Description:

This thesis asks how healthcare and healthcare built environments might be re-indigenised to better support Māori health and wellbeing. Particularly the research explores how a process of re-indigenisation might inform the design of a new infusion and wellbeing clinic. With a future-focus, the study also asks how re-indigenised healthcare spaces could contribute positively to urban futures and environments more broadly.

The study looks at long-standing Indigenous beliefs on health and wellness and investigates the relationship between Indigenous knowledge and architectural design for healthcare. Indigenous health perspectives, profoundly founded in their relationship with the environment, shape spatial notions, underlining the significant link between Indigenous knowledge systems and spatial thinking.

This research closely discusses Māori holistic health approaches and the disparities in healthcare and highlights deep health imbalances between Māori and non-Māori populations and the need for holistic Indigenous health approaches. The thesis focuses on re-indigenising healthcare at the Greenlane Clinical Service Centre in central Tāmaki-makau-rau, proposing an infusion/wellbeing centre as a proof-of-concept. The study addresses how this approach can connect Indigenous knowledge systems with urban development by incorporating sustainist design principles, which were introduced by academics Michiel Schwarz and Diana Krabbendam as principles that connect social and ecological sustainability, that strategise sustainable innovation and social design to improve Māori health services and well-being while celebrating cultural significance.

This study highlights architecture’s transformative ability in healthcare, emphasising its role in re-indigenising the sector, addressing current imbalances, and supporting holistic wellbeing through culturally sensitive design. Furthermore, the thesis broadens its focus to include a revitalised healthcare industry’s broader urban well-being consequences.