 April City of Honolulu, Hawaii, and today's our April Fool's Day edition of 2020, but my April Fool's Day, I'm in Honolulu. Exactly. And the reasons for that are serious to make a joke about is that our corona conditions, so we're happy to be safe and sound, and you guys hopefully as well, and give you more better chance to sit down and relax and be edutained by us. And our message is always optimistic, maybe particularly in these conditions, and we want to have an optimistic outlook a year ahead of us, where I'm hoping to take you to solo and a bunch of others who we get excited about through these shows here that we've been doing a couple already, and taking you guys with me to Germany, where I'm from, and where me and my family business have had the chance to build this kind of body of work and has a lot to do with the many things that are challenging us on the island and also create a lot of opportunities. And so we've been walking through pretty much foundations for early childhood. We've been talking about higher education. We've been talking about grocery, how do we get our food, and we ended up being a transportation, which is number two as the biggest carbon consumer in the world. And so, and we want to talk about light transportation, even lighter than we're finally getting it in Honolulu, which is actually rather heavy. And we're saying we want to revisit actually that something that you confirmed to me as being from the island is a tradition on the island, which is light rail. Yes. And so we've been looking at a project last time and did sort of this virtual drive and stuff by every station, only as appetizers because we want to keep you excited about doing that with us in real and nothing beats the real deal. But today we want to introduce another project. But before we do that, can we go to the first slide where we basically see them both at the top right, at the top is the Expo stations, which were built for the Expo in 2000 and below that is the project we're going to talk about. But if we go to slide number two, we want to share or briefly touch three lessons that we learned through the project. And the first lesson, you remember what that was to Soto when we talked about it the other day? I can't remember now what order they were in, but I do know that you discussed how after the project was completed or nearly completed, you went through it because you were a young architect at the time. It was a learning process for what you went through as these train stations or these shelters at the light rail stations were that you learned from. Exactly. And the slide number two, we actually see a publication by a gentleman who used to work for Aero, which is one of the largest architecture and engineering firms in the world. And this is from a book that they gave us when on the right side of the quotes are from a book that they gave to us. And again, what we learned is that when we went into this competition, for reasons we explained last time, so you guys got to watch that show and then obviously travel with us to hear the full story, we had little to no hope that we would ever, you know, win the competition or build it, but we did. And there's something that that surprised you to maybe learn from that architectural fees and engineering fees in Europe and in Germany are fixed so you can't negotiate. So you can actually pick the structural engineer and the architect by how much you like their work and, you know, it's not by how much they cost, because when you said in America, that would be considered to be what? Well, it would be considered to be socialism if those price and people in the USA would be up in arms about how dare you do that and interrupt the free market system. But as you pointed out, it enables clients to be able to get that they can afford to pay for, which in the United States is very difficult in most cases, particularly for smaller, smaller clients. Exactly. So when we're there on site, we'll tell you the full story. There's a funny story about how I learned the hard way always to work with your collaborators with the engineers from the very beginning, right? Not until the end you'll laugh because you like the story. The next slide here, number three, is unfortunately, as we only have one architectural magazine left, which is the architectural record, same in the UK, the only one left with a main one is the architectural review, that they were launching an award and we were, you know, lucky to have been one of a recipient. And one of the jurors here was a colleague of mine, Billy Chin, who was rather critical and been quoted that way, as you see at the very bottom right. And once again, just like when we challenged the emerging generation in studio reviews and stuff like that, that's not what you want to hear to begin with, but it's what you need. And, you know, I haven't been any different and I'm still that way. I learned the most, we all learn the most from mistakes and not from whatever successes we have. And I wanted to point out that the quote from Billy, exactly what the same things that I came to on my own, when we were discussing this, this, this, this train, this system of train shelters. And one of the, I said two things, differentiating each station by its appearance, not only help identify it, but it also gives the person riding on the vehicle the chance to see the progression of the stations. In other words, because everyone is not