 This is Think Tech Kauai, Community Matters Here. Happy Friday, Paul Hanna. I'm Kauai Lucas, host of Hawaii Is My Mainland. You can find 100 or so past episodes on thinktechkauai.com or YouTube. If you're a podcast fan, check Think Tech Kauai's website for instructions on finding them on iTunes. I'm mentioning this because after today's show you might want to watch or listen to the one from October 15, 2016, last year with Joseph Valenti and Matthew Lynch, titled From Forest Menace to Urban Shelter. Today, Joey's back in the studio, along with Stephen Hill, IDSA, who's director of the 3D lab of UH Manoa School of Architecture, and Miles Ludkey of Waimanalo Wood, a key collaborator this past year. Welcome, gentlemen. Hello. Hey, Joey. So it's been a year. And it's been a pretty busy year for you, I think. So your albezia project has sprouted and has been growing like an albezia. So where are we? I mean, the albezia project was your dissertation project. But now you're a doctor. You're all finished. Is that right? Right. OK. And this concept you had of building a shelter from albezia wood. We saw the models. We have the rendering behind us. Now it's been taken to another level. So tell us where you are. All right. So since last time we met, we were pretty early in the project. I think I had recently graduated. Just had received the New Age President's Green Project Implementation Award. And that was a $10,000 award that kind of kick-started this project and got it to continue on after I graduated. And since then, we've leveraged a significant amount of additional funds that have helped us to really reach this project to be able to be built at full scale, the prototype that we're working on. So somewhere along the way, Miles Lynch here, sorry. Miles Lutke, thank you to Matt Lynch, had heard about what we were doing, and he reached out to us, to me specifically, and said, and this is exactly what we're about, utilizing our local resources, specifically lumber, and turning it into something unique, different, beautiful. And so he said, we'll help you out. So that was a huge first step. And then with the funding that we got, it really helped us to get the ball rolling. We have a slide that kind of takes, that you gave me, that kind of takes us through the project here. How it happens, just to kind of give an overall snapshot of the process. It's so beautiful that really you've taken something that was a hazard in our forest and are putting it to good use. But that wasn't an easy process. No. And it took some engineering. It's taking some engineering. I shouldn't at all be putting it in the past tense because it's not like it's done. But the original design, which we see behind us, I just want to mention for people who haven't seen the other ones, you were, the idea was a transitional shelter, right? Yeah, transient, more temporary. I can explain that actually very well, because when I first started my research on this project and the albizia tied into it, like everyone else, I knew as much as the guy next to me, which is the albizia is problematic, it's weak, yada yada, all these negative things. So with that kind of initial understanding of it, I thought, well, at the very least, we can use it to solve some of our social issues, which is housing primarily at the moment. So we have a material that may not be strong enough, or may not be durable enough to last like it would, like a traditional building material. But since then, we've actually learned that that's not necessarily true. Okay, well, let's dive into that a little bit. I think we have some action shots of you in Stephen Hill's 3D lab. Stephen, tell us about this. What are we looking at? And there's the model of the structure. Okay, this was a small class we had over the summer, where we took mostly second and third year architecture students and actually kind of went through the process of how you'd manufactured this little house. And it was really rewarding because we started out, Joey planned the class great. We went to Lyon Arboretum and saw the stump from Albizia Tree and where they had been and heard the whole story of why they needed to remove them from that place. And also heard the story of why Albizia was planted there in the first place, which was interesting. And then some wood that Miles had milled and dried. And we made these engineered panels, which is one of the strategies that Joey's utilized to kind of compensate for the inherent low density that Albizia has or weakness by actually gluing it up into a sandwich panel, like a three inch thick plywood panel. And then in the background there was the CNC router that's used to cut pieces out for the house and it all kind of snaps together in a way and builds the structure. And we went through that whole process. Snaps together? In a way glues together, but there's been a hundred little hurdles that Joey has cleared on this project. One of which is just limitations you run into not only in the material, but in the machinery too. And most CNC routers and ours, which is a very entry level machine, is limited in size to eight feet. But Joey's arch requires a 20 foot column. So he had to figure out a way to make that in eight foot sections, you know, but you can't very well join two boards together end to end. So Joey, and this was really clever, I thought, kind of adapted a traditional Japanese splice joint in a way that could be produced on today's digital equipment. And made very precise lap joint that lapsed together and then the pieces kind of like a puzzle piece fit together to make the beam, which is then glued. How long did it take to work that one out? Well, I have to, I was going to jump in