Te Whenua Tapahi translates into English literally as the wounded land. This title is appropriate for Rangihoua bay and this project as the architecture is an incision which attempts to heal the unresolution of the land and move the land into the future. The site is intensely picturesque however which makes it difficult for one to remember and imagine its historic context of war, death and conflict.

 

 The architecture pulls up on the past as a means to resolve the future. It is not memorialising those who have died  here but embodies the life lived and vitality of the blood embedded soil and rich history of the bay. The intention is to touch and feel the living, death and energy that once inhabited the area within the wound. The acknowledgement of the past is crucial in both Maori and pakeha culture as it opens up the connections between past and present. To harness the past enables us to negotiate into the future. The architecture expose Rangihoua in all its beauty and open its flesh to welcome in the new and old.

 

The wound has been created by an obsidian shard, this was sourced locally in rangihoua and used as a tool equivalent to greenstone. It beauty is in it ability to be two things at once, it has a rough surface as well as a sharp smooth glass like quality. Through all the encounters of pain and conflict the land and its people have endured, the shard will cut and pierce the land once again. The cut becomes apart of the history where its scar is a signature of the new beginnings. The obsidion shard has been swept into the bay by the sea it and has been removed the same way to allow for salt water to enter the wound. Situated within the cliff it lies under the Rangihoua pa site and disects through the hill on the northern and southern side of the land. Where you enter the wound is dependant on where you approach from. The wound is open.