Margaret McCurry Lectureship in the Design Arts: Jade Kake, “Indigenous Urbanism”

Drawing of a series of buildings scattered along a lush landscape under a blue sky with clouds.

Registration Information
The GSD’s Fall 2021 Public Programs are all virtual and require registration.

Click here to register for Margaret McCurry Lectureship in the Design Arts: Jade Kake, “Indigenous Urbanism”.

The event will also be live streamed to the Harvard GSD YouTube page. Only viewers who are attending the lecture via Zoom will be able to submit questions for the Q+A. If you would like to submit questions for the speaker in advance of the event, please click here.

Live captioning will be provided during this event. 

Event Description

Jade Kake (Ngāpuhi, Te Arawa, Te Whakatōhea) leads a small team at Matakohe Architecture + Urbanism, a kaupapa Māori design studio based in Whangārei in the Te Tai Tokerau region of Aotearoa New Zealand. The architectural department of the studio is focused on working primarily with Māori community clients on their papakāinga, marae, commercial and community projects, whilst the pūrākau (culture narrative) integration strand focuses on working to facilitate meaningful hapū participation in the design of major civic, commercial and education projects within their rohe. Matakohe are also involved in cultural landscape research and the development of digital tools. In the talk, Jade will present a number of recent projects, as well as reflecting on the philosophy behind Matakohe and approach to practice.

After Jade’s lecture, she will be joined in conversation by Grant Fahlgren, Elyjana Roach and Zoe Toledo from the Harvard Indigenous Design Collective and by Dan D’Oca, GSD Assistant Professor in Practice of Urban Planning.

This event is organized in partnership with the Harvard Indigenous Design Collective.

Speaker

Black and white photograph of Jade Kake, who wears a black shirt and patterned skirt. She has long hair and stands in front of a white building, outdoors.
Photo by Monique Lively

Jade Kake was born on Bundjalung Country, and received her training in architecture at the University of Queensland and UNITEC Institute of Technology in Auckland. Of Māori and Dutch descent, her tribal affiliations are NgāpuhiTe Whakatōhea and Te Arawa. She leads a small team at Matakohe Architecture and Urbanism, a Whangārei-based design studio which she founded in mid-2018. Matakohe works with Māori organisations to progress their multi-residential, community and commercial projects, and with mana whenua (local tribal) groups to express their values, aspirations and narratives in the design of civic, commercial and education projects within their rohe (tribal area).  
 
In 2018, she hosted and produced Indigenous Urbanism, a podcast about the spaces we inhabit, and the community drivers and practitioners who are shaping these environments and decolonising through design. She has written for a variety of housing and architecture magazines and contributed chapters to several books on architecture and urbanism.  

Follow Jade Kake on Twitter and Instagram.

Anyone requiring accessibility accommodations should contact the Public Programs Office at (617) 496-2414 or [email protected].

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