there because Steve, I have to give credit to for that because he, you know, we put down paper and would draw up ideas and evolve it, you know, over time. And also, since we were working, yes, at the College of Engineering, Dr. Ian Robertson played a significant role in all of this. He, we did the first set of testing with the original joint, which wasn't sufficient. So we, we did several other iterations and we found something that still has remnants of the original design. But like Steve said, it's overlapped and all these other evolutions that made it significantly stronger. OK, so you did all of this at UH except, I mean, the engineering part at the different labs so far. So we've, we've, you've involved the School of Architecture and the School of Engineering. Anybody else? Office of Sustainability, they kind of, they stay pretty close with this. Lion Arboretum. Lion Arboretum. Even I did a visit to KCC, Kauai Community College, and they were doing this tiny house project. They invited me to come try it out. That was right after I graduated, so, so that was, you know, we can say like their collaboration in some way and they kind of gave feedback on. How to make this thing a reality. Even Jason Levy, who's been really cool and like looking at it from his perspective, which is studying albizia and trying to see how the numbers of it, like how many are there and all these other studies that he's conducting over at UH West Oahu. So we've done some collaborative papers together and so it's reached, you know, pretty far. This is, this is the way we come to solutions that really work in this place. Okay, and Miles, you, you have brought in a significant technology and skill. And would you talk about Waimanala Woods and what you guys are and do and how, how you're involved in this? Yeah, so we're a local sawmill and we use a pretty big bandsaw sawmill to saw up wood and our business was sort of, the idea of it came from my business partner and he just, he really, he moved here, you know, 25 years ago and he saw all these guys putting large trees through chippers and he was like, those are trees that could be milled into good wood, what's going on here. And if you drive around, you'll see there's a lot of really big chippers going down the road and there's not very many sawmills. So, and the truth is, is every couple of those chippers would be enough wood to start another sawmill. So there's a serious lack of sawmills here because many, many trees are removed. Every time a property is developed or a tree gets too big, they're removed and without enough sawmills, it gets chipped up and thrown away. So, yeah, we really believe that trees are the golden resource of Hawaii. They grow here, they grow quickly and they have really gorgeous wood and about two years ago we started the business and we were really looking to promote just all the benefits of sawing up wood here on Hawaii with our own trees and I came across Joey's Facebook page when he was kind of just getting some publicity out there for his project and I thought, oh, this guy needs albezia milled up and I don't think anybody else is going to saw a bunch of dimensional wood for him. I mean, maybe, but I think we're a pretty good fit together. So I messaged him and said, hey, man, you should come out here and check out our sawmill and we'd like to saw some wood up. So Joey, before you met Miles, how did you think you were going to do this? Oh, I wish I had sent you a picture of the first log that we milled. When I was doing my research, I had heard about the removal project at Lion Arboretum and that was a big one. They had like 20-something huge trees, like 80-year-old trees coming down and they got, all right, I got one of those trees donated during my research to kind of test and prototype with, but the trick was getting it out of there. So what we did and me not knowing anything about sawing wood at the time, worked with one of the guys up there and taught me how to use the Alaskan sawmill and me and him milled it all on site, which is a pretty tedious process. So you actually physically did it? Yeah, yeah, I physically did it with a chainsaw and we, yeah, it took several weeks because it was like, you know, a couple hours a day when they had free time and then I was doing my research, so it kind of, we tried to fit it in, but we did it and we got it to the shop where Steve is and we dried it, took a pretty hefty chunk of space in the yard and then, yeah, it was kind of the initial learning process to see how this works and then... So, so Miles, up your game a little. Oh, yeah. So how long does it take that process take of, I think we have a picture of the wood drying and going, the milling. What is that? Most of us aren't familiar with that process? Yeah, so most of our logs come from our wrists. People who are removing trees, they come to our yard, they get dropped off and then you have a big giant wet log, you know, they're full of water in the beginning. You put them on the sawmill, you cut them square, you cut off all the round outside bits and then from there, you can start milling lumber. In Joey's case, we mill four-quarter, which is one inch, lumber, eight inches wide, nine inches wide and he was using, we'd cut the logs at nine feet because he's looking to have eight feet in the end and the ends will usually split as it dries. So we mill up all this lumber and then we put little spacers between all of it so that airflow can go around it and then we bring it inside the warehouse and have some fans and let it dry. The nice thing. And that's, I'll take how long? The milling, you know, you can get through quite a few logs in a week of milling. The