 happy to have you all back for another exciting episode of think-taker-wise human-humane architecture. And once again, we, you the Soto back in Honolulu, hi. And me, Martin being half around the world in Germany and in its most southern parts, you can see the silhouette of the Alps behind me a little while ago. And since as it looks like I will be back soon the Soto and you but we're still be in in socially distance conditions. So you will be up the foothills of diamond head and I will be down the foothills. And then we will not run out of subjects to talk about. But until then, we really want to heavily take advantage of us being distance and apart, and looking at phenomena from both sides of the world that might share potentials and opportunities. So today, we want to talk about whenever our heavy rail is robust enough to carry people from a significant point A to a significant point B. I was just reading the news that they say, Oh, it won't go to the stadium anytime soon, which then might not be far enough to. But sometimes in the future, when it will go and already now the planners and architects are decided about what they call TOD, which is transit oriented developments. So it's pretty much public transportation, fueling and feeding the desire for settlements and and building communities around these sort of knots of public transportation. So we're going to look at a similar community in my front yard here where I am currently in the outskirts of Munich. And let's bring up the first slide and recap a little funny story that we talked about the Hollywood Hills. Do you remember that? But you said you were driving your big old car around and how are you looking for a particular base study house? The case study houses are these famous houses built in the 50s and 60s as examples of modern architecture with one per year. And you're looking for a particular famous one, and weren't able to really get to it or find it, but we're able to part on the lower level below it because it projects out from hill. And there's a famous photograph of it projecting out into space with the distant lights of Los Angeles behind it. And you got to look up at it and take a picture of it. But then because you looked a little disreputable or questionable, a resident where you had part came out and questioned you is what you were doing there, not realizing that this important house was above her and not caring either. Absolutely. And it's like you I couldn't believe that there is like the the most valuable jewelry in front of a resident and that neighborhood and not knowing what it is and thinking her Tuscany style, you know, home. And her she came out with her Cadillac Escalade was like the ultimate thing. And little did she know that what she thought was a shack up there was is the real treasure, right? Right. But there's also the he's also the connection to the famous Hollywood sign. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This slide as well, because the town that we're going to talk about, which is in Germany, doesn't have anywhere near the glamour and excitement and international status of Hollywood. But you pointed out that they installed real sign outside their city limits on the highway to show that maybe they're a little bit like Hollywood. I don't know. I know. And let's give the audience a little bit better idea about the whole setting. Let's go to the next slide. Because this is as close that it can get to Hawaii as far in Germany. Because otherwise, it's pretty flat or it's gently rolling hills all throughout Germany, never gets as crazy as the mountains in Hawaii. But here, the alps, which you see in the background are as close as you can get. And although this is not the ocean, the ocean is behind the alps when you go to the Mediterranean Sea to to Italy, which is behind the way out ways away. This is a lake, but we still got some we got still got some Makai as well to that agree. But let's not be fooled. There's someone swimming in that like not anymore for some reason, not just for decoration, because we think about we want to talk about performance. The way I'm dressed here is not for the camera, but it's for keeping me warm. I'm layered right now. We're having the first freezing night to come this night here. So we're talking basically temperate climate, deciduous vegetation. So now all these trees have lost their leaves. And that's why the architecture, which we see reference to a couple of shows in the past has to look like it looks up there. It needs to bundle up. It's while architecture, while in a while, we're not getting tired of saying it should just be roof architecture. But all we have to protect from is the rain and the sun. And for that, you don't need a wall, fundamentally speaking, right? So next slide gets us to to give an idea. So if you Google Earth for this one here, at the bottom, the white stuff is actually what's piling up now the snow on the Alpine mountain tops. And the spot at the very north up there is actually the edge of Munich. So our big metropolis nearby. And the red spot in the middle almost halfway is the town we're going to talk about today. And let's go to the next slide. And you share with us to sort of what this sort of zooming in from more shifting perspective is telling you on top of what we saw before. Well, first of all, what you explained to me was that this is this town is close enough to Munich that people do commute there, although not too much, because this is not really a TOD development per se, because it does not have the extension of the main rail line into the city of Munich. That's a close that ends close by at another town. But that's important for this story, because this is a town where you can get to the next town