 Welcome back to Human Domain Architecture. Here in downtown Honolulu on a rather gloomy sort of pre-Christmasy early afternoon here on Tuesday. I want to show, I want to share a project today at the end of the show. And whenever I'm going to make my case with that project, I hear this will not work here because in Honolulu things work differently. So it's a housing project, it's about inhabitation of space and a lot of the new developments they're going up I think they're lacking a lot, they're lacking affordability, they're lacking sustainability and they're lacking probably first and foremost these days humility. And today we have an expert here who's also my neighbor because we both live in a building that we truly believe by experience that our building is doing that. Now building is as the audience can see the Waikiki Grand. I guess today is my dear neighbor, Thomas Miller. Welcome, Tom. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I appreciate you coming and chitchatting a little bit why we think our building is such a good raw model. And so maybe we can get the first picture. And Tom, I have to say a brief introduction. We're colleagues not only as far as neighbors but we're also both educators. We also both come from Kraft. You have a background in boat making and ship making and woodworking. Yes. Which I appreciate a lot. And so this is basically a picture here from we were walking over here we're guessing and we don't have to be correct because we're not the historians. So this must be somewhere in the mid 60s somewhere right. Right. So this this picture I found online during some research I was doing for the building quite by accident. And I noticed that the grand is one of the buildings in Waikiki in the mid 1960s. And it just shows how different things have changed. Absolutely. From then. We see the ilikis and the construction so that way we could when the soda prong comes back on the we're actually going to do a show and two shows ahead. We're going to do on the Kaiser Dome which you can see at the front left. So to speak why don't we go to the next picture which is a picture I found online. And you said because you're also on the board you said we should try to acquire that because it seems rather rare and it basically shows the ambition of the building shows the aspiration of the building the way the building was was intended to be and not quite built the way you know at the end there are certain changes which you told me there were actually a lot of changes from the initial design. But this one here and I unfortunately due to form it I cut off the the very sort of eloquent text there that was in the very nice sort of 60s language talking about Asian culture. So it was a you told me it was a Japanese developer right. Yes the story that I've heard is that it was a Japanese developer or group of developers who who put together the entire deal to build the building. The building sits on two separate lots and they went ahead and they were able to get the two owners together to to lease on a long term lease basis lease lease it to the developers and they built a hotel. Some of the scuttle butt around this was that it was it was Japanese organized crime money that was used on it. We do know that it was it was meant to offer accommodations to traveling Asians. It has a it had an Ophoro tub and a massage parlor on the 10th floor along with the penthouses there and Joe J who just walked out here shared that he has some interesting memories of the building himself as many people have this is a building that's very alive. A lot of ups and downs and a lot of cycles and the next picture is actually our building looks today and it also shows in the picture to the right our neighbor is by the same architect and you maybe want to talk about him a little bit or Ernest Tara was the architect who designed our building and you know we have a set of the first plans for the building and there were changes that were made. I think an important point and I don't know if we can go back to the first picture of the Waikiki pioneer picture. If you look if you can look through in that picture you can see the Waikiki grand way over near the wall you can kind of see the wall there and you can see the grand there and of course the park shore doesn't exist or any of the other hotel towers there there's just the grand. The important point is that it was the ever side of the building that was the preferred side of the building when the building was laid out and designed. Today of course that part of the building is blocked in terms of its view and all of nature and everything and it's the diamond head side of the building that has a view that cannot be blocked but it's important to point out that's why our pool is on that side and the penthouse, lanais are on that side all of that. Originally there were going to be balconies on the lemon road side and they they changed that they put the walkways on that there. Lots of different you know these these developers had a lot of different ideas they were going to originally call it the Kapahulu hotel and that's that what's on the plans it says Kapahulu hotel at one point a set of our plan says diamond head palms with a question mark and then at some point they decided Waikiki grand and it's stuck. And memorizing picture three people would probably say well why is what's so special about the building and this is sort of a rather I guess touchy point and we don't want to do discredit to to the architect especially me from a collegial point of view being an architect himself. But let's just be brave and say maybe the building on the surface and what we see isn't maybe the most beautiful building although it's 50 years old we just had our 50 anniversary party so it should be on the register. But let's go inside of the building and let's share with the audience why we think it is such an incredible raw model. So learning from the past we could basically learn something for the future and this is our lobby here pretty much when we walk in. It's an open lobby and it's it's always been an open lobby where you see the gentleman sitting in that chair there and those those chairs that originally was a pond with us with a waterfall as built that's how how it was done. And then at some point that was taken out there was a bar there for for