drying, that's the interesting part, albezia, because of its low density dries relatively quickly. So, and by relatively quickly, for us is under a year. So, typically, like with monkey pod or mango or a lot of the local woods that we cut up, you think about for every inch of thickness, it takes a year to dry. So, when we cut two-inch thick monkey pod, it would be air dried in two years. Wow. So, yeah, it's a step process. Okay, and speaking of time, we're going to take a little break and come back and talk some more. Great. Thanks. Aloha. My name is Mark Shklav. I'm the host of Think Tech Hawaii's Law Across the Sea. Law Across the Sea comes on every other Monday at 11 a.m. Please join us. I like to bring in guests that talk about all types of things that come across the sea to Hawaii, not just law, love, people, ideas, history. Please join us for Law Across the Sea. Aloha. I'm Helen Dora Hayden, the host of Voice of the Veteran, seen here live every Thursday afternoon at 1 p.m. on Think Tech Hawaii. As a fellow veteran and veterans advocate with over 23 years experience serving veterans, active duty, and family members, I hope to educate everyone on benefits and accessibility services by inviting professionals in the field to appear on the show. In addition, I hope to plan on inviting guest veterans to talk about their concerns and possibly offer solutions. As we navigate and work together through issues, we can all benefit. Please join me every Thursday at 1 p.m. for the Voice of the Veteran. Aloha. Welcome back to Hawaii is my mainland. I'm Kaui Lucas and with me here today are three men who are involved in the fabulous albizia project. I love this project because it's about taking something albizia would and turning it into structural elements that we can use on island to build whatever we need to build. I think if all goes well. So Joey and is the instigator of all of this madness. Wonderful. And Stephen Hill from the UH architecture department. And Miles from Wyman, Hollywood. So Miles, I think we have a a few more pictures of what that looks like to create the raw materials for Joey and Steve to play with in their fancy machines. When the when the arborist drop off those logs art, is that a transaction that involves money? Yeah, that's something I'd love to talk about. So many places in the world, there are things called timber rights, including on the big island. But in Honolulu city and county, there really aren't timber rights. So oftentimes arborists will remove a tree and then sell it to a third party without informing the homeowner that they're selling the tree they removed and get paid twice for these jobs. So we don't buy trees unless it's from the person who owns the tree. So that's a big part of what we do is kind of setting standards for how, you know, trees should be respected in a way and they shouldn't just be sold under the under the radar like that. So sometimes we do buy logs. A lot of the times we don't have to because it costs arborists to dump like albizia logs are pretty easy to get because they would pay by the ton to dump it. So it costs them money to get rid of it. So if they bring it to us, it doesn't cost them money to get rid of it. And so you just accept it for free? Pretty much. I have some standard sizes and they got to be kind of straight like that. All those good things. Okay. Well, thanks for enlightening us on that bit. Okay. So now we have it's been milled and dried and then Joey's putting it together somewhere. Talk about that. We have a couple of shots of that process. All right. So we, I guess I'll jump to what happened this summer, which was that's actually where the full structure is going to end up, which is right outside the architecture school. The site we have contracted with UH Manoa is that's kind of what we're planning on doing when it's finished to exhibit it for a year on campus. So it's kind of highlighting what we're about and showing the public that this is something that we can do. But before we get to that, this summer we did a pretty big step in the process. So Steve and I co-instructed that class and with seven students we built the first arch of the structure and it was a pretty intensive class, but also very rewarding for the students because they actually got to be involved in the whole process as Steve had mentioned. The field trips were a big part of it, but also just working in the shop and learning how to use the equipment. We were able to build the first arch and then assemble it on site at the School of Architecture. Steve, what did you do for field trips? Well, we went to Lion Arboretum and we saw where the trees originated. We went to Mill Workshop out in Wahiwa and looked at their process for making finished product out of rough lumber, which is on a much bigger scale than the way we do it with our machines in our little shop. So that was very interesting to see. The students kind of got some basics of how to use the equipment, but then they also got to see what the next level is. I love hearing this really integrated hands-on as well as the theoretical UH architecture is obviously doing an awesome job. Okay, so I'm sorry for the digression. Let's keep going. No, no, that's perfect. So we built it over the six weeks. There's an arch plus half of one of another one and in total, the structure is made up of 13 of these arches, plus the louvers and the roofing and everything else, flooring and stuff, but the arch is a structure. Well, it's arch and beams, cross beams, so that's like the core structure of it. So we wanted to get that started just to make sure like everything worked well and even just standing it up was, you know, part of the process