 This is the Q&A session to last week's show about our proletarian people, Tower Primitiva Tower. And we're gonna have the creators of Primitiva 3 here as well as the reviewers. We're blessed and honored to have the most creative minds on the islands and who have contributed to the islands here with us, who is in no particular order, Richard Low, I Rich, who has been working with Steve Owl for Victoria Award and created what Kakaako has been and should continue to be. So one of the masters of tropical exotic master planning we have with us. Also, we have my colleagues, David Rockwood here and Bullet Kinista Khan, who are the finest tropic hears and practicators who come from practice as well as coaching and have been envisioning and are building the most progressive buildings on the island. We have Thomas Lim, we all know from the show from way, way back, that is called the bigger picture. And this is what's about trained as an architect, retrained as a neuroscientist, retrained as a manager and in charge of all the sitar properties on the islands of Hawaii. We have Ronald Lindgren, who has left the largest imprint of tropical exotic architecture on the islands together with his friend and partner, Ron Killingsworth, the Kahala Hilton to begin with, the Halekolani, the Ihilani, the Mauna Lani, you name them all, these are all authored by Ron. And we have Sokretis Pratakos, without whom this would not be possible because he is a visionary, although he is foreseeing life safety on the island. He is a visionary and he is seeing the desperate need that things have to change in the interest of his discipline of life safety, but also in his very self-interest of a most human and humanist person. That is a team that is present here, the panel team. And last but not at all least, we have Jafi Adele, who is the conscious on our island, who gives all the critical minds on the island a chance to vent and to reflect and do that 24 seven on what I call the Abi Nathan, a ship of freedom that sails in this case, not on offshore of the coast of Israel, but in this case here on the island, but has the same mission of fostering creative thinking and speaking. So thanks to all guys being with us. We open this up now for discussion and please now ask the questions that you want to in respect of what you've seen in the last about two hours. Yeah, I just like to say that this concept has really got my mind reeling. We're talking about primitiva, and one word that hasn't come up as we were discussing things is the word ziggurat. And the reason I say that is the very first of the primitive architecture that meant to be monumental and man's overpowering of nature was in the Old Testament, the Tower of Babel. That was a series of ramps and landings that led up and up and up. And of course, the people who built it thought it would lead to heaven. But the concept that I'm seeing here is exotic because things that are exotic to me are things that I've never experienced or even imagined. And what I'm imagining, no, I'm not imagining, I'm seeing it in this program, is a spiral ziggurat. And instead of some sort of expression of monumentality, there's this transparent spiral ziggurat, which is very ethereal, like primitiva three. It's not in the spirit of monumentality, but there's a sentimentality and a romanticism about living with nature. And in this scheme, I can see that one lives with nature with all senses. And so that this particular scheme succeeds where the Tower of Babel didn't, which collapsed for human hubris because this is as close to paradise and heaven on earth as I've seen in a social housing scheme. So it was a great pleasure to see this. Well, that coming from you, Ron, means the most to us because you have been materializing the most tropical exotic that we know on the island in the past decades. So thank you for that. Much appreciated. And Kalin, if you could bring up please, as we said, images that illustrate what we're talking about. Well, this is one of the more stimulating displays of possible architectures I've ever seen. I find it very stimulating and I really do. But for me, Hawaii has been very cold in the last few months. Of course, I'm 92 and when you get to be that age, you begin to feel the ups and downs of the weather more directly. But I've seen the model in next door to where I am right now. And it's very, very attractive looking and very interesting. Thank you, Rich. And maybe Kalin go to the cocooning images and you guys now respond to that because Rich, you share that your thin skin with George actually. So maybe George, you can most relate to that and please respond to that. I can relate a story that I related in Kevin Newt's class with my mom. We would go on Long Island to the North Shore of Long Island, to the beach where everybody was sweltering. And my mother, it was 98 degrees and she kept saying that she's cold, she's cold, she's cold. So it's all... I also feel that way. I mean, basically growing up in New York on Long Island and also California. Even in California, I was always cold. I think it's a genetic thing too. And plus I am probably the closest one to Rich's age anybody here, I think I'm the oldest. So I can say that as you get older, you feel the cold more, but even in my youth. So that's why I was the one who mentioned maybe having little heaters, because everybody else felt maybe heaters weren't necessary. So it came