extra’s ordinary interiors

The histories of interior design, interior architecture and spatial design practice are richly punctuated by beautiful, monumental, radical experiments and spectacular examples. These form what many might call a canon of good practice; exemplars if you will. Interiors also have a unique relationship with the ordinary — they are affective without being noticed. These interiors are typically taken for granted, enmeshed in the everyday, forming under the influence of unseen spatial and material dynamics, unheroic, unpretentious, and often not found in design discourse. This idea journal issue, (Extra) Ordinary Interiors: Practising Critical Reflection, explores this ordinariness to reveal that these spaces bear out something more, something special, something extraordinary in their own modest, subtle, familiar, habitual, and understated qualities of inhabitation. For, in these quiet merits, the extra-ordinary capacity for our complex interrelationships with interior spaces resides. When conceiving the agendas for this issue, we discussed memories of first reading Robin Evans’s essay on the emergence of the corridor in 17th century English manor homes.01 So familiar was this compositional element to interior space that we wondered why anyone would write about something so ordinary? Of course, we’d overlooked the consideration that the corridor emerged from social reasoning and beliefs, and was designed to influence behaviour. The criticality of Evans’s examination revealed a problem-space for the study of interiors, full of endless questions on the extraordinarily capacity of the unfixed and informal interrelations between interior material practices and our perceptions. It is in this spirit of finding the extra-ordinary through critical reflection on the ordinary that the twelve research articles and visual essays of this issue are presented. Each contributes complex ideas and subtle reflections on moments of interstitiality between our inhabiting bodies, interior materialities, virtual/social/urban spheres, dead artists and artworks, and memories of friends long-gone

inducing, introducing

It seems fitting to explore an alternative form of introduction to an issue that promises other interior worlds. It also seems fitting to take up the opportunity to experiment with digital interfaces, word processing software and audio-visual media to exploit the static state of the page in favour of the spatial, the temporal and the audible. “introducing, inducing” is a product of fabulation, and evidence of the journal’s commitment to push the boundaries of the multiple practices it reflects and the modes of making creative practice research public. The cover image created by Sophie Forsythe forms the first layer — a doorway, a threshold — that articulates a stretched, warped, morphed and fragmented world of many dimensions, unfettered by the tired binary of inside and outside. Its textures, surfaces and ethereal colours wrap space akin to spring pea tendrils, reaching towards luminosity with heliotropic determinism, and pushing through the flat page like new potatoes. References to each article contained in this journal issue lurk amongst this visual dissonance, slipping in between its layers, like English Numbers Stations, giving themselves up to forces other than gravity and voices other than human.</jats:p

Proximal and distal influences on dietary change among a diverse group with prediabetes participating in a pragmatic, primary care nurse-led intervention: A qualitative study

Objective: To understand motivators, facilitators and challenges to dietary change amongst a diverse sample of New Zealanders with prediabetes participating in a primary care nurse-led individualised dietary intervention. Design: A qualitative study involving semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with a stratified sample of adults with prediabetes and body mass index ≥ 25kg/m2, purposefully selected from a larger 2-year primary care-based prediabetes dietary intervention study. Thematic analysis was undertaken. A socio-ecological model guided interpretation. Setting: Hawke\u27s Bay, Aotearoa/New Zealand, April 2018-March 2020. Participants: Fifty-eight people aged 28-69 years, with similar numbers of men and women, indigenous Māori and non-Māori, and those who had and had not regressed to normoglycaemia at 6-months. Results: Motivators for wanting to make dietary changes were determination not to progress to diabetes; wanting to be healthy and contribute to others; and encouragement by others. Facilitators for adopting and maintaining changes were a strong desire to be healthy; personal determination; and feeling supported. Challenges were compromised control over life and environmental factors; feeling unsupported by others; social occasions; financial constraints; and living with other health conditions. Developing their own strategies to overcome challenges was empowering, enabling a sense of control. These factors were similar across demographic and glycaemic outcome groups. Conclusions: Influences on dietary change involved personal, interpersonal, organisational, environmental, and policy factors. Although findings appeared similar across groups, dietary interventions need to address the specific ways motivators, facilitators and challenges manifest for individuals and social groups, and be tailored accordingly within the context of the wider obesogenic and socioeconomic environment

Te Mātārere o te reo : a foresight report on the future state of Te Reo Māori in the Waikato-Tainui Rohe to 2038. Report to Te Mātāwai.

