Jasmax 81 Ngā Tāngata Tiaki o Whanganui Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi HAUMI Rauponga Typeface for New Zealand Pavilion at Expo 2020, Dubai

Credits
  • Pou Auaha / Creative Director
    Haumi
  • Ringatoi Matua / Design Director
    Jasmax
  • Ngā Kaimahi / Team Members
    Ngā Tāngata Tiaki o Whanganui, Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi, Turner & Townsend, Lightworks, Workshop e, Special Group, Neumann & Mueller, Kaynemaile, Ngā Tāngata Tiaki o Whanganui, Mott Macdonald, NZTE
  • Kaitautoko / Contributor
    Rimond Middle East General Contracting
  • Client
    New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE)
Description:

Themed ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future’, Expo 2020 Dubai is a major international exposition hosted by the United Arab Emirates bringing together almost two hundred countries over a six-month event finishing at the end of March 2022.

With envoy nations erecting pavilions to support trade and enterprise, the client brief was to showcase New Zealand innovation and environmental leadership to the world. The design theme of the New Zealand Pavilion is kaitiakitanga, our care for people and place, for future generations. The rich and engaging visitor experience showcases New Zealand’s approach to addressing the environmental challenges the world is facing and creating innovative solutions to overcome them.

The pavilion creates a memorable and interactive visitor experience alongside flexible hosting spaces accommodating multiple uses. The design combines interactive digital technologies, architecture, sound, water, light, kinetic movement and even vibration, to create a visceral sense of connection with nature.

In stark juxtaposition to the desert site, the New Zealand Pavilion design was inspired by Te Awa Tupua, the Whanganui River, which, in a world first, was accorded legal personhood status in 2017. The pavilion’s cool, darkened interior provides immediate respite from the desert sun, and a sequence of visitor experience rooms inspired by Te Awa Tupua and how New Zealand is a national of innovators who care for people and place. For a pavilion designed to be visited by hundreds of thousands of people, the main sustainability goal was communicating the theme of kaitiakitanga and ultimately changing people’s awareness of their impact on and relationship to the environment inspired by the Whanganui iwi’s whakatauki ‘Ko au te awa, ko te awa ko au / I am the river, the river is me’.

Another organising idea for the pavilion stems from the form and meaning of the Waka Huia – ornately carved timber vessels entrusted to Maori tribal chiefs. These treasure containers held valuable objects such as feathers and carved greenstone that symbolised the history of their iwi or tribe. Waka Huia were gifted between tribes and other dignitaries to strengthen alliances and mutual understanding.

The pattern language for the Expo typeface called Rauponga, is referenced from the intricately carved elements visible on Waka Huia.

Pākati (diamond notches) and Haehae (parallel cuts) are symbols of kaitiakitanga (guardianship). The carved ridgelines (raumoa) between the Pākati cuts are also symbolic of water and relate to the central narrative of the Pavilion which centres on Te Awa Tupua, the legislation which gives personhood to the Whanganui River.

The Rauponga design which brings together both Pākati and Haehae) is derived from the ribs and leaf of a fern and draws connection of the Waka Huia to the land and builds upon the key idea behind the Pavilion of care for people and place.