Our Whare Our Fale (OWOF) reimagines the Pacific village in Aotearoa. It is housing by Pasefika for Pasefika and the cultural force at its heart makes it different to anything built before.
Our Whare Our Fale is the expression of everything Central Pacific Collective stands for — the first community-driven, Pasefika led housing development of its kind in Aotearoa.
Stage 1 - Mua i Malae was delivered ahead of schedule and under budget — led by Central Pacific Collective. Eighteen Pasefika families now own their homes.
Mua i Malae is proof of concept for a new era. Our Whare Our Fale Stages 1.2 and 1.3 are already underway.
Our Whare Our Fale began with a relationship. Pasefika and Māori communities share ancestral links across the world's largest ocean — connected through history, language and shared values that have always placed people, land and future generations at the centre.
Conceived, led and delivered by Central Pacific Collective in life-partnership with mana whenua Ngāti Toa Rangatira, in 2022 Central Pacific Collective and Te Rūnanga o Toa Rangatira formalised that relationship with a Memorandum of Understanding — the first iwi–Pasefika community partnership of its kind in Aotearoa. Ngāti Toa Rangatira offered a perpetual lease over land in eastern Porirua.
The partnership secured $104 million in government funding in Budget 2022 — the largest government investment ever made in a Pasefika organisation in Aotearoa.
Pasefika communities carry a long view of time. We know who we are because of those who came before us and we know that what we do today will shape those who come after. We call this being good ancestors.
For our communities, wealth is not something extracted and held by individuals — it is built together and passed forward. Governance structures exist to protect that, ensuring the benefit flows to the community not just today, but across every generation that follows.
It shapes what we build - with homes, neighbourhoods and a model for housing that keeps Pasefika families rooted in place, on their own terms.
“Each mortgage payment we make builds equity — equity we can pass on to our children and grandchildren.”
Mua i Malae homeowner
The Our Whare Our Fale model is designed to remove the barriers to home ownership through three transferable financial principles.
No land cost.
Perpetual leasehold with Ngāti Toa Rangatira means the land never needs to be purchased. That cost is removed from the price of every home, permanently.
Developed at cost.
Central Pacific Collective is a non-profit developer. Homes are priced at what they cost to build — no margin or profit passed to buyers.
Shared equity.
Central Pacific Collective can contribute up to 40% of the purchase price, reducing the deposit and borrowing required for first home buyers. Families build toward full ownership over time.
These principles make Our Whare Our Fale possible — and they can work wherever Pasefika communities need affordable homes.
Our Whare Our Fale is authored from Pasefika values. It is grounded in Vā - the relational space between people, place and the world around them. And it is expressed through the principle of Anoafale - that true value lies not in the house itself, but in the
people living in it and the relationships between them.
Conceived under the visionary and cultural leadership of Fa'amatuainu Tino Pereira MNZM and the architectural leadership of Elyjana Roach, the Pasefika cultural force at the heart of Our Whare Our Fale makes it different to anything built before in Aotearoa.
The Our Whare Our Fale programme was shaped by the Pasefika community it was built for. The design answers what Pasefika families had long asked for, affordable housing options that delivered to different family and cultural needs. The homes work because the programme was shaped by Pasefika, for Pasefika.
Pasefika leaders across Porirua, worked alongside Central Pacific Collective to shape the programme from the ground up - the eligibility criteria, the selection process and the cultural frameworks that guide the village fono. Every programme decision reflects how Pasefika families actually navigate homeownership and what Pasefika-community led governance requires.
The malae is the shared open space at the centre of Our Whare Our Fale — and the heart of everything. At Mua i Malae it is where children grow up under the eyes of aunties and uncles, where birthdays, and gatherings unfold in the open, and where neighbours become family.
The fale, a shared common building at the centre of the malae, provides a flexible space for meetings, celebrations, funerals, community activity’s and the village fono, bringing homeowners together to make shared decisions.
“It’s great to know that the other homeowners are here long term, so we can build connections over time — and be a village where everyone looks out for one another.”
Mua i Malae, homeowner
Standard housing rarely fits Pasefika families. Grandparents and grandchildren share roofs. While young families need flexibility in home designs, elders need ground-floor access.
The Our Whare Our Fale design typologies address the housing aspirations Pasefika communities have expressed for years. Homes are sized for intergenerational families, with flexible ground floor spaces for the full range of family and cultural life. Houses are turned toward the malae, not the road, so that every front door opens into shared life. Perpetual leasehold means a family’s home can be passed down — not just the building, but a place in the village and a share in the community that has grown around it.
“I like that all my friends live right here and we can play outside without having to get driven anywhere. And Nana is just next door if Mum and Dad are working late.”
Mua i Malae resident age 10
Sustainability at Our Whare Our Fale means affordable homes that are dry, warm and cool when needed. It means a village that can sustain itself socially, culturally and financially. And it means a physical environment that contributes to the health of the land and the neighbourhood.
All 18 homes at Mua i Malae are Homestar 6 certified. The large roof forms, which reflect the traditional Pacific fale, enable high-performance insulation. Continuous mechanical ventilation, low-emissive double glazing and fully insulated slabs deliver year-round comfort.
Our Whare Our Fale operates a shared micro-grid solar system with rooftop panels generating clean energy distributed across all homes, which means every household benefits with savings shared.
The system at Mua i Malae generates enough clean energy to cover nearly a full year of electricity for each home — reducing power bills and cutting around 460 kg of carbon emissions per household each year.
Smart meters track use and hot water cylinders are heated during peak solar hours. For Pasefika families paying some of the highest energy costs in the region, that saving matters.
The central garden is planted with more than 1,000 mostly native and food-producing plants — fruit trees, vegetables and native plantings that support food security, biodiversity and cooling across the village. Community partners Bunnings, Te Rito Nursery and Leacroft Nursery provided plants and knowledge. Planting days became community events before residents had even moved in.
Resilience is built into the landscape too. The common fale captures roof runoff in a rainwater harvesting tank — an emergency water supply if the network goes down, and a year-round resource for the garden. The shared solar system reduces grid dependence. The productive landscape and village fono together mean the community has the tools to sustain itself and adapt together.
Our Whare Our Fale is designed to generate opportunity from the ground up. By prioritising Pasefika-owned and Pasefika-led businesses across construction, trades and project delivery, the economic benefit of building a Pasefika village stays within the Pasefika community — creating jobs, building skills and strengthening the businesses that will deliver the stages to come.
Our Whare Our Fale is a place that speaks to who its people are. Traditional pieces — tapa cloth, tivaevae and other works of Pasefika craft — are displayed and celebrated within the shared fale, telling the stories of the communities that call this place home. Village signage carries Pasefika naming, and the architecture itself speaks in a Pasefika visual language.
When children grow up in a place that reflects their identity, where the art, the names, the architecture and the community around them say ‘you belong here’ that is felt across a lifetime.
Our Whare Our Fale operates as a village fono through a body corporate, bringing homeowners together to make shared decisions and build collective life. The village fono embeds Pasefika governance into the ongoing life of Mua i Malae. As members of a village, residents have shared responsibility for each other and the place they call home.