Drainage codes exist to provide appropriate and safe means of disposal of effluent from buildings. If it is seen that those codes may not be written in a way which leads to an assured appropriate outcome, then they need to be questioned. Accordingly, this thesis follows up on the author's concerns regarding the approach taken to the layout of drainage under today's building regulatory regime. Under the New Zealand Building Code any standards may be used or any approach may be taken to methods of building, drainage and plumbing, providing the approach used can be justified as complying with the non-prescriptive objectives and performance requirements of the Building Code. Under this approach drains are now being installed more often under buildings with their maintenance access points within the building. This situation, and the consequent likely emission of microbiological aerosols, are cause for concern: that is the airborne release of microscopic particles. The "Report of the Departmental Committee - Intercepting Traps in House Drains" of 1912 from the UK, parts of which are quoted in Section 7.0, reinforced these concerns of the author. But these concerns were not shared by many others who have a major influence on the form and shape of our buildings, and it was assumed that current code requirements may not have been based on any significant research. Based on a relatively widespread lack of knowledge, there was a scenario of doubt and denial as to whether or not there were shortcomings in current code requirements in New Zealand. This provided incentive for the research project within this thesis, on the basis that there may be encouragement for future code requirements to be based on even more research in order to confirm their validity. This thesis demonstrates that the ambiguity in existing approved methods of compliance with current building codes fails to adequately protect the populace from adverse potential health effects. / Whole document restricted, but available by request, use the feedback form to request access.

Polynesian architecture has tended to be neglected or dismissed as a field of serious study by architects in New Zealand. This is also true of the indigenous art forms in general, which have been the source of substantial scholarship by ethnologists; scholarship of which art specialists, are often unaware. The result is that apart from monographs with an ethnological viewpoint, the treatment of indigenous architecture has been superficial at best.

The principle and policy of self-determination holds that Aboriginal people should have the right to pursue a lifestyle of their choosing and to have control over their interactions with the wider society. Self-determination policy has been in place at a federal level since the 1970’s, yet after thirty years of implementation, there is considerable disarray and disagreement over its merits. This study investigated the transactions of decision-makers as they practised two of the main policy instruments of self-determination: participatory planning and self-governance. The research settings were Mapoon and Kowanyama, two discrete Indigenous settlements on the West Coast of Cape York Peninsula, in the state of Queensland, northern Australia. Three typologies for settlements, planning, and organisations were established, which gave the context for the study, as well as a basis from which to generalise findings. From the types of planning in practice, a participatory plan at Mapoon was singled out for further study since it specifically recreated the language of self-determination. The Mapoon Plan was found to be successful technically, but it fell short of its stated social development goals. Planning proved to be a highly politicised and idealised activity, brokered by external consultants. The complex interplay among knowledge, ideology and politics, as observed, could not be described in terms of two separate domains, but rather in terms of intercultural production across an interethnic field. The anthropological literature tended to treat Aboriginal polities as cultural isolates, situated within administrative vacuums. To progress the study, it became necessary to apply a functional and administrative rationality to what needed to be done in practice. Twenty case studies of decision-making forums were analysed in the main research setting of Kowanyama. Each involved the contemporary practice of self-determination, as local decision-makers engaged with the wider society. In the majority of cases, all six proposed factors were found to be necessary, but not sufficient, for success: (1) participation, (2) technical expertise, (3) negotiation, (4) institutional capacity, (5) focal driver, and (6) jurisdictional devolution. A typology of actors was established to define the different decision-makers involved. Of the 600 adults in Kowanyama, only 30 were found to be actively involved in decision-making. This was unexpectedly low given the quantity of government activity purporting to further Kowanyama’s self-determination. Six determinants were found to influence the level of participation: efficacy in practice, jurisdictional devolution, representativeness, function, informality, language and motivation. In particular, form followed function, whereby the function of a decision-making forum decided the level of participation that was appropriate. Contrary to accounts in the anthropological literature, the study found a fledgling system of representation in Kowanyama, complete with informal ‘extra-constitutional’ checks and balances. Factions were a powerful aspect of Kowanyama society, but they did not monopolise politics. The local polity was better conceptualised in terms of its political pluralism, encompassing a complex array of balancing and competing interests. Significantly, constituents were beginning to exert local political influence over their leaders. The analysis found that notions of ‘community control,’ as promulgated in the community development literature, were not adequate to explain the intercultural production underway. The full spectrum of participation was relevant to the actors of governance, from political activism to ambivalent apathy. Community control was found in the absence of government interventions, imbedded within informal institutions and cultural norms. Yet, introduced political structures, including Councils, were no less a part of the local political arena. The notion of governance better encapsulated the array of decision-making activities and actors occurring across a broad range of institutional positions. The study documented multiple dilemmas and indeterminacies as actors practised self-determination in the interethnic field, especially the interplay between local and external ideologies and knowledge. All of the examples of political innovation in the contemporary history of governance in Kowanyama involved productive social contexts developing locally between leaders and trusted outsiders. The complexity of problems and their solutions were only revealed through practice, one step at a time. Successful initiatives in Kowanyama were to a degree inadvertent; it was not until the end that actors understood what they had done right or wrong. Significantly, political innovation occurred in practice, often without any active intervention by government. Ironically, one of the greatest obstacles limiting local capacity was the size of the task of administering the programs of self-determination. An accepted role for leaders and employees was radical action to manipulate the system and to create the institutional space to permit the subjects of self-determination to participate. The analysis suggested that the importance assigned to government policy, legislation, and structure has fallen out of balance with their actual practice. Rather than fixating on policy solutions to self-determination, policy-makers should be focusing more on creating an enabling framework for practice. The six success factors proven in the study give the basis for such a framework.