that we're going to have to figure out when we build this on site, what equipment we need. We actually were able to do it with just a couple of us and, or me, myself and Steve and the seven students. That was all we needed to really get this thing started. There are a lot of pieces when you look at that design. Is Miles going to be cutting all of that wood, the slats and everything? Yeah, so I think we saw an image of that chuck load of logs and if I'm not correct, correct me if I'm wrong, but that was taken today. Yeah, that was this morning. So that's all headed for the project. So this is one of the three companies we work with and I actually, I texted them about five days ago and I said, hey, my buddy Joe is looking for albizia. Let me know when you got some and they called me Monday and said, hey, we'll bring some by this week. And I mean, these trees are being removed all the time and there's this real strong belief that they're trash and I think it's been interesting with Joey's project. There's a lot of people, I think, who find it easy to doubt that this can be used, but the thing is with his hard work and some belief and going through the engineering and the stress test, it turns out it can be done and it's kind of, I think, our challenge is to show people that. So can you talk a little bit about that stress test? I mean, how much can it take? Do we know? What do you know? Well, for context, we did a series of tests specific to this structure and we overcame the joint, the challenges with the joint that we had talked about. We overcame how we're going to engineer it. Like Steve had explained already that we're making this panelized system and cutting out the parts. So we wanted to test those parts and we were able to get all of that to meet the requirements for this to be built. So the engineer actually, Ian Robertson, is confident that we can get this thing permanent, which is a big step. Okay, is it time to bust out the video? Sure, yeah. Sorry, I know we have other things to talk about, but it's just so cool. Let's have a look at it so people have an idea of what we've been talking about and then we can talk some more about it. This was done, where was the video done? So the summer class, we had built that, as I said, that first arch and we installed it on campus and then we took it down at the end of the day, put in storage, but then Steve and I made it a much more durable system that was going to basically stay up for a month. So the way it was secured to the ground and all that had to be taken another step. Okay, more little design challenges. Yeah. So that show is still up? Yes, the show ends on Sunday. On this Sunday. Speaking of Sunday. Sunday, I am doing... Sunday, October 8th. October 8th at 3 p.m. I'm doing a talk updating on basically what we've been talking about and what's next for the project. Co-presenting with Matt Lynch, who is UH System Sustainability Coordinator and we'll be talking about what's happened so far, the challenges, how we've overcome them, all the collaborators, obviously, and what happens next. So that is the closing reception for the wood show on Sunday. Well, and people should go early so they have a chance to see that wood show. It is so inspiring. I did my whole show on it the other day and I went to the opening afterwards and it's just magnificent. I mean, clearly we are under-utilizing our wood resources here in Hawaii. One thing I think is really nice, if I may, about the wood show and Joey's involvement is that, you know, a lot of the pieces in the wood show are gallery pieces, you know, but what Joey's doing is showing a whole another dimension of the industry where this could be used as a more utilitarian type product. So I think that's really inspiring. A good point because we do tend to think of wood here as an artistic element, something for special purpose because it's so precious, right? We've lost that idea, as you said, Miles, of milling our own here. And it's so interesting what you said about, do you happen to know the other counties, what the rules are as far as trees, who owns the trees? Yeah, I mean, the reason I mentioned Big Island is because with the Koa over there and their milling up eucalyptus and stuff, too, there's a forestry industry there. So timber rights exist and you can buy the timber rights to these trees without owning the property. The property owner can sell you the trees at a set rate and that's what timber rights are. And typically the owner of a property, unless they had sold their timber rights, would own that tree. So if somebody came in and cut it down and then sold it, that would be poaching, which can get you in really, really big trouble. But because that isn't here, these trees don't really have the full rights. They should have, you know, trees are important. Wow. So in the last minute, Joey, can you just give us a little taste about what's going to happen? Okay, a minute. So let's see what I can wrap up in a minute. 12 more arches. That's exactly it. 12 more arches. We're actually aiming to have the full prototype completed by early next year. January is what I'm shooting for. It's very exciting to see that truckload of logs that came in today to Miles Mill. So they're going to mill that up for us, dry it, and then we send it actually over to Bellows Millwork in Wahiwa. And they have generously, Eric Bellow, the owner, generously offered to help us get this built. And they have a pretty impressive setup over there. Well, thank you all for coming downtown and tearing you away from your project to talk about this. But really, just this is such a good thing and make it happen. Yeah, great. Thanks for having us. Thank you.