identical, because everyone is different, you as a passenger are kind of anticipating what's the next one going to be. I want to see it. And the jurors in this particular case, the other three jurors convinced this one woman that objected, she thought to what, what, how cosmetic that no, that was what the benefit of doing it that way was. And I feel really good that when you and I discussed it, I came to the same conclusion that they did. And again, we, otherwise we leave it up to all you guys to check it out on your own with us and make up your own opinion, because that's the best to do. And that's why we want to go there. The next slide is the cover of the wallpaper magazine and an article is called Travelled Top 25. And what, you know, you as, you know, a photographer and, you know, being a sort of a seismograph of what's going on on the island, and you currently, you know, out and about a couple shows about your findings in this very specific situation that there were have, which rather extreme as we know. So what was remarkable about these pictures by, by this gentleman photographer, Werner Eichinger, I think, was his name, become very picky, that we would use on this program and taking photos to be as straight as possible. In other words, not tapering off. In other words, everything that's supposed to be a vertical upright line is vertical. And these pictures absolutely break those rules, because as you said to me last night, first of all, the photographer took them standing on the tracks, which is forbidden or foreboding, as you would say, and not forget. And there's the obvious use of a flash or some kind of artificial light. So this is breaking all the rules that we like to follow when we do art programs on ThinkTech. Photographer in a massive international magazine, so if he can break the rules, the rules can be broken sometimes. Exactly. Good exceptions to the rule, as we like to say. That's right. So I'll move on to the next slide here, which is, so we're, we've been talking that we want to do things that American have found themes for worth for, which is POE, post occupancy, evaluation, EBD, evidence-based design, all for life cycle assessment, LCA. So these stations have been around for almost two decades, you know, the wildest things as far as whether in people and their behaving or not. So here you can see a rather sort of crowded station, which again, in these days of social distancing, you would have to space them out. But again, hopefully we'll get there at some point soon. But you can see how sort of use the station is how utilized it is, how embraced it is. There must be some kind of, you know, high school field trip here. You see, you know, folks of the same young age and you see bicycles as well. So you can, it's kind of a mixed transportation mode that the station provides. And I wanted to point out that this picture again, re-emphasizes how small this train line is and how small the stations are and the stops are. And that was one of the very important things that you and your father had to deal with in the course of designing these shelters, how can we design everything? The next slide, number six, is the early pioneers of what we want to do is they have been inspired, they've been inspiring that because this is Teraj and Chris who some years ago, when we still had the Copenhagen program, came over and wanted to check some of the projects we've been doing. So here they are and the next page, number... Before we go on, where are they from? The University of Hawaii. Their ethical background is Sri Lanka for Teraj and for Chris, he's Filipino. Yeah, and they are international. They are just our visiting journey. They are. And they've been in Hawaii for a while for study reasons and for family reasons. So they've been on the island, just their ethical background is from all over the place, as we most of us are in Hawaii. And again, they basically said that this sort of trip they had had sort of a life changing impact on there. I mean, not specifically the branch to me, but going to Copenhagen, experiencing Europe, it's just something that ever since they came back, they were different people. That's what they were saying. And move on to the next slide. We're actually sitting where we took this picture. We're sitting in a cafe on the other side of this particular train station. And in the distance, you can see probably a situation of social distancing more to what we would see out if we would be able to go out at all. Would be banned to be a big at home, right? But here you can see, which makes me very happy because all these awards, all these publications don't mean anything compared to when you see that the buildings you imagined gave birth to basically fulfill the hopes you had here of inclusivity, of having people of all kinds who can't afford to use private transportation or they don't want to, for other reasons. And again, I mean, you would normally think of Germany as a pretty sort of a white culture, right? With lots of Caucasians. Yeah. But you can see the results of Angela Merkel's welcoming culture and having people from all colors of skins and all religious confessions here pretty much peacefully aligned on the platform. Yeah. So you might remember the car in front, that's our P.I. in Mobile in Germany, our little Twingo that we've been talking about here. And then, so the next slide, number eight, is when we parked, there was a car next to us, or