Kōrero whakataki = Introduction -- Research methodology = Ngā tukunga rangahau -- Taupori o te reo Māori = Demographic impacts on te reo Māori in the Waikato-Tainui rohe -- Te aukaha o te iwi = Waikato-Tainui tribal manoeuvres -- Te reo whakaako = Māori language education -- Whakahihiko i te reo = Technological innovations -- Te pārekereketanga o te reo = Māori-rich community organisations -- Kōrero whakakapi = Conclusio

Ngati and healthy: translating diabetes prevention evidence into community action

Introduction: Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a major health issue in New Zealand Maori. Clinical trials have demonstrated potential for the prevention of T2DM, but whether community public health programmes aiming to prevent diabetes are effective is untested. Objective: To describe the planning and design of an intervention aiming to translate T2DM prevention clinical trial evidence into a community-wide population health intervention in a high risk predominantly Maori community. Approach: Community concerns about the diabetes burden were heard by the local diabetes nurse, herself a tribal member, and discussed with a locally raised academic. Project planning ensued. The intervention and its evaluation were designed using a participatory community development model. The planned intervention had three components: community-wide health promotion initiatives conveying healthy lifestyle messages, community education and monitoring for identified high-risk individuals and their extended families, and a structural strategy aimed at adapting local environments to support lifestyle changes. The evaluation plan involved interrupted time series surveys coupled with formative and process evaluations rather than a randomised control trial design. Discussion: Consulting communities, validating community concerns and prioritising cultural and ethical issues were key steps. Time spent developing good relationships amongst the health provider and academic research team members at the outset proved invaluable, as the team were united in addressing the project planning and implementation challenges, such as funding obstacles that arose because of our ethically and culturally appropriate non-randomised control trial evaluation design. The pre-intervention survey demonstrated high rates of diabetes (13%), insulin resistance (33%) and risk factors, and provided evidence for positive, as opposed to negative, lifestyle intervention messages. Conclusion: Community-wide lifestyle interventions have the potential to reduce rates of type 2 diabetes and other chronic diseases in high-risk communities, but require a high level of commitment from the health sector and buy-in from the community. Adequate commitment, leadership, planning and resources are essential

Predictors of breastfeeding duration in a predominantly Māori population in New Zealand

Abstract Background Although breastfeeding duration in New Zealand’s indigenous Māori is shorter than in non-Māori, we know little about barriers or motivators of breastfeeding in this community. The aim of this analysis was to identify predictors for extended duration of breastfeeding amongst participants drawn from predominantly Māori communities in regional Hawke’s Bay. Methods Mother/baby dyads were recruited from two midwifery practices serving predominantly Māori women in mostly deprived areas, for a randomised controlled trial comparing the risks and benefits of an indigenous sleeping device (wahakura) and a bassinet. Questionnaires were administered at baseline (pregnancy) and at one, three and six months postnatal. Several questions relating to breastfeeding and factors associated with breastfeeding were included. The data from both groups were pooled to examine predictors of breastfeeding duration. Results Māori comprised 70.5% of the 197 participants recruited. The median time infants were fully breastfed was eight weeks and Māori women were more likely to breastfeed for a shorter duration than New Zealand European women with an odds-ratio (OR) of 0.45 (95% CI 0.24, 0.85). The key predictors for extended duration of breastfeeding were the strong support of the mother’s partner (OR = 3.64, 95% CI 1.76, 7.55) or her mother for breastfeeding (OR = 2.47, 95% CI 1.27, 4.82), longer intended duration of maternal breastfeeding (OR = 1.02, 95% CI 1.00, 1.03) and being an older mother (OR = 1.07, 95% CI 1.02, 1.12). The key predictors for shorter duration of breastfeeding were pacifier use (OR = 0.28, 95% CI 0.17, 0.46), daily cigarette smoking (OR = 0.51, 95% CI 0.37, 0.69), alcohol use (OR = 0.54, 95% CI 0.31, 0.93) and living in a more deprived area (OR 0.40, 95% CI 0.22, 0.72). Conclusions Breastfeeding duration in this group of mainly Māori women was shorter than the national average. Increasing the duration of breastfeeding by these mothers could be further facilitated by ante and postnatal education involving their own mothers and their partners in the support of breastfeeding and by addressing pacifier use, smoking and alcohol use