Working with nature in urban settings as a strategy for improving wellbeing offers significant potential for effective climate change adaptation. It is increasingly being explored and utilized in the region of Moananui Oceania. In New Caledonia, ongoing social issues pervade many aspects of life, particularly for Indigenous Kanak peoples, including the appropriateness and effectiveness of housing and the urban built environment in general. This paper examines and suggests eco-relational practices for urban and architectural design in a New Caledonian context. To explore transformative nature-based built environment design agendas that link closely to Indigenous ecological knowledge and understandings of wellbeing, research was carried out through a series of interviews and workshops with local people. We examine the usefulness of starting from understanding worldview, local notions of wellbeing, and relationships to nature in urban climate change adaptation work, and suggest a conceptual framework for transformative built environment design practice. We discuss using the Mauri Ora compass research co-design methodologies to bridge cultural differences, political agendas, and varying worldviews and encourage meaningful engagement with eco-centric local and/or Indigenous communities. Key findings include that the communities engaged with, who are largely Kanak, see that fundamental changes must occur in the design and construction of built environments, and that the nature of the changes is not just technical, but fundamentally requires a cultural shift in how people understand themselves to be in and of the living world. The necessary shift, particularly for non-indigenous, was identified as a collective rather than individual reorientation towards a more care-full, respectful, and ecologically regenerative relationship with living socio-ecological systems.

Following up on our recent article in this journal, this research note discusses the range of names used in Māori school settings for flexible learning spaces (FLS) and innovative learning environments (ILE), There are various existing Māori names for FLS/ILE, which fall into two types: individual names and category names. We consider several of these names as a way to explore this concept and provide a background for positing ‘he wāhi ako’ as a generic name for Māori FLS/ILE, which translates into English as ‘Māori learning space(s).’

This study investigates the role of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) in addressing energy poverty and enhancing resilience in underserved urban communities. Using South Auckland, New Zealand, as a case study, the research explores how decentralized technologies such as solar, wind, and battery storage can empower low-income households as energy prosumers while contributing to national decarbonization goals. A comparative analysis of centralized and decentralized energy models highlights differences in infrastructure costs, employment potential, and community ownership. Growth projections for DERs through 2050 indicate a scalable pathway to reducing energy costs, promoting inclusive development, and strengthening energy system resilience. Through scenario-based quantitative modeling, this paper addresses four research objectives: examining policy and conceptual factors influencing DER adoption, assessing the resilience benefits of decentralization, exploring community-based ownership models, and considering how policy frameworks may align with energy equity and climate goals. The findings demonstrate that DERs offer a viable, equitable, and low-carbon transition strategy aligned with global sustainability targets.

How can we practice urbanism care-fully, with an attention to the wellbeing and vitality of the more-than-human? Such a question is fundamental now if we are to counter current Anthropocenic processes and actively transition to urban cultures of care. In this text I review recent work on a tool designed to support a care-based ethical attention to urban and wider living systems wellbeing. With diverse communities future-focused 'compasses' were co-created which acted as collaborative direction finders and activation tools for mauri ora or living systems wellbeing. I explore here whether such re-orienting methods can provide a meaningful way to assist communities to activate transitions from extractive to care-based urban practices.

. This study aims to investigate the revitalization of blue-green capital in urban communities, to enhance local well-being and social-ecological resilience at the neighborhood scale. Fostering more-than-human well-being can play a central role in maintaining overall health in cities. The study first investigates what are the key priorities recognized to enhance blue-green capital. Second, what are key challenges and opportunities for community-led revitalization of blue-green capital? And how can local communities act to bridge identified gaps in revitalization processes centered on blue-green capital? We partnered with the St. Albans Resident Association (SARA), to orient a place-based, context-sensitive approach to the methodology to address the research questions in the Abberley Park, in & Omacr;tautahi Christchurch, New Zealand case study. This is one of eight city heritage parks in Christchurch and an example of a lush mix of native and introduced, exotic trees and vegetation. However, the health of the St. Albans Stream, as seen in the park, is a concern for the local community. Nature-based solutions to control pests and invasive species, and riparian planting can encourage local actors to align short-term goals and active efforts toward revitalizing the St. Albans Stream, starting with the identified areas at the park. The results highlight the perspectives of long-term residents, volunteers, and community leaders, which can inform local policies and actions focused on enhancing the health of the St. Albans Stream and its sensitive habitats starting at Abberley Park. Enabling the identification of key local actors in the St. Albans community, the research demonstrates the importance of contextsensitive approaches to identify potential organizational and social contributions when considering blue-green capital and urban wellbeing at neighborhood scales.

