Prior to the arrival of Europeans into Aotearoa, Māori were building their whare using a boat-building construction technique known as mimiro. This technique applied post-tensioning to timber compression elements such that these houses were literally pulled into the ground.   This research advances our understanding of this endangered mātauranga knowledge by relocating mimiro within an earthquake setting. This was done by building an ‘earthquake machine’, that is the installation of a full-scale set of prototype timber portals and then testing them for seismic resilience by pulling them sideways with several jeeps. As ‘rū’ means to shake or quiver, the portmanteau Mīmirū denotes the success of this seismic testing.  

I mua i te taenga maio tauiwi ki Aotearoa, nā tetāera hanganga waka a ngāi Māori, mē kī nei kote mimiro, i hangaia ai ngā whare o te iwi. Hemea renarena pou hai whakamāro ake, anō neika tau iho ngā whare ki roto i a Papa.Ka piki māramatanga te rangahau nei mō tēneimātauranga e whakaahu mimiro ki te wā e rūana te whenua. Ka hangaia tētahi ‘mīhini rūwhenua’, arā ko te hanganga tāwaha pou rākaukia whakamātauhia te karonga rū whakawhitimā te kukume whakataha me ngā tipa rahitonu.