His father, who was a return visitor to Niue, suggested his son focus on the small island nation, which had limited resources and relied on overseas funding for major infrastructure projects.
At first Matt considered a project for a Niuean school but after talking to community and government representatives on the island and New Zealand High Commissioner in Niue, Mark Blumsky, he decided to design an area for the aged care facility at the Niue Foou Hospital.
He gathered together a design team from the School of Architecture at Victoria University of Wellington, and architect firms First Light Studio in the capital and Darryl Silverwood in Masterton.
The design team brainstormed a building plan - loosely known as Project Niue - comprising a shipping container easily converted on site into a kitchen, laundry and toilet, and a wooden daybed structure that could transform from four separate rooms to a large meeting room.
He said a difficult element of the project had been designing modular structures that could be dismantled and shipped inside the container for reassembly in Niue.
The project started in May last year, he said, and was completed in large part over the past eight months including 10 days onsite for himself, his dad, and five college classmates as part of a key team of 11 Kiwis who travelled to Niue in July.
New Zealand Defence Forces personnel finished plumbing and electricity work at the site.
"The old hospital was destroyed by Cyclone Heta in 2004 and rebuilt near the airport. The aged care unit is attached to the hospital with eight elderly people sharing four rooms, and they are well looked after but they couldn't really escape their rooms," he told the Ngai Tahu website.
"This allows the area to be multifunctional and used by the community as a whole because I really wanted the old folk to be part of the community again.
"I just hope to achieve a better way of life for the people in the aged care facility. I enjoy helping people and designing things so it's a good thing to do."
He said about $75,000 worth of labour and products were donated to the project.
Supporters included 50 businesses and a cadre of Wairarapa firms like D J Silverwood Architects, Fisher Windows Wairarapa, JNL, McKenzies Flooring, The Sign Factory, Trimform Joinery, and Newbolds Masterton.
In February Matt was presented with a Masterton District Council Youth Award that recognised his work and is seeking a scholarship to attend Victoria University.
He was considering architecture as a career ahead of his first international foray but was also now eyeing project management and design studies after attending an open day at the capital city campus.
The finishing touch for Project Niue was a name and a 15m-long wall built by an Niuean from island rocks and a single stone carried from the Ruamahanga River to the hospital site.
The river runs past his school and home and he recalled a Rathkeale College tradition known as "rock running" - in which students carried boulders from the riverbed to the school. Ruamahanga meant "the joining of two".
"This sounded like a good starting point because it has taken two communities to make it happen. We chose to call the area Ruamahana which means A Warm Haven, a place to feel the warmth of friendship, a place to feel culturally and spiritually connected, a place to enjoy being elderly."
"We also wanted a physical reminder of the connection between the building team and the locals so went back to our river, the Ruamahanga.
"That rock was placed into a wall we made of their local rock and symbolises the joining of our community with theirs, every time they look at it or touch it they will remember us."
