Students and staff lend a hand at Tiria Falls

Media release: NorthTec students and staff lend a hand at Tiria Falls site

Elementary Construction tutors Varron Armstrong (Kawakawa) and Peter Whitehouse (Rawene) and their students lent a hand to NorthTec ACE tutor Grant Steven’s ongoing project with the Moerewa community on a property adjacent to the Tiria Falls last week (subs 18 March).

Grant has used alternative building methods to build an adobe wood-fired oven at the site and has since set up a communal eating area with a shade sail, in addition to establishing an organoponico raised bed garden and a wattle and daub shed.

He has been working with the Te Rere I Tiria Community Trust at the site for some months to provide training in sustainable building and horticulture and to enhance the local community’s health and wellbeing. The trust has land adjacent to the Tiria Falls and works with local people on Community Max schemes.

The main focus for the trust is cleaning up the waterway that feeds the falls and the swimming hole so that the community can safely enjoy its natural resources. The trust has worked with local farmers to help put up fences to prevent stock from wandering into waterways and has also done some riparian planting.

NorthTec students and staff contributed their skills and energy for the day to set up a shade house for plants and to help put in the supports for the roof that will be put onto an adobe building on the site.

Grant has named the building a Bam Pa Bean house, with bamboo, paper and bean being used in its construction. The building is a prototype or model that is being used as a teaching tool.

Te Rere I Tiria Community Trust spokeswoman Susan Henare said that she is a member of the Fredrick Hundertwasser Park Trust on behalf of Te Runanga O Ngati Hine and that the Fredrick Hundertwasser Park Trust will be building an eco-friendly adobe information centre in Kawakawa.

“This was a vision that Fredrick had for Kawakawa. Our Community Max project at Tiria Falls is an opportunity for our young people to be skilled in building with natural materials and perhaps contribute to the project.”

NorthTec tutor Varron Armstrong says he hopes to bring his students to work at the site once a week and Peter is hoping to bring his students over once or twice a month.

The Tiria Falls site has become a real magnet for the local community and everyone is excited by the work that is taking place there. “Everyone in the Moerewa is aware of it, “said Varron, “it’s really, really awesome for our community.”

“It’s great to be doing more community-focused projects that suite the local economic climate,” said NorthTec tutor Peter Whitehouse. “This whare cost less than $200 to build. It could be a very viable way for people to build while not getting caught up in the mortgage cycle. Low cost housing is a way for the building industry to support communities, for example those who would like to build on whanau land, but unfortunately the building code currently does have room for this kind of building. I would like to see owner-built houses with their own category in the building code.”

Local kura teacher Maryrose Houston from Te Kura Kaupapa o Taumarere brought some of her students to the falls for the day to get inspiration and information about the river for a play that they will be devising to present at a regional competition in Whangarei in June. “There are locals here today who know a lot about the river and gave a korero to the students about what it used to be like.”

Everyone at the falls enjoyed a shared lunch prepared in the adobe wood-fired oven on site, before returning to their mahi for the afternoon.

NorthTec is the Tai Tokerau (Northland) region's largest provider of tertiary education, with campuses and learning centres in Whangarei, Kerikeri, Rāwene, Dargaville, Kaikohe and Kaitaia. NorthTec also has over 60 community-based delivery points from Coatesville in rural Rodney to Ngataki in the Far North.

ENDS

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