a few years there was some kind of alcohol and a bar there but it's always been an open lobby and it's one of the strengths of the building and this is something that we I can now speak as someone who was looking at other properties to be involved with to live at and it's it's the fact that with an open lobby and with a staff at the front desk it becomes the kernel of a community and you just don't see that in a lot of buildings a lot of condominiums or or even hotels. It's all very I don't know what the word is sterile actually that's a good word for sterile. And the opposite of that is what we see right here. This is actually last week this was the kickoff of Thanksgiving. Terry our manager I think you Terry has thrown this party which was basically Joe at the piano and it was Tom and it was pie by by Terry and we were all hanging out there and chit chatting and enjoying and the lady was singing and this is all rather improvised right really like a big you know staged event that I mean the pies and the drinks things for Terry you know but it's it's it's relatively low key and it's it's spontaneous and I call this actually our communal collective living room because our units per se because they were hotel rooms they're in the range of 230 to 300 square feet so they're rather tiny right so you when you want to be private you're in your room but if you want to be social you basically go out in the living room which we all share and and then communicate with each other. We run into each other in various spots that the lobby and especially having the front desk staff there that's a stable staff they're a different company that runs our front desk for the hotel and but they're there and we know them and they get to know everybody and it kind of makes things flow yeah and and people look after each other because of that so if you haven't seen someone for a few days for whatever reason that becomes kind of an issue you've seen so-and-so you know and are they okay or where are they and so and they have a seasonal picture here in number seven and this is again you notice in many hotels where basically you say okay the management somehow brings in the ornaments and the Christmas decoration but this is this is our former manager's childhood stuff he had built for his children and and the tree was always decorated by my by my direct neighbor Vanda she came down and decorated the tree so this is this is not commissioned out outsourced that's right this is not a commercial enterprise to lure people somehow this is a communal effort as everything in the building it's one of only two buildings I've seen in Waikiki or two hotels I've seen in Waikiki that does any kind of Christmas decorations or holidays happy holidays decorations at all and you already taught picture eight and nine is our courtyard so to speak which which has the pool right number this is the must have been somewhere in the 80s as you can tell by the cars this is 1987 these this picture was taken and at the time Jack in the box was in what is today Teddy's space so there was a restaurant there and but again you've seen that everything has been built up already and you can see that with the parking kind of the parking on that one side with the other lot and everything but and I call this here the the jungle courtyard although it's a little bit of a stretch because you just told me before the show we have one really mature tree that's a little bit in danger so we're hoping and wishing the best for our tree because it really makes but we're also got the pool landscaping redone recently so we're kind of you know right there's an attempt to to re-jungle that maybe jump to picture 10 because this is important you already talked a bit about the retail we talk we call this mixed use basically in architecture which the whole kakaako thing is basically branding and saying our ground floors are going to be retail and then the top floors are residential so this makes for a good community and it's a little bit of a stretch sometimes because it depends what kind of tenants go in there right here it's it way back it had an interesting that seems to go trace back to the original initiation the Japanese well we found these nothing right we found these pictures quite by accident this is again 1987 these pictures here you can see the red carpet was also the red carpet in the lobby but you make a good point in terms of mixed use it was originally as a hotel the restaurant is on the second floor for the residents to come down and dine on the first floor the idea was what is today teddies was supposed to be just a coffee shop a morning coffee shop before folks went out and enjoyed Waikiki and enjoyed the rest of the island so there's there are challenges around that and one of them was that when the building was condoized they they allowed a separate entrance for what would become Jack in the Box and is today teddies the other two ground floor retail establishments well not ground floor but the other ground floor and the second floor Hula's bar they don't have that so you have to go into the hotel to get into Hula's or to get into that space which is today a nail salon that's very interesting we're getting close to taking a little break after the break we want to talk about why our building is so inclusive and a little bit more detail so see you back for that in a second hi I'm Donna Blanchard I'm the host of center stage which is on Wednesday is at two o'clock here on think tech on center stage I talk with artists about not only what they do and how they do it but the meat of the conversation for me is why they do it why we go through this a lot of us are not making our livings doing this and a lot of us would do this with our last dying breath if we had to that choice and that's what I love to talk to people about I hope you enjoy watching it and I hope you get inspired because there's an artist inside you too join us on center stage at two o'clock on Wednesdays Aloha I am Reg Baker and I am the host of business in Hawaii with Reg Baker we broadcast live every Thursday from two to two thirty in the think tech studios in downtown alululu we highlight successful stories about businesses and individuals and learn their secrets to success I hope you can join us on our next show on Thursday at two o'clock until then Aloha back to