Māori aspirations in education have not been served by past national policies. It is hard to extinguish the influence of monoculturalism, whereby schools were used to colonise Māori by enforcing linguistic and cultural assimilation. The history of debate on Innovative Learning Environments (ILE) and Flexible Learning Spaces (FLS) demonstrates the ongoing dominance of this Eurocentric, monocultural approach. Official New Zealand education policy and practice follows international trends in school design, moving away from traditional single-cell classrooms towards more open and inter-connected spaces, despite no real evidence concerning the relative effects on learning of each classroom type. Meanwhile, school marae have been around for several decades, but largely ignored in national ILE and FLS policy and research literature. Our experiences lead us to suggest that Māori identity must be ‘built in’ not ‘added on’ to monocultural ILE frameworks, and for this reason, spatiality is crucial in Māori teaching and learning spaces. This article explores the notion of ‘Māori learning spaces.’

There is an intersection of landscape and interior within pre-contact Maori building practice. Throughout New Zealand the land bears imprints from such interventions as the terracing of pa1 to form defensible, habitable zones; the recessing of rua-kai2 to form storage vessels within the ground; the indenting of umu3; and the imprinting of the interiors of whare puni4. This paper explores the manner in which this excavational practice destabilises the clear distinctions between the Western spatial disciplines of interior design, landscape architecture, and architecture. The paper speculates that this carving practice may offer opportunities for intercultural, interdisciplinary space making. This exploration moves between cultures, between perceptions of landscape and whenua, between landscape, interior and architectural disciplines. These betweens are theorised as a practice, as a mode of making contemporary space which draws from the history and specificity of this land and indigenous culture. This theorised practice has been embodied in a series of buildings developed over the last seven years. Step House, and Continuum House are discussed in relation to notions of landscape interiors and nature-culture continuums. The built works are sited in-between; between bodies in space, and the body of the land; between architecture, landscape and the interior; between indigenous and Western cultures.

At a time of ecological emergency there are pressing reasons to develop more responsive wellbeing-led governance frameworks that engage with both human and more-than-human wellbeing. Attempts to incorporate wellbeing indices into wellbeing-led governance include the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations, the Gross National Happiness index of Bhutan, and a variety of emerging wellbeing-led governance frameworks in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Some of these frameworks have begun to include more-than-human wellbeing indices in their toolkit, but like many geographers and Indigenous scholars, we are wary of the dangers of universalising and abstractionist ‘indexology’ ( Ratuva, 2016 ). In this paper, we review wellbeing-led governance frameworks with a view to more-than-human wellbeing and Indigenous knowledge. We outline an emerging pluriversal and prefigurative project where Indigenous scholars engage with partners in co-creation methods in place, incorporating Indigenous-Māori cultural perspectives into more situated and holistic wellbeing tools. We argue that while critique is important, so too is engaging in Indigenous-led research interventions for transformative metrics and tools, particularly in these times of socio-ecological crisis. As we ‘stay with’ this trouble ( Haraway, 2018 ), we hope to contribute to a culturally specific place-based set of wellbeing indices and tools to inform wellbeing-led governance for more-than-human wellbeing.

In this author response, we further reflect on pluriversal and prefigurative approaches to research, centred on Indigenous Māori knowledge, while opening space for cross-cultural perspectives and co-creation methods. We address the responses authored by Meg Parsons, Wendy Steele and Wendy Harcourt, starting by summarising what we took from each contribution. We discuss key questions raised by each of the authors in the context of the evolving research programme and broader developments on wellbeing governance in Aotearoa. Pluriversal and prefigurative experimental approaches are key to testing and iteratively advancing the research agenda in disruptive times.

The institutional frameworks within which we conceive, design, construct, inhabit and manage our built environments are widely acknowledged to be key factors contributing to converging ecological crises: climate change, biodiversity loss, environmental degradation, and social inequity at a global scale. Yet, our ability to respond to these emergencies remains largely circumscribed by educational and professional agendas inherited from 20th-century Western paradigms. As the crises intensify, there is a compelling case for radical change in the educational and professional structures of the built environment disciplines. This paper presents a work-in-progress examination of an emergent architecture programme at Te Wānanga Aronui O Tāmaki Makau Rau/Auckland University of Technology (AUT), Aotearoa New Zealand. The program is within Huri Te Ao/the School of Future Environments, a transdisciplinary entity formed in 2020 to integrate research and teaching across Architecture, Built Environment Engineering, and Creative Technologies. The school itself is conceived as a collaborative project to co-create an outward-facing civic research platform for sharing ecologically positive design thinking across diverse communities of practice. The programme foregrounds mātauranga Māori (Indigenous ways of knowing), transdisciplinary systems, and regenerative design as regional place-oriented contributions to planetary-scaled transformation. We illustrate and evaluate a specific curriculum change tool, the Living Systems Wellbeing (LSW) Compass. Grounded in Te Ao Māori (Māori cosmology and context), the Compass offers a graphic means for students to navigate and integrate ecological relationships at different scales and levels of complexity, as well as affords insights into alternative foundational narratives, positive values, design strategies, and professional practices. This paper identifies four foundational factors for transformative pedagogies. The first factor is the value of a collectively held and clearly articulated vision and focus. The second factor is the capacity and commitment of an academic team that supports and values the vision. Thirdly, the vision needs to meet and acknowledge place-specific knowledges and values. Finally, the pedagogy should have an action research component founded in real-world interactions. While this research-based pedagogy is place-based and specific, we argue that these four factors are transferable to other learning institutions and can support critical pedagogies for social, cultural, and ecological wellbeing.