The principle and policy of self-determination holds that Aboriginal people should have the right to pursue a lifestyle of their choosing and to have control over their interactions with the wider society. Self-determination policy has been in place at a federal level since the 1970’s, yet after thirty years of implementation, there is considerable disarray and disagreement over its merits. This study investigated the transactions of decision-makers as they practised two of the main policy instruments of self-determination: participatory planning and self-governance. The research settings were Mapoon and Kowanyama, two discrete Indigenous settlements on the West Coast of Cape York Peninsula, in the state of Queensland, northern Australia. Three typologies for settlements, planning, and organisations were established, which gave the context for the study, as well as a basis from which to generalise findings. From the types of planning in practice, a participatory plan at Mapoon was singled out for further study since it specifically recreated the language of self-determination. The Mapoon Plan was found to be successful technically, but it fell short of its stated social development goals. Planning proved to be a highly politicised and idealised activity, brokered by external consultants. The complex interplay among knowledge, ideology and politics, as observed, could not be described in terms of two separate domains, but rather in terms of intercultural production across an interethnic field. The anthropological literature tended to treat Aboriginal polities as cultural isolates, situated within administrative vacuums. To progress the study, it became necessary to apply a functional and administrative rationality to what needed to be done in practice. Twenty case studies of decision-making forums were analysed in the main research setting of Kowanyama. Each involved the contemporary practice of self-determination, as local decision-makers engaged with the wider society. In the majority of cases, all six proposed factors were found to be necessary, but not sufficient, for success: (1) participation, (2) technical expertise, (3) negotiation, (4) institutional capacity, (5) focal driver, and (6) jurisdictional devolution. A typology of actors was established to define the different decision-makers involved. Of the 600 adults in Kowanyama, only 30 were found to be actively involved in decision-making. This was unexpectedly low given the quantity of government activity purporting to further Kowanyama’s self-determination. Six determinants were found to influence the level of participation: efficacy in practice, jurisdictional devolution, representativeness, function, informality, language and motivation. In particular, form followed function, whereby the function of a decision-making forum decided the level of participation that was appropriate. Contrary to accounts in the anthropological literature, the study found a fledgling system of representation in Kowanyama, complete with informal ‘extra-constitutional’ checks and balances. Factions were a powerful aspect of Kowanyama society, but they did not monopolise politics. The local polity was better conceptualised in terms of its political pluralism, encompassing a complex array of balancing and competing interests. Significantly, constituents were beginning to exert local political influence over their leaders. The analysis found that notions of ‘community control,’ as promulgated in the community development literature, were not adequate to explain the intercultural production underway. The full spectrum of participation was relevant to the actors of governance, from political activism to ambivalent apathy. Community control was found in the absence of government interventions, imbedded within informal institutions and cultural norms. Yet, introduced political structures, including Councils, were no less a part of the local political arena. The notion of governance better encapsulated the array of decision-making activities and actors occurring across a broad range of institutional positions. The study documented multiple dilemmas and indeterminacies as actors practised self-determination in the interethnic field, especially the interplay between local and external ideologies and knowledge. All of the examples of political innovation in the contemporary history of governance in Kowanyama involved productive social contexts developing locally between leaders and trusted outsiders. The complexity of problems and their solutions were only revealed through practice, one step at a time. Successful initiatives in Kowanyama were to a degree inadvertent; it was not until the end that actors understood what they had done right or wrong. Significantly, political innovation occurred in practice, often without any active intervention by government. Ironically, one of the greatest obstacles limiting local capacity was the size of the task of administering the programs of self-determination. An accepted role for leaders and employees was radical action to manipulate the system and to create the institutional space to permit the subjects of self-determination to participate. The analysis suggested that the importance assigned to government policy, legislation, and structure has fallen out of balance with their actual practice. Rather than fixating on policy solutions to self-determination, policy-makers should be focusing more on creating an enabling framework for practice. The six success factors proven in the study give the basis for such a framework.

