The role of design

Every project

begins with a question

What might this place become, and who should shape it? Design is not decoration applied at the end of that process; it is the process.

Deep understanding

Each Pae is a commission, developed in close dialogue between the trust, the designer, Mana Whenua, and the community of place.

To understand what a place might become, you first have to understand what it has been – the histories held in the land, the stories carried by the people connected to it, the losses and the survivals that have shaped it into what it is today. That understanding is the foundation on which each design is built.

Made for a place

The result is an object made for a specific location, a specific moment in history, and the thousand years that follow. It cannot be moved, replicated, or mass-produced. That singularity is the point.

Our design panel

Paererewā works with a curated panel of Aotearoa's finest designers and makers — people who understand that a Pae must earn its place. The design brief asks them to think across time: not just how the object will look on the day of installation, but how it will weather, how it will be experienced, how the plants around it will grow, how the stories attached to it will deepen.

In this way, each Pae is both a product of its time and a gift to times that we cannot yet imagine.

The design process

A Pae moves through several distinct phases. The path is rarely perfectly linear – but the broad shape of the journey looks something like this.

1 A place is identified

Someone – an individual, a whānau, a council, or a community group – brings forward a location they believe deserves a pae. The trust works with local stakeholders to assess whether the site carries the right conditions: a meaningful place, a willing community, and the foundations for long-term care.

2 Mana Whenua are engaged

The people with mana over the land are consulted. Their knowledge of the site's histories and significance shapes everything that follows.

3 A designer is selected

A designer is chosen from the Paererewā panel. A brief is developed together with all parties – not a specification, but a set of questions about place, material, time, and use.

4 Concept design

The designer develops an initial response to the brief – early drawings, material thinking, a sense of form and feeling. This is where the idea of the Pae first becomes visible.

5 Fundraising

With a concept in hand, the work of securing funding begins. This may involve philanthropic donors, community fundraising, council support, or a combination. Some Pae take longer to fund than to design.

6 Developed design

The concept is resolved into full detail – engineering, structural review, material specifications, and where required, building consent. The Pae moves from idea to something that can be built.

7 The Pae is made

Fabrication is undertaken by New Zealand makers, chosen for their craft and their understanding of the materials involved.

8 The Pae is installed

Installation is both a culmination and a beginning – the end of one process and the start of a life expected to span centuries.

9 The story is added to the network

Each completed Pae is documented and added to the Paererewā map, becoming part of a growing record of Aotearoa's commitment to place.

Our Thinking - at the intersection of time, place and people

We live faster than ever, and more apart than ever. A Pae is a small act of resistance to that. A place to sit, and to be a human being among others, in a particular place, for a moment. Each Pae is made to outlast everyone who builds it. The land around it will change. The Pae stays still, and bears witness. Each site presents an invitation to participate in a project rooted in long-term thinking. The community that gathers around a Pae does what few communities do: consider the 1,000-year future of a place. A Pae enables a community voice or vision to be realised in the world - and a place to sit or rest. Each of these communities becomes part of the larger, national Paererewā community. Together they create a cross-generational vision of the place, inviting and encouraging visitors to experience this unique concept of time. Paererewā will commemorate the wairua (energy) of place. They offer a way to acknowledge and create places to be known and become meaningful statements of identity, history, place and community The human is part of the artwork. A Pae is only complete when someone sits on it. It is not a monument to look at. It is a threshold to cross, again and again, by anyone who comes.