Hale Pili

The construction of the Hale Pili began last week.

In Hawaiian, "hale" means house and "pili" is a type of grass. The hale pili is a traditional grass house that was the standard building typology in the Hawaiian Islands. The hale pili has been a project in the process of planning or permitting for more than three years. But my experience is that the project has gone very fast.

In one week, we had a traditional blessing ceremony, started excavation, visited another hale under construction, secured traditional wood, completed archaeology, completed the framing, and poured concrete.

The hale will be built over the summer as a community-oriented project trying to engage people in the process of traditional construction techniques.

The major component will language instruction. At the IVDM we called this "situational fluency" and it was a way of teaching traditional language through traditional arts. The hale will also become a new space for programming, hopefully, traditional craft programming and language instruction.

This is a small project that should result in a big summer!