The principle and policy of self-determination holds that Aboriginal people should have the right to pursue a lifestyle of their choosing and to have control over their interactions with the wider society. Self-determination policy has been in place at a federal level since the 1970’s, yet after thirty years of implementation, there is considerable disarray and disagreement over its merits. This study investigated the transactions of decision-makers as they practised two of the main policy instruments of self-determination: participatory planning and self-governance. The research settings were Mapoon and Kowanyama, two discrete Indigenous settlements on the West Coast of Cape York Peninsula, in the state of Queensland, northern Australia. Three typologies for settlements, planning, and organisations were established, which gave the context for the study, as well as a basis from which to generalise findings. From the types of planning in practice, a participatory plan at Mapoon was singled out for further study since it specifically recreated the language of self-determination. The Mapoon Plan was found to be successful technically, but it fell short of its stated social development goals. Planning proved to be a highly politicised and idealised activity, brokered by external consultants. The complex interplay among knowledge, ideology and politics, as observed, could not be described in terms of two separate domains, but rather in terms of intercultural production across an interethnic field. The anthropological literature tended to treat Aboriginal polities as cultural isolates, situated within administrative vacuums. To progress the study, it became necessary to apply a functional and administrative rationality to what needed to be done in practice. Twenty case studies of decision-making forums were analysed in the main research setting of Kowanyama. Each involved the contemporary practice of self-determination, as local decision-makers engaged with the wider society. In the majority of cases, all six proposed factors were found to be necessary, but not sufficient, for success: (1) participation, (2) technical expertise, (3) negotiation, (4) institutional capacity, (5) focal driver, and (6) jurisdictional devolution. A typology of actors was established to define the different decision-makers involved. Of the 600 adults in Kowanyama, only 30 were found to be actively involved in decision-making. This was unexpectedly low given the quantity of government activity purporting to further Kowanyama’s self-determination. Six determinants were found to influence the level of participation: efficacy in practice, jurisdictional devolution, representativeness, function, informality, language and motivation. In particular, form followed function, whereby the function of a decision-making forum decided the level of participation that was appropriate. Contrary to accounts in the anthropological literature, the study found a fledgling system of representation in Kowanyama, complete with informal ‘extra-constitutional’ checks and balances. Factions were a powerful aspect of Kowanyama society, but they did not monopolise politics. The local polity was better conceptualised in terms of its political pluralism, encompassing a complex array of balancing and competing interests. Significantly, constituents were beginning to exert local political influence over their leaders. The analysis found that notions of ‘community control,’ as promulgated in the community development literature, were not adequate to explain the intercultural production underway. The full spectrum of participation was relevant to the actors of governance, from political activism to ambivalent apathy. Community control was found in the absence of government interventions, imbedded within informal institutions and cultural norms. Yet, introduced political structures, including Councils, were no less a part of the local political arena. The notion of governance better encapsulated the array of decision-making activities and actors occurring across a broad range of institutional positions. The study documented multiple dilemmas and indeterminacies as actors practised self-determination in the interethnic field, especially the interplay between local and external ideologies and knowledge. All of the examples of political innovation in the contemporary history of governance in Kowanyama involved productive social contexts developing locally between leaders and trusted outsiders. The complexity of problems and their solutions were only revealed through practice, one step at a time. Successful initiatives in Kowanyama were to a degree inadvertent; it was not until the end that actors understood what they had done right or wrong. Significantly, political innovation occurred in practice, often without any active intervention by government. Ironically, one of the greatest obstacles limiting local capacity was the size of the task of administering the programs of self-determination. An accepted role for leaders and employees was radical action to manipulate the system and to create the institutional space to permit the subjects of self-determination to participate. The analysis suggested that the importance assigned to government policy, legislation, and structure has fallen out of balance with their actual practice. Rather than fixating on policy solutions to self-determination, policy-makers should be focusing more on creating an enabling framework for practice. The six success factors proven in the study give the basis for such a framework.

