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Mila Makasini

Mila Makasini

Architectural Graduate at McCoy and Wixon Architects and 2025 Resene Student Design Award winner, of Tongan descent, based in Dunedin, New Zealand.

Aug 2, 2026

6:06
Like you say, two very opposite ends of this spatial spectrum, right? And where was this, Mila? Where did you grow up?
6:14
So I was born in Auckland and we grew up in Mount Albert initially.
6:18
And then my parents moved us down here to Dunedin in the early 2000s.
6:25
And the first place we stayed is actually still standing.
6:29
It's just a little one bedroom flat quite close to my daughter's school.
6:34
And there was nine of us all together in there.
6:40
Honestly, I don't think you talk to any other person.
10:03
I think yeah from our family's migration here and the effort that they put in we have this duty and also just this like moral obligation that we want to do good for our families and make sure that all of their hard work has paid off and what we're able to give back to Samoa to your island or just your family and yeah making sure that we're seen in different ways and that there are tools for future generations to come that they can use and it's just been a crazy experience because I started teaching now and at the architecture school and in my original cohort there were no other brown people and then in the cohort I was in last year there was I think like two other Pasifika people and then one Māori guy and then seeing the year twos who I'm teaching now there's like there must be like 10 and I'm just like yes this is awesome

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