In this paper, we investigate how infrastructure and care shape commoner subjectivities. In our research into an urban youth farm in Aotearoa New Zealand, we heard and observed profound tales of growth and transformation among youth participants. Not only were our interviewees narrating stories of individual transformation (of themselves and others), but they also spoke of transformations in the way they engaged with the world around them, including the land and garden and its many species and ecological systems, the food system more generally, the wider community and their co-workers. Such transformations were both individual and collective, having more in common with the collective caring subject homines curans than the autonomous, rational work-ready subject of homo economicus. Using postcapitalist theory on commons, commoning and subjectivity, we argue that these socio-affective encounters with more-than-human commons enabled collective, caring commoner subjectivities to emerge and to be cultivated through collective care in place. We suggest that the commons can be thought of as an infrastructure of care for the counter-city, providing the conditions for the emergence and cultivation of collective caring urban subjects.

Aotearoa New Zealand is at a critical juncture in reducing and managing organic waste. Research has highlighted the significant proportion of organic waste sent to landfills and associated adverse effects such as greenhouse gas emissions and loss of valuable organic matter. There is current debate about what practices and infrastructure to invest in to better manage and use organic waste. We highlight the diversity of existing organic waste practices and infrastructures, focusing on Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. We show how debates about organic waste practices and infrastructure connect across three themes: waste subjectivities, collective action in place and language.

•Housing and urban development in Aotearoa New Zealand.•Response to Government Policy Statement on Housing and Urban Development (GPS-HUD).•Wellbeing benefits of collectively-oriented housing and transport models.•Co-housing and papakāinga as transformational housing typologies.•Multi-year and multi-scale community-based research programmes.

This paper explores how spatial governance models oriented to the well-being of the more-than-human might better enable Indigenous peoples' capacity to live-well-with and care for our more-than-human whanaunga (kin). The discussion positions Indigenous more-than-human ontologies as a cultural framework that supplants human-centrism with a focus on holistic ecological well-being. The paper considers how a culture of holistic ecological well-being might be spatially emplaced through well-being-led planning tools that ground these ontologies in neighbourhoods, cities and wider afield. Currently settler-colonial spatial governance and planning structures hold dominion in Aotearoa New Zealand, inscribing cultural territories fundamentally other to Indigenous norms. Yet the country's Te Tiriti o Waitangi contracts for tino rangatiratanga (Maori sovereignty), and to meet the Tiriti it is imperative that current spatial governance approaches swiftly converge with Indigenous ethical practices for mauri ora holistic well-being. There is much at stake. The Petrocene-our current era of ecological breakdown, accelerated by a rapacious petrocapitalism-is a time of mass death of our more-than-human whanaunga (kin).

Where does life live? What is alive? In modernist/dualist thinking, we might assume that life lives through cause and effect-an acting of someone onto something. When conceived through an Indigenous-Maori concept of mauri-life vitality-the immanence of living as a relational field is revealed. An ethical imperative to sustain the wellness of the life-field, mauri-ora, is concurrent with the concept of mauri. This paper philosophically probes the immanent and ethical conditions of this life-field and its relational sustenance as the very ground for design thinking. Here, I explore an architectural project, Te Uru Taumatua, as a case for thinking through mauri-ora (life-field) as immanent ethics in relation to an evocation of ecological vitality. This project becomes a bridge for thinking immanent connections across Indigenous-Maori and contemporary ecological thinking. This paper argues that architecture's role as an Anthropocenic actor creates the conditions necessary to instantiate socio-ecologically situated immanent ethics as design ethics. What is fundamental to this approach is to reveal how ecological design is a thinking manifest here, in this case study, as the relation of mauri to mauri-ora. Here, Te Uru Taumatua helps to explore an understanding of mauri-ora as an immanent ethics which bridges (design) thinking and practice.