Victoria University Coastal Ecology Laboratory

[1] Located at the southern end of the North Island of New Zealand, in Island Bay on Wellington's south coast, approximately 8 km south of the university's main campus, the laboratory overlooks Cook Strait and the exposed rocky reef systems of the Taputeranga Marine Reserve.

[2] VUCEL is known in Māori as Te Toka Tū Moana, which means "the surf-beaten rock that stands firm in the ocean".

[3] The Māori name is both a description of the VUCEL building (with natural design elements that give it the appearance of rising from the rocks of the Wellington south coast), and it is representative of the strong connections between land and sea that are the focus much of VUCEL-supported research.

[8] This predecessor to VUCEL, known as the Island Bay Marine Lab, occupied a building that was originally constructed as a shark liver oil processing plant by the Glaxo Company.

This 1950s structure supported the marine biology programme of Victoria University until 2007, when it was demolished to make way for the new purpose-built coastal ecology laboratory.