Sarah was raised in a close-knit community in Wainuiomata and attended Wainuiomata High School. Receiving the Graduate Women Wellington Second Year Hutt Valley Scholarship helped to support her undergraduate architecture studies.
Sarah was always interested in the built environment, growing up amidst house renovations with a father who worked in construction and a brother who studied building science at the Faculty of Architecture and Design Innovation.
“I always knew I wanted to go to university,” says Sarah. “At school I was quite into science and maths and also the creative arts. I thought architecture was a nice middle ground where you can express yourself through creativity but still use pragmatic systems and numbers.”
Now in her final year of a Master’s degree, Sarah is investigating how to translate the intangible values of Samoan culture into architecture in New Zealand to foster connection and belonging for Pasifika communities.
“Growing up in New Zealand, I can’t think of a place that helped me connect to my culture. My goal is to create architecture that helps our communities learn about and stay connected to their culture and feel like they belong in a place.
“I want to challenge the way we look at Pasifika architectural design in New Zealand—not just adapting a fale and making it a little bit different but really making the architecture speak for itself and creating something that can be used in communities in years to come.”
The Warren and Mahoney Māori and Pasifika Scholarship for MIA and Masters of Architecture (Professional) gave Sarah the opportunity to spend three weeks in Samoa researching her thesis in many villages including her family villages of Tanugamanono and Lelepa. She was privileged to speak to elders and matai (chiefs), participate in ceremonies, and learn about the traditional arts of siapo (tapa cloth) and lalaga (weaving).
She even got to experience the process of making a siapo cloth in the traditional way.
“The care and the time they put into such a beautiful piece of artwork is amazing. It's quite common for the techniques to be modernised with new technology, but they took me through the traditional method, using shells to get the water out.”
Sarah found that experiencing the day-to-day life in the villages allowed her to grasp in a deeper way what it means to be Samoan.
“They really value pausing and taking time to appreciate the things that you have. As long as you’ve got a roof over your head, that's all you need. They live off the land, and the community is everything, along with the values of respect and service.”
Once she graduates, Sarah hopes to enter the architecture industry, gain some experience and be part of some meaningful projects in the communities.
She has already had an internship with Central Pacific Collective working on ‘Our Whare Our Fale,’ an affordable housing project for the Pasifika community in Porirua’s eastern suburbs.
“It was great to be a part of a project like that, which is directly benefiting communities in the real world—that’s the direction I'd like to go in.”
Sarah is Treasurer and co-founder of the newly formed Te Aro Pasifika Students Association (TAPSA). She is delighted that they now have a new room, Vā Moana, for Pasifika students on the Te Aro campus. She gives credit to the faculty for offering the new room and for the nurturing study environment they provide.
“It's really special to have our own space for our people. As I’ve been a student here for five years, the Faculty of Architecture and Design Innovation now feels like home to me!”