Taiuli Strategic Plan wins NZILA Master Planning and Urban Design Strategy Award

The Taiuli Strategic Plan, charting the next 30-years for the Atafu Tokelau Community in Eastern Porirua, Aotearoa, has won the prestigious Master Planning and Urban Design Strategy Award at the 2024 Resene New Zealand Institute of Landscape Architecture (NZILA) Awards on 17 May.

Developed by the Afau Tokelau Community with support from Craig Pocock, Beca Design Practice lead in Wellington, the Taiuli Strategic Plan is a 30-year vision document that supports the community to deliver a range of strategies from retention of traditional knowledge, skills and languages to economic growth, entrepreneurship, resiliency and sustainability. It builds upon and supports the existing great work done by the community over the last decades.

Craig Pocock, worked closely with Tokelau leadership to develop a community led, co-design workshop, drawing from traditional Tokelau practices. The workshop was focused on developing not only a strategy vision document but a masterplan that utilised the existing Matauala Hall, surrounding landscape and wider community connections to amplified the existing Atafu Tokelau Community programmes in education, health and traditional knowledge and community resiliency.

The workshop bought together a large intergenerational group of the community whose ideas not only helped create the foundation of the strategy and master plan but also provided a great moment for the community as a collective to hear and share stories of the past and visions of the future.

Les Atoni, Chair of the Atafu Tokelau Community says, "Some of our members shared the history, and milestones of this community. It’s also an emotional time for us, as we reflect on the past with the sacrifice in crossing the Pacific Ocean to come to Aotearoa and to make it our home. It is something we are really proud of, the legacy before us."

The link to the Taiuli Strategic Plan document, workshop video and the Taiuli Strategic Plan unveiling can be found here: https://www.matauala.org.nz/taiulistrategicplan

Craig Pocock was thrilled for the Atafu Tokelau Community when he heard that their hard work and vision had been recognised in the NZILA Master Planning and Urban Design Strategy Award. It was a great night of celebration with two generations of Atafu Tokelau leadership going on stage to receive the award.

"I was honoured to be able to accompany the community to the awards ceremony, they are a gentle, giving, hardworking and humble community, to be part of their joy on the night was a gift," says Craig Pocock.

The unveiling of the Taiuli Strategic Plan by New Zealand and Tokelau government officials on 5 May, closely followed by the NZILA awards this month, has been a great celebration and milestone for the community. The next step is to implement the strategic plan and the community has the passion and drive to continue to achieve great things for the future generations, we are looking forward to continuing this journey with them.

An excerpt from the NZILA Judges’ Citation says:

"Tâlofa and fakafetai lahi lele to the team at Beca and the Atafu Tokelau Community Group for an authentic community engagement and collaboration that has produced an inspiring masterplan vision. Workshops, values, and stories shaped an engaging vision for the Tokelau community."

"The masterplan expanded upon the architectural upgrade at the Matauala Hall, into a sensitive and quiet landscape expression with flexible outdoor spaces for current and future generations. As aptly put by the Atafu Tokelau Community Group the plan “enhances the unique character of the Atafu Tokelau community and offer direction on how we grow and develop over the next 30 years towards our vision and our aspirations”. Te lelei ō koe - well done."

Continuing the community led co-design kaupapa and demonstrating best-in-class Craig Pocock and the Wellington design practice team at the last award also won NZILA The Master Planning and Urban Design Strategy Award and the NZILA Te Karanga O te Tui award with the Parihaka, Te Mahere Aranga Tuatoru: A 30 Year Overall Plan for Parihaka.

For more information about the award, visit the NZILA website.

We would also like to mention the Baypark to Bayfair Link as being named as a finalist for the He Iti Pounamu category of the Resene 2024 Tuia Pito Ora NZILA Landscape Architecture Awards. Over the past 10 years NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA), supported by Beca’s Urban Design and Landscape Architecture (UDLA) team have collaborated with representatives and ringatoi (artists) from Ngā Pōtiki, Ngāi Tukairangi and Ngāti Tapu hapū, developing a suite of prominent mahi toi (artworks), including carvings, patterns, sculptures and pou whenua on the SH2 Baypark to Bayfair Link (Bay Link) project in Tauranga Moana, Bay of Plenty.