and then to the train by taking a bus or potentially driving yourself. But what we also see in this picture is the town is on the left. There is a winding river, which is and stream from the Alps, which is run off of precipitation up there. And we also see on the right, that this is a farming community. And I asked you what they grow there and you said a variety of different things. They've got dairy products, they've got potatoes. They may have hops to grow for beer, etc. So this is yeah, and their beer and they like their beer in Germany. So this is an agricultural, a small agricultural town that's probably ancient, but it's being redeveloped in a modern way right now. Absolutely. And a little short reference at the top right is that we were talking about the American saving banks headquarters in Honolulu at the edge of Chinatown. They've been building this right at a river. And then in their in the entrance foyer, they're showing videos of a crystal clear spring river coming down. But the next to them is a very dirty filthy river where we said they should have spent some time not buying that monitor and playing this video, but helping to clean that river. Because further down the stream of this river here, we've been seeing me basically taking a bath in downtown Munich in that still pretty crystal clear river in inner city. So again, our play to you is if we can do this here, we should be able to clean our rivers in Hawaii. We should be that. So let's go to the next slide. Yeah, we can see that in the previous one, we can see everything is pretty much pretty much low density buildings, predominantly one or two story. And again, as you know, that we here we see that sign in the distance and I've been driving by there when my sister actually lived further south of this for several years. So I was passing by this sign a couple of times and always wondered, where is the equivalency of the glamour of the Hollywood Hills in California in this town. And next slide. Recently, even from further behind that this this sign that the town being further away, which we're zooming in here at the very top, you can see this beacon sticking out as new construction and the crane there. So that obviously made us curious to want to check out what that is. And let's go to the next slide and share what you see first when you take a turn and drive into the town. So here's a couple of your German weekly German lessons here. So let's share your homework. So okay, well, actually, I didn't I didn't try I looked at the two signs that are confront were confronted with I had absolutely no idea what they said, but you just told me that the one on the right says you have to wear a mask when you're in this area. And the other one says please wait to be seated. And on the table, where next to that sign is a bottle of hand sanitizer. And the waitress in the background is wearing a mask. So we know that we're still in the time of COVID. You also explained to me something I never heard of before that the city halls in Germany tend to also have a bar and restaurant on the ground floor or the subterranean floor in the cellar. So that the lawmakers can make the laws and then go downstairs and get drunk or vice versa get drunk and then go upstairs and make the laws. So that's a kooky thing I never heard of before. And you know, obviously, we're doing the show to point out potential and opportunities for way out West. And wouldn't that be great? A great amenity to add to couple a Holly, right? At that bar in progress for that. This is in Germany here, all right, never mind. Next slide. And so this is the once again, the traditional architecture you find this is actually took this picture from which we'll see in the volume to part of this show here at a new phase one completed project. You look and this is your neighborhood. So you got that traditional Bavarian ground floor stuck out in plaster top floor wood roof overhang, the vernacular architecture that makes you survive well. The winters, the snowy winters and also the the more the more warmer summers. Next slide. Let's walk through the community a little bit. This looks very much like in the Hollywood Hills, right? Doesn't it? I don't even say it with that glamorous, but you did say that this is, if not low income housing, it's modest housing. This is in right in the area that we're going to be talking about right in the center of town or presumably close to it. So there is some outdoor living. You can see there are outdoor chairs that are stacked up there next to the tree. But it's not it's not a glamour area. No. And it's it's very American as we see in the next slide. Well, there are American influences, certainly the housework ground with oversized tires and oversized rim that are that are bright orange. And the motif of the star on the exterior of the Jeep looks it suggests to me that that's a reference to Texas being Lone Star State. But it does have a German license plate on the front of it. So we know it's not from Texas. And the license plate you explained to me shows the district that comes from the jurisdiction as well as the number specific number of the license plate for this particular crazy looking Jeep. That's for you are license plates experts. Yeah. And next slide. Gives us a clue about that this isn't just out there in the in the boom dogs, but it's also has proximity to the big city to the big metropolis because this is a billboard advertising a museum. And it's exhibit about and that's interesting for you working for a museum. And you had a couple of shows about garment and attire and clothing. Yes, a lower shirts and more. And this one here is about the international fashion designer or cultural territory, Mugler, and an exhibition about