Drainage codes exist to provide appropriate and safe means of disposal of effluent from buildings. If it is seen that those codes may not be written in a way which leads to an assured appropriate outcome, then they need to be questioned. Accordingly, this thesis follows up on the author's concerns regarding the approach taken to the layout of drainage under today's building regulatory regime. Under the New Zealand Building Code any standards may be used or any approach may be taken to methods of building, drainage and plumbing, providing the approach used can be justified as complying with the non-prescriptive objectives and performance requirements of the Building Code. Under this approach drains are now being installed more often under buildings with their maintenance access points within the building. This situation, and the consequent likely emission of microbiological aerosols, are cause for concern: that is the airborne release of microscopic particles. The "Report of the Departmental Committee - Intercepting Traps in House Drains" of 1912 from the UK, parts of which are quoted in Section 7.0, reinforced these concerns of the author. But these concerns were not shared by many others who have a major influence on the form and shape of our buildings, and it was assumed that current code requirements may not have been based on any significant research. Based on a relatively widespread lack of knowledge, there was a scenario of doubt and denial as to whether or not there were shortcomings in current code requirements in New Zealand. This provided incentive for the research project within this thesis, on the basis that there may be encouragement for future code requirements to be based on even more research in order to confirm their validity. This thesis demonstrates that the ambiguity in existing approved methods of compliance with current building codes fails to adequately protect the populace from adverse potential health effects. / Whole document restricted, but available by request, use the feedback form to request access.

Drainage codes exist to provide appropriate and safe means of disposal of effluent from buildings. If it is seen that those codes may not be written in a way which leads to an assured appropriate outcome, then they need to be questioned. Accordingly, this thesis follows up on the author's concerns regarding the approach taken to the layout of drainage under today's building regulatory regime. Under the New Zealand Building Code any standards may be used or any approach may be taken to methods of building, drainage and plumbing, providing the approach used can be justified as complying with the non-prescriptive objectives and performance requirements of the Building Code. Under this approach drains are now being installed more often under buildings with their maintenance access points within the building. This situation, and the consequent likely emission of microbiological aerosols, are cause for concern: that is the airborne release of microscopic particles. The "Report of the Departmental Committee - Intercepting Traps in House Drains" of 1912 from the UK, parts of which are quoted in Section 7.0, reinforced these concerns of the author. But these concerns were not shared by many others who have a major influence on the form and shape of our buildings, and it was assumed that current code requirements may not have been based on any significant research. Based on a relatively widespread lack of knowledge, there was a scenario of doubt and denial as to whether or not there were shortcomings in current code requirements in New Zealand. This provided incentive for the research project within this thesis, on the basis that there may be encouragement for future code requirements to be based on even more research in order to confirm their validity. This thesis demonstrates that the ambiguity in existing approved methods of compliance with current building codes fails to adequately protect the populace from adverse potential health effects. / Whole document restricted, but available by request, use the feedback form to request access.

