Transformative nature-based urban and architectural design values for socio-ecological wellbeing and adaptation in New Caledonia

Abstract

Working with nature in urban settings as a strategy for improving wellbeing offers significant potential for effective climate change adaptation. It is increasingly being explored and utilized in the region of Moananui Oceania. In New Caledonia, ongoing social issues pervade many aspects of life, particularly for Indigenous Kanak peoples, including the appropriateness and effectiveness of housing and the urban built environment in general. This paper examines and suggests eco-relational practices for urban and architectural design in a New Caledonian context. To explore transformative nature-based built environment design agendas that link closely to Indigenous ecological knowledge and understandings of wellbeing, research was carried out through a series of interviews and workshops with local people. We examine the usefulness of starting from understanding worldview, local notions of wellbeing, and relationships to nature in urban climate change adaptation work, and suggest a conceptual framework for transformative built environment design practice. We discuss using the Mauri Ora compass research co-design methodologies to bridge cultural differences, political agendas, and varying worldviews and encourage meaningful engagement with eco-centric local and/or Indigenous communities. Key findings include that the communities engaged with, who are largely Kanak, see that fundamental changes must occur in the design and construction of built environments, and that the nature of the changes is not just technical, but fundamentally requires a cultural shift in how people understand themselves to be in and of the living world. The necessary shift, particularly for non-indigenous, was identified as a collective rather than individual reorientation towards a more care-full, respectful, and ecologically regenerative relationship with living socio-ecological systems.