his work. So it gives you a clue that they advertise here because they're thinking they can lure people to their big city to the metropolis. Right. And while this town we have to say it's sort of the opposite to out West and on a while where you have the transit oriented development first as to the lower developments to dwell around the particular stations, while here, actually the community won over. So next to it, the next town close to this one here has the final station of a commuter train that gets you straight into Munich. So here it might be the opposite that what we will see pretty soon might actually motivate the Department of Transportation or heart, I guess, as the equivalent to extend their their line to give it one more stop. Because this, you know, community through what we will see soon creates a larger demand for public transportation as well. So so let's keep on walking. Let's go to the next slide. This is looks very community based because again, you see one word which is too below there, it says for shanking and it means to give away for free. And the dogs likes that to have things given the dogs like that. I think you got to give away for free some bones to them. So here they're giving away books for free. So it's a it's a very nice gesture showing this is a nice community. You know, if you trust people to to do that, you know, it seems a pretty good atmosphere in the community. And it's also a very cosmopolitan which you might not expect. And the outskirts of Southern Germany. Next slide. Where are we now? Well, we're outside at a supermarket that is called Istanbul or nobody's a column. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. So it's it's run by Turkish immigrants. So I presume it's just a regular supermarket. I don't know if it sells ethnic food or not, but it does show she do that. Okay, it gives you an indication also about a Turkish population in the town, right? They're serving a Turkish population. And let's see people from other ethical backgrounds. Next slide. We're now in Italy because now we've got the pizza store. And we have that they sell pizza, they sell they have sell ice cream to I could I could read the word ice on the front. So I knew that meant that they sell ice cream too. So it is a little bit more international than you would think from just it being a small town out in the country. Yeah, yeah. And on the left, we can see indication what crazy is going on there right next to it in the heart of the center. You see multiple cranes and you see a construction offense with some billboarding on. So let's check this out. Next slide, please. So that is basically what you get that clue from the main road that passes by the town and then you have to take off and get into town. And when you get into the heart of it, and that's a literal quote from the architect who designed these developments here, he calls it, you know, the what he's been doing, he calls it open heart surgery, because you're operating at the open heart, meaning what we previously saw these these adjacent shops are staying open while they're doing this massive construction. And this looks pretty crazy, right? This is like huge. This is a huge development. And and check it out further. Let's go to the next slide and give you some more chance of your German learning lessons here. Well, well, I did get from looking at this that this is claiming to be the new center of the town. And it also is providing parking too. So what what I gleaned from looking at this is, and we're going to talk about this more is in the future in our next show. These this this complex is being built with parking underground. And then it's going to be mixed use. So it's going to also be it's also going to be apartments as well as some commercial use too. And we're going to look at what some of those buildings are going to look like. But they're saying that they're building a new center of town, basically. There's already one segment that's been built. It's this is called BGZ. I don't know what that stands for. But this part that we're looking at right here is BGZ two. So thus we know there's already a phase one in existence. Yeah. And one thing they're priding themselves with, it also says at the beginning, and that actually gets us to take a closer look at the rendering we're going to already see here. But it says, and I get this optimized and efficient, which means they're priding themselves on energy efficiency. Once again, we're talking about we're talking about a temperate climate. It's getting cold. So you need to insulate these buildings really well. I had to take my sweater off because one of our biggest fans follow us is our exotic escapism expert, Suzanne. And she said that thing makes weird kind of shapes on the screen with a sort of improvised green zoom integrated green screen today. That's the only reason I took it off. But otherwise, again, buildings have to dress up as people have to. But next slide is zooming into closer into that rendering. What do we see that we would love to see more if not all the time in Hawaii? Well, we see two things in this rendering. And that's how I figured out what was going on. First of all, you see a car going down a ramp into the lower level of parking. And you explained that this is going to be public parking as well as parking for the residents. But we also see that this building has lanais. And this is something crazy that we discuss a lot. But in Germany, where it's cold a lot of the time and you can't go out on your lanai for a good portion of the year, buildings still have them. Yet here in the Hawaiian islands, where it never gets cold, our high rises in many cases now are being built without them. So they are glass boxes with absolutely