“ There is certainly a lot of architecture long awaiting discovery in the Moana/Pacific! Quite simply, it means adopting a total rather than a partial approach to architecture not only as a form of human art but also as a medium of human use. By combining both the quality and utility of architecture, there is then a real requirement for a critical focus on both its process and product of production and not just architecture as an art product.
As an age-old artform, Tongan architecture or house-building (tufunga langafale), for example, takes both the quality and utility of architecture, that is, work of art and use of art or, for that matter, process of art and product of art to be both coexistent and continuous by their very own nature. That is, the more beautiful it is as a work of art the more useful it is for human use and, the reverse holds true, that is, the more useful it is for human use the more beautiful it is as a work of art!
On the other hand, the thinking and practice of Tongan architecture (tufunga langafale) seriously takes into account the coexistence and continuity between society and ecology, where the part (that is, house) and the whole (that is, environment) are unified by way of both the quality of art and utility of art, work of art and use of art or process of art and product of art.
These unifying albeit conflicting artistic and pragmatic tendencies, namely, the quality of art and utility of art, work of art and use of art or process of art and product of art are temporally-spatially (ta-va), formally-substantially (fuo-uho) and functionally ('aonga) mediated through sustained symmetry (tatau) and harmony (potupotutatau) to produce beauty (faka'ofo'ofa/malie).
On the abstract level, this temporal-spatial (ta-va), formal-substantial (fuo-uho) and functional ('aonga) mediation fundamentally involves transforming the intersecting (fakafelavai) or connecting (fakahoko) and separating (fakamavahe) line-space (kohi-va) or time-space (ta-va) from a condition of chaos (felekeu) to a state of order (maau) by means of wood amongst other things.
On the concrete level, the mediation of time-space (ta-va), form-content (fuo-uho) and function ('aonga) are basically concerned with transformating the lineal-spatial intersecting (fakafelavai) or connecting (fakahoko) and separating (fakamavahe) winds (matangi or avangi) from a condition of crisis (fepaki) to a state of stasis (fenapasi) specifically by means of strong (malohi) and weak (vaivai), on the one hand, and warm (mafana) and cold (momoko), on the other. ”