“Social issues are so complex and multidimensional that the responses need to be holistic, and social design is a response that can solve them."
Three former Unitec students and one from Victoria University are behind the fledgling initiative, which has already lined up projects in the Philippines, Samoa and New Zealand. Their mission is at once simple and sweeping: use social design (designing in ways that improve human wellbeing) to create holistic responses to social and humanitarian challenges. MAU Studio’s John Belford-Lelaulu and Reagan Laidlaw graduated from Unitec in 2015 with Masters of Architecture and a desire to change the world. They were already aware of how social design can address issues such as poverty and access to education. “Social issues are so complex and multidimensional that the responses need to be holistic, and social design is a response that can solve them,” Belford-Lelaulu says. They also questioned the longevity of most models of charitable development, where people either work for free or low pay until they burn out, or take a few weeks off work once a year to contribute to an overseas project. A solution began forming in early 2017.
Former classmate Lynette Hunt knew about development projects in the Philippines through her church’s outreach programme. Belford-Lelaulu was volunteering with Open Architecture in New York, and returned home after hearing about the scholarship, then visited the Philippines with Hunt.
ARCHITECTURE
“The value in an idea lies in the using of it.” Thomas Edison probably wasn’t thinking about social design in architecture when he came up with that gem – but the principle is echoed today in the entrepreneurial MAU Studio venture, and the support it’s receiving through Unitec’s Bold Innovators Scholarship, initiated by Tuapapa Rangahau, partnering Research and Enterprise.
They came back fizzing with excitement, picturing the opportunity: apply for the scholarship, which is open to recent Unitec graduates with an innovative idea, and use it to kick-start a financially viable social design practice. Laidlaw was working fulltime at JTB Architects as an architectural graduate; Belford-Lelaulu and Hunt convinced him and Victoria University graduate Carinnya Feaunati to get involved outside working hours. Then Belford-Lelaulu and Laidlaw successfully applied for the first Bold Innovators Scholarships. The money, access to Unitec resources and mentoring mean MAU Studio is developing so quickly they can barely keep up. Mau, a non-violent movement in Samoa that successfully campaigned for the country’s independence from New Zealand in 1962, inspired the practice’s name. The word means to be firm, steadfast, to strive. “We also believe MAU Studio is a movement. We stand against injustices that affect vulnerable communities, and we wish to inspire and work with our future generations to create holistic
Inset: Concept model for church, community and learning centre, Baguio city, Philippines
Summer 2017
23