Description:

Lake Ōhau is a small alpine community located between the Canterbury and Otago districts within the Mckenzie High Country. The intrinsic biodiverse nature of the Ōhau environs is regarded as a complex mosaic of habitats that houses an array of indigenous and at-risk species. The Lake Ōhau village is made up of a community that deeply respects and values these qualities.

In October 2020, a wildfire swept through the Ōhau Valley, destroying 48 homes and 5034 hectares of valued land. In response to the ecological trauma, this project works alongside the Ōhau Community Trust's goals to restore community and environmental health.

The Multispecies Community is situated within a more than human ideology, it draws focus to how we might reframe our built environment to support cohabitation. To support this ideology the Ōhau Community Trusts goals to; enhance, connect and restore have enforced the narrative and intent of the community structure.

Derived from vernacular architecture the building has a split functionality. The front structure ‘addressing the lake' acts as a social space to hold meetings, events and general socialising. It allows residents to partake in habitat restoration, trapping and fire safety workshops providing them with the means to educate and understand necessary actions to restore the environs. The rear structure ‘blended into the hill’ acts as a space for the propagation and cultivation of indigenous plants. Through workshopping held by the Trust community members will tend to vegetation and partake in regenerating the land back to a pre-fire state.

While facilitating human function the structure supports predator-free habitation for indigenous and endangered species inhabiting the environs. Detailed insertions have been built into the structure to protect and enhance native bird, lizard and bee species.

The Multispecies Community offers village residents a space to uphold their shared values. It facilitates them with the tools to enhance and restore the post-fire-damaged landscape and the multispecies within. Allowing residents to support the regeneration of the post-fire-damaged landscape to aid in the healing of shared ecological trauma.