no access to the outside and no air movement. So if it can be done in Germany, why is it not being done here? Absolutely. And next slide. We saw in the, if you guys remember and recall, and you know, when you watch the show again, look again, our look down into that big construction side hole in the distance which we skipped over, you could see like four-story multi-dwelling there. That was the tallest they ever got in the town until recently. And here they're adding the front part of this development even has one more stories here. So they're going significantly higher. And again, as far as the parking, we want to make sure that we don't, we never suggest to have anything literally being adoptable for Hawaii. You got to take everything with a grain of salt, especially climatically as we keep talking. And also the parking, we rather have people basically get off their cars and get on multimodal public transportation, maybe from the heart to that bicycle and so on. But here again, they take a different route and again, when we recognize the harshness of the elements in the winter, you know, then there might be more reason to basically put parking on the ground because your car doesn't get snowed on, et cetera, et cetera. But again, it's a huge undertaking, it's huge cost and why, you know, taking on such an effort of investment for fossil or even, you know, if they're all Teslers, but still, right, you're doing a lot for individual transportation that we should question more. And again, as we said, this could be the initiation for basically having that final stop of the commuter train extend to this town here. So let's go to the next slide here, which shows us sort of the other side of that main street, as you can call it, which is behind, behind that is where the big hole is and the construction side. So here, we're on the opposite side, which gets us back to where we started out. And here we see a rendering of that facade, which once again has lanais as well in this other fashionable mode of interweaving and, you know, and whatever style that has, we don't want to comment on, that's all subjective. So, you know, formally, we, we, you know, let you make up your mind about it, but performatively, as you said, this is rather cool to have in Germany for the few months that you can use it. So we, every building should be mandated to have that back in Hawaii where you have that condition that we only have for a few months. We have that as well all year round, pretty much. The story you see in the back is a, is a rather low-priced fashion store. It's a chain. It's a national chain. And so it gives you another indication. This isn't necessarily initially a high-end community, right? It's rather low-key. You've got moderate income families live there traditionally, and the stores basically represent that. There is, well, in the, in the center of the city, the prices, the real estate prices are as through the roof as in Honolulu. There isn't really much different. In fact, some of the, if you're trying to rent my Waikiki grant in downtown Munich, you're actually paying more than that I'm paying. It's got to that point. And obviously the same as, as in Honolulu, trying to develop out west is driven by, oh, you can still afford something out west that you couldn't afford in town anymore, right? So the same is true for here, that there is just a different price segment and it's, you know, and but then the price for that cheaper price is commuting, right? If you still have to work in town, you need to get there and public transportation supposedly then intentionally. Again, the difference is here, there's one town over it. So even if they're not wishful thinking are going to extend that tram one more stop to this more solidified town, it only takes you like a five-minute drive to the next town and you park and ride there, hop that train and that gets you back into town, into the big town with with public transportation. So we're close to the end of the show. Let's wrap up with a final picture here for today, which is what DeSoto, what are we looking at and for in the future for the volume two of the show? Well, what we're seeing in this picture is first of all on the right a little outdoor seating area from the established part of town and then the background in the and the left of that scene, we can see the phase one of the BGZ complex. If I'm, yeah, it's kind of in the center and we'll be looking at that more closely, but this is sort of the setting in which all of this is taking place and in our next show we will be looking at the existing development to get an idea of what that looks like and what the new one is going to look like. Yeah, and it put it into context here. This was some month ago and we're still summer as said and also we were not in what we're currently in the lockdown light and lockdown light means that this situation wouldn't be possible anymore because the light means everything can stay open, but who is hit hard and heavily is the astronomy business because our restaurants are have to be closed so there's no indoor dining anymore nor that there is outdoor there's only carry out so this situation is sort of from the recent past looks different now, but again the development in the past is the one that we want to pay attention to next time so until then keep increasingly enjoying the easy breezy and easy, easy breathiness back in Hawaii because it's unique it's a unique selling proposition so again we encourage everyone to enjoy it more and have architectural manifestations of that easy breezy lifestyle present and represent itself more accordingly. So with that see us again next week for showing you what that phase one her endowed to be. So until then, bye bye. Bye.