Te Hono, New Plymouth Airport Terminal, Beca Design Practice. This significant project, conceived as a strong architectural and cultural gateway, provided an opportunity to integrate the local hapū (subtribe), Puketapu, into the design team to create a site-specific response that distinctly reflects the Taranaki region which the airport serves.

The storied history of the site was as important as other design drivers - such as the challenging environmental conditions and the need to accommodate future regional growth. Te Hono, which means “to connect”, is located on ancestral land confiscated from iwi (tribe) in the 1960s. Sixty years later, the architecture of the terminal puts mana whenua (territorial rights) at its heart.