#001 - First steps.
Ko Ruapehu tōku maunga
Ko Te Wairoa Hōpūpū Hōnengenenge Matangirau tōku awa
Ko Takitimu tōku waka
Ko Ngāti Rangi me Ngāti Kahungunu ōku iwi
Ko Rongomaiwahine tōku hapū
Taking shape.
Kāinga Studio began as a way to stay connected to home while living overseas.
What started as a personal journey has slowly grown into something more — a space to explore connection, identity, and quiet moments. It became a grounding ritual, giving me time to reflect and reconnect, keeping that connection to home tethered, even from afar.
Through that process, I found myself returning to patterns and forms I hadn’t thought about in a long time.
I began researching tāniko and traditional weaving — the repetition, the rhythm, and the meaning carried through each pattern.
Sketching the stitches playing around with the forms.
It wasn't just design for me. It was a way of understanding connection again — to people, to place, and to something beyond us.
While sitting in that space, memories start to return.
It’s been years since I’ve been back to my nanny’s marae, Maungārongo in Ōhakune, but time spent reflecting and researching brought it all back — playing knuckle bones with my cousins, the sound of the karakia bell, lying on one of the many mattresses staring at the woven patterns, whispering secrets and giggling at bedtime, only to get a growling for still being awake. It was a time when life felt simpler.
With that, I began to feel a sense of gratitude in slowing down. This research became a way of reflecting — an unplanned kind of meditation — reminding me of my kāinga and my whānau in Mahia, where instead of a watch, life moves with the tide and the sunset.
When I'm back there, it feels different. Life slows down without needing to try. Days are spent with whānau — setting eel nets and whitebaiting along the river, gathering pipi at the beach, and just being present, close to te taiao. It’s simple, but it’s grounding. That rhythm, that way of being, is something I’ve come to value even more so the further away I am from it.
In the process, I realised what I was drawn to wasnt just the patterns or sketching.
It was the stillness, the act of reflecting and just being present.
That influence now sits within Kāinga Studio as its core foundation.
My connection to this has always been there — through my kāinga, my marae, and the ancestors that continue to shape us.
This is something I’ll continue to build slowly.
This is where it begins to take shape.
A slow process, built with intention.
— From the studio.