.”

His first international humanitarian assignment was to Timor, and Potangaroa says it was an eye-opening initiation. “We were stepping over dead babies and there were nuns being raped and killed, and the only reason I survived was because they kept telling everyone that I was a priest and I was a New Zealander. If I’d been Australian, I wouldn’t have come out of a lot of those places, because Australians weren’t particularly liked at that time. But the strange thing was that what most people would think was bad, to me it seemed to fit and everything seemed to be under control, even though we had some of the worst casualty numbers that you could imagine.”

That first experience has led to a career working and researching in disaster zones. His volunteer role involves organising housing for the thousands of people who are displaced. “You’re doing site planning for 20,000 people living in a camp, so you’ve got to pick the campsite, do the layout, set up the restricted

PROFILE

"It’s the problem we always have, where what we provide as engineers is a house, when all people want is a home.”

Main image: Survivors survey the damage from the 2004 Banda Aceh Tsunami.

Insert: Potangaroa in Christchurch following the earthquakes.

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PROFILE

From left: Potangaroa in Port au Prince with a PhD student from the University of Auckland, working on the seismic strengthening of a school for the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC). Scenes of the damage postearthquake in Haiti, where Potangaroa has been doing work on applying the "Talk to the building" approach to rebuilding houses in the informal settlements of Port au Prince.

Regan Potangaroa Associate Professor Department of Civil Engineering

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areas, do all the planning and layout and start the construction. For a 20,000-person camp, which is a standard size, you might have a construction force of five hundred just doing toilets, you might have another five hundred doing some of the tents and preparation of the ground, and you’ve got two weeks to do it in. Normally it’s in a language that’s not your own, you’re in the back of nowhere and often you’ve got to deal with corruption and bribery. In Pakistan we dealt with about 380,000 people over a four-month period; just putting them under shelter, giving them protection in terms of security, setting up food, setting up water, setting up toilets, setting up schools, lighting systems, registration systems so we could find out who they were and help the UN with their refugee determination.”

The conditions on most assignments are always fairly rough, he says. His most recent assignment was as a first responder for typhoon Yolanda at the end of 2013. “I was sorting out the shelter programme for Care International/Care USA, so it was an $18,000,000 US programme. We had to sort out really quickly how we were going to implement it and then set up the supply of materials and get them ordered and get the system running so that we could then hand it over to other staff to run. We were there four weeks; three of those weeks we had no washing water so you couldn’t wash your clothes, couldn’t wash your hands after the toilet, you only had drinking water.

Several of us came down with diarrhoea because of that. We were sleeping on the floor of a church with 250 other families for about a week, and then we got upgraded to sleeping on a warehouse floor for a week. We finally found a hotel – it had no roof, no power and no water, but it was sheer luxury.

That’s the sort of conditions we’re used to.”

Despite not considering himself an academic, he’s able to use the data he gathers from his humanitarian work to do research – preferably projects that can then be used in a practical way in disaster zones. “When they see the degrees they all think I’m an academic but I come from a pragmatic, construction and building, get-it-done background. I’m more of a doer than a talker and that’s possibly a little bit at odds with the academic life. I do the humanitarian work, which then produces the raw data to do a research paper.”

Potangaroa says an example is his latest research using remote helicopters to create 3D terrain maps of areas that are impassable. “I was with the International Federation of the Red Cross based in Port-au-Prince in Haiti, helping with housing after the earthquake. We tried it out on collapsed tents and then on drainage systems in Haiti. We were flying this helicopter into places you wouldn’t want to walk because they were covered in sewerage and from that we were able to create 3D drain models, accurate to within millimetres.

That information was then used for designing the retaining wall structures to flood-proof the houses down the gulley.”

Other research he’s done involves a computer program that maps the camps to see which areas might be more dangerous. “We use this to check we’re not doing anything that’s going to promote violence within the camp or provide areas where women can be raped or beaten up. What it does is it puts a mesh across that whole area and it works out the percentage of area that you can see and then maps the visibility. We’ve looked at different standard camp layouts to show the advantages and disadvantages of different camp layouts.”

His research always has a serious, practical outcome that means lives will be saved, and terrible situations will be made just that little bit easier. But working regularly in disaster zones doesn’t leave humanitarian workers unscathed; he says there is what he calls a ‘fellowship of pain’. “If you’ve been through three weeks with no water, with diarrhoea, sleeping on the floor of a church with a whole bunch of people you don’t know, then it develops a certain way of doing things, a certain nod, a certain way you shake hands. So the minute I meet someone, I know whether they’re one of the fellowship of pain and that means that I can communicate and I can trust them.”

It’s not easy, but he wouldn’t change the way he’s chosen to live his life. “Humanitarian work is about feeling the pain and doing it anyway. One of the first things you learn is that it’s not about being strong, it’s about being resilient. But to be resilient you have to feel the pain. Once you feel the pain, it’s what you do next that counts.”

STUDENT RESEARCH

Taonga: Not dead fish Design graduate Oliver Kraft created an innovative ecolabel for New Zealand’s fisheries as his Master’s thesis.

Kraft’s eco-label NOA is aimed at integrating Māori cultural practices into a similar certification system, allowing fishermen and local kauma¯tua to work together in determining best practice.

Originally from Germany, Kraft has lived in New Zealand for the last 14 years, and says he believes it is vital to have a New Zealandspecific certification system for the fisheries industry. “Rather than just bringing in a system from overseas and implementing it here, my idea is about co-developing; using third party certification, and the guidelines for eco-labelling from the UN as a base, and developing it with Māori fisheries, Māori artists and Māori designers.”

If a system is imported from overseas, it won’t take into account New Zealand’s social, historical and cultural circumstances. “The fisheries are highly treasured and highly influential in Māori culture – they’re one of the biggest treasures for Māori,” says Kraft. “If you have a Pa¯keha¯ politician trying to implement a Western-style third-party certification onto a society that has been fishing for a thousand years, it’s not going to work.

They will just go, oh yeah, and continue to do as they’ve always done it.”

The NOA label uses methodology borrowed from two directions, says Kraft. “One is kaupapa Māori research, and the other is service design. It’s not a fixed criteria system. That’s where I break with

the traditions of third-party certifications, which are all about making a standard and then a third party coming in and verifying that a company or service is following those criteria.”

If you have a Pa¯keha ¯ politician trying to implement a Westernstyle third-party certification onto a society that's been fishing for a thousand years, it's not going to work.

STUDENT RESEARCH

As part of his studies at Unitec, Master of Design graduate Oliver Kraft designed New Zealand’s first fisheries eco-label, focusing on the rock lobster industry. Eco labels, which are a third-party certification process usually around a strict set of criteria, can be added to a product or service to help consumers with their purchases.

Examples include the Fair Trade label and the Marine Stewardship Council’s eco-label for UK fisheries.

Kraft uses the concept of bio-cultural diversity conservation, the idea that it is important to preserve the diversity of life, in all its manifestations, including biological, cultural and linguistic, as a central theme to his eco-label system design. “I think diversity can create a healthy environment, healthy societies and so on. What I tried to achieve was a criteria that could integrate local diversity. That’s achieved by having a community of learning including a local kauma ¯tua and local fishermen. So the criteria are not that you have to do this and that, but more what is your approach to achieve this and that. Diversity is built into this system and is something that is highly desired. The diversity of this approach basically reflects the differences of the local biodiversity.”

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