the human architecture with Tom Miller about the grand wife and the next picture number eleven I want to use it's obviously a bird sitting on my cart rail my mother and I with a sort of you know this is a postcard view that you already said this location location location but we're not going to talk about location we're actually not going to talk about surface we're going to talk about substance and we have birds actually my neighbor Vanda has big birds in their place we get people with dogs we have cats we have little people we have old people we have people of all colors we almost have the entire European Union in the building we have people from Turkey Poland we have people from Croatia we have people from Russia people from all over the world you mentioned hula so obviously this brings a high amount of a gay community in there the people like me are not gay we got them all and this is really a wrong model for tolerance we know each other we get to know each other we might have certain perceptions but they basically dissolve once we get to know each other and like each other as neighbors as community members we have the residents there which are smaller percentage and then we have the folks that are coming either for vacation rentals or they're renting and then we have the snowbirds who are arriving right about now they're coming in from Canada Alaska the United States and elsewhere and I'm thinking of one from coming in from Milan Italy she'll be coming in very soon and so yeah and sometimes on if you go to 713 quickly because you're very familiar with that space here the sun deck and the sun deck is on the 10th floor and I think what is so interesting about the sun deck is that folks can come to the grand and they can you know in through the lobby up the elevator they can go out and enjoy the sun deck there's there's it's just a wonderful amenity that everyone in the all the public can enjoy and that is certainly true for the entire building we should point this out because in any building you got the security gate you got the key access and you can only get in there if you're qualified or allowed and in our building everyone can walk everywhere of course we have surveillance cameras everywhere so this reminds me of the neighborhood the American neighborhood sign neighborhood watch so there's neighborhood watch in place yes and it's supported by the staff but it's once again it's not a system of being anxiety and being afraid and being paranoid it's basically saying oh principally we're all fine and we watch out for each other is that correct to say yes that's in fact that's it you know you've nailed it pretty much folks have the run of the common elements of the building and I don't see very many problems really so it's pretty safe and 14 shows us the sun deck when we all get together this is the 50th anniversary which we had sunset couldn't be more beautiful and also impromptu parties you know folks meet other folks that are coming from different places they can get together do a little dinner up there on the sun deck and it happens almost every day someone's doing that and to see it all the works work we're going to bring a plan here number 15 so this is the floor plan and for orientation I tell my students all the time make the plan that north is up and I took this from a real terrace brochure so never mind the 30% virus commission rebate there but everything else I had to pre-check that but just shows the there's a double loaded corridor facing diamond head it's a single loaded corridor and while talking about this and analyzing I was finding out that the way this building is basically orientating itself positioning we'll probably get it like gold or platinum status because the south Lanais and the realtor cleverly didn't put actually in the facade line where the sliding doors or the jealousies would be which is actually where these little squares or rectangles or there's some column line so they included the Lanais which the Lanais should be sort of a seamless addition to the living room and so the north side necessarily automatically never has sun the east facade is actually northeast and the sun isn't that harsh and the west side is our open corridor that's pretty much closed so the building is actually per se doing everything right we were talking in the early 60s it was probably more than intentionally was intuitionally because that was when air conditioning wasn't that prominent at that time right so it's a very innovative you know it's an old building with a very innovative very pioneering approach regarding environmentalism and if we jump to this is sort of an exclusive view of my little unit here and so it also shows this is sort of the worst condition in the winter now I took this yesterday when the sun is low and eats sort of three feet and this is a condition where it's early morning or late afternoon and also the summer condition above me, above us this is the original condition where the lanai facade is pushed back and also this is a picture that's a little risky as far as the neighborhood association you know the building I'm glad you say no because I'm you know talking all the aspects of sustainability I'm not throwing my shirts into the dryer because the dryers are the biggest energy hogs but I let them dry they're only going to be up there for two hours and they're going to be down again practicing sustainability an important point I just want to make is that the folks the building was condoed in the late 1970s and so the inside of the units are really the control of the owners and so while we do have house rules that govern things that might be on the lanai and the standpoint of trying to make the building look like a hotel there's a lot of latitude around that so we have folks who put bicycles on eyes or they might like I did and you're you're a dedicated bicyclist by the way and so we get to the next picture which also say we have a half submerged parking garage but the stores are so limited that not everyone has one so that's also encouraging other means of transportation that's right we have 30 31 stalls for the 170 rooms and what would be five technically five commercial businesses only really three at this point that's right I want to spend a couple minutes to go over the next four slides on number 19 is that publication of