Hi Tim,

this does sound cool & it'd be great to do some things that acknowledged that Māori were walking on this land long before the school was ever thought of (there is even a te reo name for this ridge that we're on (I think it might be te rara = 'the rib' - with upper Mornington being 'the shoulder'. Or I might be misremembering something I read on the history of Mornington way back when we first purchased this site ;). Acknowledging tangata whenua would be a good counter-narrative to the extremely colonialistic message on top of the arch with its cry of 'When the Empire Calls' emblazoned across.

I wonder too if there's room for both ideas? - its quite a big space. Could the pou whenua go on the eastern & western edges of the garden to frame the whole space (when seen from Alva St)? Or on the two corners of the western end as you enter off the Alva St driveway - as kind of gateway into the garden, almost like a pā entrance? (Of course we also have to be careful about accidentally stumbling into 'cultural appropriation without permission'. We might need to ask the Kai Tahu folk who gifted us our name for their blessing on this).

Or: perhaps it's the trellis & climbers that could be in another space in the peace garden? e.g. From Alva St there's a very large blank canvas (i.e. the wall of our house!) that could be draped with something beautiful, and become a living backdrop for the Peace Garden.

What ever we do overall it'd surely be good to provide a counter narrative to the imperialist narrative of the war arch with its excruciating cry of 'When the Empire Calls'. A siren cry that called ten million young men (& ten million non-combatants) to their horrible deaths. It was the cry of two supposedly christian empires going at each others throats, with the chaplains on both sides praying that god would bless their righteous causes.

It was fascinating to read the report Heritage NZ (Susan Irvine) wrote about the arch, leading up to the covenant being granted: that a lot of servicemen returning from the war were furious about so much money being wasted on these monuments instead of being used to help the widows, orphans & families whose lives had been wrecked by the carnage of the war.

So yes, I like the pou whenua idea (& the climbing, flowering plants idea! :). These are great ideas so let's all keep talking & brainstorming till we come up with something really beautiful & appropriate for the space. There's no rush (apart from wanting to get the best use out of the post-hole digger this weekend).

ngā mihi

Kristin

"Don't waste your life in doubts and fears; spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour's duties will be the best preparation for the hours and ages that will follow it". Ralph Waldo Emerson

On Tuesday, 20 April 2021, 04:56:01 PM NZST, Tim Ross <tim@architype.co.nz> wrote:

Hi Kristin,

Perhaps rather than trellis we could do something sculptural as a focus for the space.

I think we could do something quite cool with a cluster of standing posts (pou whenua) of varying heights in the space behind the arch.

We already have posts that we could use.

Tim.

On Tue, Apr 20, 2021 at 10:05 AM Susan and Kristin Jack <susan_kristin@yahoo.com> wrote:

Hi Tim (& Toiora, esp. the landscaping/gardening teams),

I have an idea I would like to propose for the Peace Garden (that would involve using the auger/post hole maker while it's here) so we can at least transform the back-side of the war mem. arch into something more beautiful & evocative of peace. I know we cant touch the arch itself (or the front of it obviously) but I'd like to propose we put trellising up behind it & parallel with the two up-right columns & joined by a horizontal trellis (parallel with the horizontal beam of the arch) at the top so that we can grow something beautiful and alive up this trellising (e.g. white climbing roses, clematis - whatever we decide). Not sure how many inches the trellis's need to be set back from the arch to ensure that we are not touching the arch itself.

The exact shape of this can be decided down the track (although it might make sense to build it around the same time as the pergolas), but certainly while we have the auger here we could make use of it to put post holes in for the posts that would be needed to support the trellising. Anything we do would certainly improve the look of the arch from behind as it's currently really ugly!

People might want to come by & have a look at the back of the arch & dream some dreams....

ngā mihi

Kristin

"Don't waste your life in doubts and fears; spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour's duties will be the best preparation for the hours and ages that will follow it". Ralph Waldo Emerson

On Monday, 19 April 2021, 09:37:04 PM NZST, Tim Ross <tim@architype.co.nz> wrote:

Hi All,

As discussed at the group meeting a few weeks back we agreed to hire a small electric digger with auger bits to dig the fence post holes for the patio fences and holes for the pergolas.

The timber for the fences and pergolas is arriving shortly and the plan is to use the sleepers that we already have for most of the the fence posts. We also have a concrete mixer though this needs to be assembled. So I think now is the time to organise the hire of the digger.

If no one has any objections I plan to book this to arrive this weekend. We will have it for 10 days. I am hoping we can dig all the holes we need plus use it to spread the top soil in the agricultural area.

If we can get it around to the Montpellier Street side we could even use it the to do some of the cleaning up we need to do on that side.

Cheers,

Tim.

--

Tim Ross
Director
BArch, ANZIA Registered Architect
Certified Passivhaus Designer

Architype Ltd.
ASB House, Level 6
248 Cumberland Street
PO Box 5510, Dunedin 9058

(m) 021 069 2404
(t) 03 552 0621
www.architype.co.nz

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