The cost of housing is a challenge for tangata whenua wishing to return to their ancestral lands, especially if the whanau wishes to build a kainga, rather than adopt Pakeha living with separate homes on separate sections along the road. Returning to ancestral land takes time – to find a job, to get set up, where adding the cost and delay of building a new home makes it almost impossible… until now.

Over the past 20 years, as housing costs became unaffordable, a new industry emerged in New Zealand: manufacturing mobile homes in factories – made in a month, delivered in a day, move in before sunset. Looking at precolonial kainga housing – the wharepuni were of similar size, the small family homes around the marae ātea.

These living units are the way whanau can begin to build its 21st century kainga today.

Affordable: $60-90,000 kitchen, bath, convertible lounge, bedroom.  Lease 12-60 month plans $250-350/week. Lease to Acquire – $325-400/week. More

Instant: No building consent; excluded from Building Act if not fixed to land

Durable: Building code 50-year performance standard. Can be fixed to land as a building

Complete: If it arrives in the morning, you can move in before nightfall

Efficient: Exceed insulation minimums, low energy use

Attractive: High quality materials and architect designed

The wharepuni is the key to beginning kainga today. While our job is manufacturing them, there is more to a kainga than just the wharepuni.

The Pakeha design pattern of single-family residences on each allotment facing a public road isolate people. The government use of the term social housing is ironic as too often it is anti-social. The placement of the wharepuni on commonly-held whenua where everyone shares a common purpose and common interest is what makes the difference.

Below are some photographs of some of the units we make, noting that we are constantly innovating.

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