Integrating tikanga within the visitor experience
The new spaces within Te Ao Mārama support the enactment of tikanga (cultural protocols). The reconfigured atrium accommodates multiple uses with architectural devices to enable concurrent activities and events, such as screening elements, ceremonial doors, lighting and acoustic treatments, which are all elevated into iconic motifs. The glowing underside of the tanoa bowl references pacific navigation and radial geometries, with the design centring visitors (manuhiri) within Te Ao Mārama, orientating them to their place in Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa, and the South Pacific.
Waiting spaces, like eddies, flow off the boulevards with built-in seating at new lift lobbies. The ceremonial gateway into the south atrium is demarcated by the cultural artwork of Te Tatau Kaitiaki by Graham Tipene and the twin Wahi Whakanoa by Chris Bailey, which nest into the architectural niches adjacent to the exits allowing for the removal of tapu on departure.