ours my family ohana's architectural business and it's my dad's birthday today so happy birthday again dad and so this approach of inclusivity which you can see from these icons that everything you do in your daily life you know buying your groceries and best case if we get that mark back you know walking everything and talking together is actually what sustainability is and what it gravitates around and so the next page is a project I'm proposing with the emerging generations of architects which to the very left and not continue to what I call the mumalization of architecture we put these big clunky clumsy skirts on buildings that hermiticize the building and love your term I will borrow it forever and always give you the copyright warehouse people you once said and it's sticking with me but basically do a building on the on the right side of the middle of that page here to go back to to this way we used to live in a more easy breezy way we're just built the building you know with as much as we need and not more and we're actually going to dedicate the next show to it to talk about that more technically because we're developing this with the concrete industry but this is a floor plan here that shows very much that the units are much like ours and for that circular orientation we try to bring the courtyard in the middle so this is an open courtyard and it's vegetated and it's like a street and then we got you know we try to make the staircase is better than ours I run the staircase every day as my part of my cardio and it's not the most pleasant one the internal one to run so we try to here have an outdoor exposed staircase have put a communal kitchen there that people can get together so we're not saying our building is already perfected and again it's half a century old but it has the main parts that makes a community our building surprisingly has and that's what little people or few people basically know right? I want to make the picture number 22 hopefully gets you exciting because this is starting to show and we got to continue to develop this and I would love to have you in for a review by the way which you find out now in front of the camera to talk to us as a team because we're developing this further because you have this sort of interest in in minimal living and in multifunctional space and things that so you can pop up and fold back right? Yes I think that I've been inspired with some of the architectural work I've seen that's come out of Europe and also out of New York where they're dealing with these small spaces that are so valuable and it so happens to be that our building has that issue these are small rooms and now that they're privately owned for folks who want to get as much out of a small space as possible it does kind of harken back to my experience with boats and yachts what we call it the accommodation and the whole idea is a piece of space has to have many uses and so take the analogy of the hull now we're dealing with the small space inside a living space what are the many things you can do with it? So multifunction multi-purpose so at a certain time where everything else is sort of flipped back it's basically a big dining room and at a certain time it converts into a sleeping place and at a certain time it converts into a working place so and this is again is the trend it was a few years ago the headline was small is a new big so America has gotten bigger everything in America including people and buildings and cars and now we're going seems to there's a trend to go the opposite direction so there's a re-appreciation for the small and being space efficient and at that time I also want to actually think my landlord because my landlord is an example for also making sure you know people like I and other people can afford to live in the building I'm actually a renter and that's what we need in Honolulu is a robust rental market that people don't get sucked into the and you know buying in the building is the maintenance fee in all the buildings ours are relatively okay I don't know if we want to talk about numbers but still you know I mean you got to pick up a mortgage so our place is actually I know that there are several owners who are not renting out to make a massive profit they're renting out to make it work to have something for their retirement asset but also allow normal people to live in there and that's something else that we really need in the city and some of the new you know more affordable housing develops and sort of brand that as the new thing but it's not we have it in our building you know in a very low key normal casual way it seems to have evolved on its own and that's the situation now so we have a small group of permanent residents there we have then we have the folks that are owners but they're in it for the vacation rental market so that's kind of a growing market we have many units that are in the hotel rental pool so the front desk operation rents those units out for guests and it's all working pretty well and as we're getting close to the end of the show here we want to to the last two pictures is yes we are indeed famous and there's our building shows up you know I just heard in Hawaii 5.0 which I like filming in our front yard at Kupiani Park every now and then so our building appears anyways but in these two last pictures here there's this the last picture 24 is this a new tour guide series by a publisher that's called Gestalt and these are the monocle tour guide series here and you can see we're up there with Sydney, Vienna, Singapore Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Miami and there are a couple of more and we're in there because of the iconic signage of our building you know so and we're sitting in front of it so again I want to thank you for having been here and also thank everyone else in our building who actually make the building as great as grand as it is and we're proud here to just sort of be exemplary demonstrating that as a placeholder for the community that makes our building it's a great building and it's got a nice little community and like I said everyone knows everyone thanks for sharing that and hope to see you all back for human-humane architecture next week where we're actually going to talk about more the building that the grand next page is fired so thank you very much