Kia ora koutou,
In honour of Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori, I had a chat to Kiharoa Milroy (Tūhoe and Ngāti Whakaue) about the gifting of our Te Reo name – Te Tōpūtanga o te Whare Korou ki Aotearoa – earlier this year.
Kiharoa explained that he was approached by a member of the board to see if he could identify a suitable name for us, and given some Passive House reading material. A few weeks later, Kiharoa had given a lot of thought to suitable words that described the essence of Passive House, and had hit upon the word Korou which encompassed both energy and vitality. “Energy” felt appropriate because Passive House buildings are energy efficient, and “vitality” too, as healthy buildings facilitate vitality for those who use them. With the word Tōpūtanga meaning gathering or group, and Whare as house or building, the name fell into place.
Kiharoa felt that there could be a few meanings for the phrase Te Tōpūtanga o te Whare Korou, both of which could be appropriate. Firstly, our aim is to gather people into Passive House buildings. Secondly, we want to create groups of “houses of vitality”; we would love to see Passive House buildings everywhere in the community.
Our board member and his colleague loved the name straight away. They pondered it for a while and introduced it to the rest of the board, who thought it was great and suggested the addition of ki Aotearoa.
So, the name was adopted through a ceremony, held online due to Covid-19, with board members conducting a karakia and mihi – Te Tōpūtanga o te Whare Korou ki Aotearoa. Here is a link to the original story about this. We are grateful to everyone who had input into this.
Ngā Mihi Nui
Amy Tankard
CEO Te Tōpūtanga o te Whare Korou ki Aotearoa
