Jade Kake

Bonnie Jade Kake is a New Zealand Māori architect and academic of Ngāpuhi, Te Arawa and Whakatōhea iwi. She specialises in designing communities and housing based on a traditional model of living known as papakāinga.

Biography Kake was born in Australia to a New Zealand Māori mother and a Dutch father. She grew up in an eco-community called Billen Cliffs, which her parents had founded, in rural northern New South Wales. As a child, she frequently visited her mother's family and land near Whangārei. Kake completed a degree in architectural design at the University of Queensland in 2009, followed by a short course in carpentry at a TAFE (a Technical and Further Education college).

In her early 20s, Kake moved to Auckland to work for Rau Hoskins and his design firm, designTRIBE.

In 2025 Kake became the first architect in New Zealand to complete her architectural registration in te reo Māori, the Māori language.

Awards and recognition In 2018 and 2019, Kake won Warren Trust Awards for Architectural Writing for her essays on Rāpaki Marae and Ruapekapeka. In 2019, she received a Michael King Emerging Māori Writers Residency.

In 2020, Kake won the Munro Diversity Award at the Architecture + Women NZ Dulux Awards. In 2021, she received an award from the New Zealand Society of Authors to support her research into the life and legacy of Rewi Thompson.

Publications

Kake, J. (2023). Checkerboard Hill. Wellington: Huia Publishers. Hansen, J. & Kake, J. (2023). Rewi: Āta haere, kia tere. Wellington: Massey University Press. Kake J. (2019). Rebuilding the kāinga: lessons from te ao hurihuri. Bridget Williams Books.