The principle and policy of self-determination holds that Aboriginal people should have the right to pursue a lifestyle of their choosing and to have control over their interactions with the wider society. Self-determination policy has been in place at a federal level since the 1970’s, yet after thirty years of implementation, there is considerable disarray and disagreement over its merits. This study investigated the transactions of decision-makers as they practised two of the main policy instruments of self-determination: participatory planning and self-governance. The research settings were Mapoon and Kowanyama, two discrete Indigenous settlements on the West Coast of Cape York Peninsula, in the state of Queensland, northern Australia. Three typologies for settlements, planning, and organisations were established, which gave the context for the study, as well as a basis from which to generalise findings. From the types of planning in practice, a participatory plan at Mapoon was singled out for further study since it specifically recreated the language of self-determination. The Mapoon Plan was found to be successful technically, but it fell short of its stated social development goals. Planning proved to be a highly politicised and idealised activity, brokered by external consultants. The complex interplay among knowledge, ideology and politics, as observed, could not be described in terms of two separate domains, but rather in terms of intercultural production across an interethnic field. The anthropological literature tended to treat Aboriginal polities as cultural isolates, situated within administrative vacuums. To progress the study, it became necessary to apply a functional and administrative rationality to what needed to be done in practice. Twenty case studies of decision-making forums were analysed in the main research setting of Kowanyama. Each involved the contemporary practice of self-determination, as local decision-makers engaged with the wider society. In the majority of cases, all six proposed factors were found to be necessary, but not sufficient, for success: (1) participation, (2) technical expertise, (3) negotiation, (4) institutional capacity, (5) focal driver, and (6) jurisdictional devolution. A typology of actors was established to define the different decision-makers involved. Of the 600 adults in Kowanyama, only 30 were found to be actively involved in decision-making. This was unexpectedly low given the quantity of government activity purporting to further Kowanyama’s self-determination. Six determinants were found to influence the level of participation: efficacy in practice, jurisdictional devolution, representativeness, function, informality, language and motivation. In particular, form followed function, whereby the function of a decision-making forum decided the level of participation that was appropriate. Contrary to accounts in the anthropological literature, the study found a fledgling system of representation in Kowanyama, complete with informal ‘extra-constitutional’ checks and balances. Factions were a powerful aspect of Kowanyama society, but they did not monopolise politics. The local polity was better conceptualised in terms of its political pluralism, encompassing a complex array of balancing and competing interests. Significantly, constituents were beginning to exert local political influence over their leaders. The analysis found that notions of ‘community control,’ as promulgated in the community development literature, were not adequate to explain the intercultural production underway. The full spectrum of participation was relevant to the actors of governance, from political activism to ambivalent apathy. Community control was found in the absence of government interventions, imbedded within informal institutions and cultural norms. Yet, introduced political structures, including Councils, were no less a part of the local political arena. The notion of governance better encapsulated the array of decision-making activities and actors occurring across a broad range of institutional positions. The study documented multiple dilemmas and indeterminacies as actors practised self-determination in the interethnic field, especially the interplay between local and external ideologies and knowledge. All of the examples of political innovation in the contemporary history of governance in Kowanyama involved productive social contexts developing locally between leaders and trusted outsiders. The complexity of problems and their solutions were only revealed through practice, one step at a time. Successful initiatives in Kowanyama were to a degree inadvertent; it was not until the end that actors understood what they had done right or wrong. Significantly, political innovation occurred in practice, often without any active intervention by government. Ironically, one of the greatest obstacles limiting local capacity was the size of the task of administering the programs of self-determination. An accepted role for leaders and employees was radical action to manipulate the system and to create the institutional space to permit the subjects of self-determination to participate. The analysis suggested that the importance assigned to government policy, legislation, and structure has fallen out of balance with their actual practice. Rather than fixating on policy solutions to self-determination, policy-makers should be focusing more on creating an enabling framework for practice. The six success factors proven in the study give the basis for such a framework.

Exploring spatio-temporal flux within architecture, this thesis presents design-based research on the temporal environments of Oceania and Western evental theory. Oceanic thought and Western theories of the event share commonalities, both holding that space and time are inseparable dimensions. This spatio-temporal concept challenges Western philosophical and architectural doxa that privilege stasis over temporal flux, and offers a mode by which to introduce alterity into architectural discourse. I move over these cultural and philosophical grounds in order to explicate and further develop a personal design practice that is of this place and time for, while there is a body of writing that documents Oceanic built environments, there is less research that considers how these may be constituted and communicated through contemporary architectural design. The thesis posits two temporalised environments apparent within Oceanic spatial thought and practice – the shifting and extensive oceanscape, and the telluric groundscape that makes space; and describes two resultant spatial typologies – an oceanspace which is characterised by openness and mobility, and a groundspace which is both surface and space. These contentions are tested and theorised through three architectural experiments developed between 1999 and 2005: the Sounds House, which operates as an open and mutable spatial field; the Ground House, which forms monumental “interiors” that emerge from and relate to the earth; and Tokatea, which blends these two spatialities, fabricating a temporalised environment in between the momentary and the monumental, between interior and exterior. In presenting and discussing these speculative spaces, this thesis moves between architecture and academia, Oceania and the West, the ephemeral and the enduring, and the inside and the outside, with the aim of destabilising architecture’s discursive ground, causing its hermetic boundaries to become temporalised and fluid.

The potential for prefabrication has been sidelined by the process of the design>build>do-it-yourself model of building, maintaining and updating houses in New Zealand. Working from an industrial design perspective this research charts the possibility of a shift in home construction from site building towards factory-manufacture. Mindful of New Zealand’s creative, do-it-yourself heritage and personal rituals of homemaking, this study explores domestic ritual and the iterative nature of amateur home alterations. Just as we have the right to alter our own body’s surfaces so too should the homeowner have the ability to alter the surfaces and services they own and with which they interact. Flanked by the design-to-manufacture model promoted by industrial design and the emphasis on inhabiting and rearranging the home from spatial design a hybrid notion of housing design and production is put forward. Suggesting a product that deals affordably with the home’s surfaces and services, within the customs of daily and seasonal acts of maintenance in the home, offers an area of prefabrication that seems attainable for New Zealand interior.