the maker of the Twingo is Renault, the French automaker. And the one next to it is an electric version called the Twizy. And Siraj is and Chris too are in their final sprint of the ARC project. And Chris has said that this car was one of the initiations to make him do what he's doing in rethinking transportation in Waikiki and back home very much. Yeah. So let's move to the next project and next page here, number nine, and tell us what that strange apparatus there is because some of the younger audience people might not even know what that is. That strange cream colored object in the lower left corner is the telephone that I am talking on right this minute to do this program. And it was one that I purchased in the early 1980s at the phone mark store at the Ward warehouse, which unfortunately is now gone. That's because I'm using a landline technology to do these shows now. And it is a dial telephone, not a push button phone. That's how old fashioned it is. But it has a color that's particularly relevant for this particular slide. And you describe why? Well, again, talking about made in America and made to land, there we go, right? There we go. And either game. I'm told, how long did that last, like two, three years? And then they're ready for the landfill, right? So that was the way to go. And yes, the color is an indication of the side guide. And again, the image we showed last time before is where my mother here with me and my sister standing in front of two cars who have the same creamy color. And that's very typical for the early 70s, sorry, late 70s and sort of early 80s. Then they were all into the cream colors. And I forgot to say, which I will add now, is that while the cars are sitting there, we already talked that we didn't need them much because everything was walkable. But when we wanted to go to downtown, there was actually a light rail station relatively close by that in my early childhood memories was ungraved. And I have vivid memories of what stores we've passed and stuff like that. And then in the 70s, they did this massive undertaking to put everything on the ground, meaning a subway. And so that was what I was riding then for the later parts of my youth. And this is a typology that for that reason is familiar to me ever since my childhood. And the next slide is how we were approached to address that typology. You find this picture pretty surreal. We're actually asking, is that that particular station we had to deal with at number 10, right, with a cascading down water? It's a waterfall with an unintended unplanned waterfall. And now, I was just going to say that something to keep in mind that whenever you build anything below grade or underground, there's the possibility of flooding. And it may be rare and it may be very unusual. But when it happens, it can be not only destructive but incredibly disruptive. It costs a lot of money. So the client here is the public transportation company in the city of Bochum, which is more in central Germany and the former steel belt. They figured if they would cover up the stations to keep the rain off, they would long term save on maintenance. And that's why they basically launched, once again, an architectural competition. And we, on the next slide, by now, you guys know we're fans of physical models. This is a sort of a zoom into the base of the model, which simulates the condition from coming out of the dark tunnel, going into the light up there. And I think the challenge, we thought, is sort of adjust the eye from the very dark to the very bright. But there was another circumstance to consider, which was code, basically mandated by the Department of Motor Vehicles, in that case, and not the Building Department because it's a piece of infrastructure. It said your structure has to withstand the impact of a truck running into it. And we thought, oh, well, welcome back to Postmodernism. We got to make big chunky, ugly columns. Of course, we didn't want to do that. So the sort of the answer, the Gestalt answer to these challenges or to these circumstances illustrated by the next slide, which shows you the upper part of the model and shows you our solution. And what was that, Gestalt? How did we solve that? We should point out that this obviously is a street level view. And because the road is running directly next to this, which is the entryway to a sub, you are dealing with this code problem or code situation of being able to withstand the impact of a truck that would be driving right next to the thing. So instead of building several large support columns, what you guys chose to do was to build multiple smaller steel columns and cantilevered structures, individual one sort of L-shaped, which are anchored in a concrete base and with the redundancy of multiple steel supports, you could do away with the single or more of fewer, really substantial concrete supports. So you end up with this very light, delicate looking structure, which actually is very strong. Well put, thank you. And there's a lot of part in that picture and we leave this for when you guys join us out there why the working title for that project is Urban Waterfall. And the next slide is we might bring this printout of the construction document, which is one sheet and everything is on there. But if you zoom, if you look close, this gives you a clue how complex that drawing is. Because once again, this is obviously within the School of Thought of this being essential, essentialist. And essentialism is very complex because actually making things disappear is more difficult and more challenging than adding on and adding on and cluttering things. We all know how cluttering is easy at home, but cleaning things up and keeping things tidy is more challenging. That's absolutely right. And I think the other thing that we discussed earlier was it may look uncomplicated, the structure itself when we look at pictures of it, but as these drawings show and as you have said. And so if we go to the next slide, number 14 here, this is an indication about materiality and I was already giving you a hint we were operating within the former steel belt Germany. So that I had an influence on large loads of materials and also has an impact on again, which is important to sort of revive, which is the tradition of the master builder, to someone who also, you know, while thinking about how to design something, thinks about how to put it together and then has control over it through all the architectural phases, which we always had. I have to say we can jump to the next picture here that actually the time it took for it to be built was almost was more than a decade because this is how globalism, which we're experiencing now the hard way is impacting little people, which happens less than right now with all the people in the hospitality industry and the gastronomy and all these people who have a hard time making it. Here, the city of Bochum has been for, you know, a very long time at the city of Opel and Opel very early as you point out and as an expert also in automotive history has been bought by GM and when GM got in trouble, not that long ago, Bochum got in trouble. So this thing architect got in trouble, so this project got in trouble and was on hold on and off for almost a decade. And then basically the client was then while I was already in the US, the client was actually doing the final phase of construction supervision in a very fantastic way. And I would like to have the client come out and we're there and express all the challenges that he had from his opinion, which is obviously a different point of view than mine. Yeah, so we go to the next slide. Gotta hurry up a little bit. We only got two minutes left, but we also have two slides left. So number 16 is when the thing starts to light up in the evening and it becomes a beacon. How do we, how were we able to do that? We were once again working together with lighting engineers. And so they know how it was very important. And the next slide shows a gentleman that you just met. Yes. He was visiting Honolulu. Yes, your son Joey. And he used to go to school to automotive engineering management school in one town over. So we checked out the building here, as we will do when we go there. And then the next slide is a nice situation which shows there's something intriguing here. There are a lot of appearance being different if you approach it from one side, then you approach it from the other side. Slide is a two-slot, I mean a compilation of next slide. Number 19 here is, which when we move to the next slide already, number 20 is the publisher's favorite view which is more this elevational perception. And we see a person reappearing that you were pointing out the male dominated jury here. One of them was David Chippa Field and the project that, and these are readings again that we would like to pass out and give you guys as for preparation for the project. And so this one here is an international tour guide by the fated publisher, a destination architecture, and it was lucky to be published side by side with our inspiration and sort of informal mentor, David Chippa Field. So the next slide, second to last number 21, we're planning to go one town over as well, which is Hamburg, the big city. And you see already other infrastructural systems here of floating. So that is something that is being in Honolulu, being a coastal city, very interesting to see how cities develop. And there is a neighborhood that was pretty much built on scratch. So it has a lot to do with, you know, circumstances that we have in Kakaako as well. Yeah. And last but not at all least what would be the final deliverable of the tour? The final deliverable is going to be a show on Think Tech about the trip that we are going to take. And I'm including me because I'm going to go on one of those to see these different architectural, it'll be that the kids or the, not the kids, but the students who do this will do a show on Think Tech describing what they saw and what they learned. Absolutely. Can't wait for that. Obviously we're then, after having been stuck at our places for a while, we're even more eager to get out again and check things out in the world that we can learn from. Yes. So with that, we're at the show. We're going to see you all back next week. And you and I just sort of will keep our, you know, fingers out into the wind and see what's happening around us. Obviously things significantly different than before. So we also want continue to business as usual on the very specific challenges that we're facing from Corona these days. Right. And next week, we can already say we're going to do a presentation that we wanted to do for AIA who has the architectural week and obviously can't happen physically, but we want to make up for that and share our presentation this way. Yeah. See you then. Okay, bye. Stay safe and sound. Bye-bye.