from a hot climate. So okay, well, I'll leave it at that, but I can commiserate. Hi, Socrates, great to have you on board. Thank you, Martin. And it's nice to see everybody. I've been to some Primitiva class finales before and this is a topper. I really like what I saw today. The ramps caught my attention because that's a good way to move people around and everybody can help each other get in and out. Of course, you know, I like waterfalls. So I was happy to see the water and waterfalls. And I understand that there are not too many flammable materials, but it's good to see water. And then it seems like people are able to help each other in this building. And then for most of history, we just use buckets or jars and pass them to each other if there was a fire. I was very impressed by all the greenery and especially the food that was available to eat on every floor. Thank you very much, everybody for all the hard work. Appreciate it, what you all did. If you have a little bit of a sprinkler system, you have that much pressure in the shower, you might be able to have a few well-pressed sprays here and there, like you have in the core. Thanks, everyone. Thanks, Isakratis, appreciate it. And as you can tell, being a collaborative project, you were a collaborator as a creator because it's basically designed around water, right? And you know, when George was pointing out the new Howard Hughes Tower by Jeannie Gang to come when they're branding it, we were ticked off by one of their diagrams, which was basically saying, oh, we got something very cool. We got a wet zone. This is where the toilets are and this is where the sink is. And that's close to the core. And then we got the dry zone, which is the roommate. We said, wait a minute, that's how they've been building high-rises in hotels forever. So what's new about it, what's innovative, it's just a rebranding. And we're basically flipping it around. We have the wet zone, the blue zone, where water happens as rain. And then we have the green zone as a buffer that gets fed by the blue zone. And then we have the dry zone past that because me as an easy breezy self-case studying person in Waikiki Grand, I have a line at three feet deep. And even in the strongest storm, there's hardly ever any rain passing through my always slid open sliding glass door in my open jealous pride. And if you have green even as an additional buffer, you will be. So we believe that the way the team has created this is reversing the current paradigm in terms of as George Sprigley calls it, the more natural zoning system. Talking greenery, I think that's gets us to you, Thomas, as being part of the Department of Tropical Agriculture. And so we would like to pick your multi-molded brain, Thomas. OK, great. So let me congratulate you all. This reminds me of a project that Dr. Mura from Saunders with the 100,000 trees. You're planting 100,000 ideas. And with climate change, we need opportunities for different environments to be tested out and adapted. So as you were talking about the 10 micro environments, well, if you in fact you put one in Waikiki, they may be initially for the early adaptation period. It's for bread and breakfast places. People will like to go out in the environment, but they go to all in town to try for the bread and breakfast for a week or two. Or depending where you plant your tree in a different environment, it gives them a chance then to figure out in reality, the different types of greenery that will adapt to that environment. So you'll learn different trees and different food will adapt to the environment. So actually, it's a complex system of food. And so you'll find out which insects, which things will grow well in different environments. And so by having these different trees, it's like growing a thousand trees when you're trying them all out. And as we go with climate change, this becomes a model of trying out different environments. And more importantly, assimilation of cultures. As each is to adapt to not only about the environment, but the people live there, they get a chance then to figure out how they assimilate with this environment, where they came from. Because you have to do incrementally before you get to this new vision. They have to learn to change culturally about what they wear, how they act. And so you're providing planting these old things in different environments, same thing like you're planting trees in different environments and see how they adapt. And also, it gives us a chance, as humans, culturally, how do you adapt to that environment too? And so it's a great testing model where people can live. And you'll change. You'll figure out what works. For example, another idea in terms of quick escape is you can put a little railings along your ramp so that rather having raft, you can have a little device and put it in a control way, go down very quickly. So there are many, many options you can have. So the only thing you have to be careful about and to be sensitive about, if you do have a wheelchair, can they actually walk on the mesh flooring area? So you have to think about very carefully to be more sophisticated, to be deeply, if you care about the people who are disadvantaged or have a disability, then you can have to figure out clever ways. But more importantly, what I go with clever is having cocoons. Cocoons will then have, even though within a tree, large tree, a kind of a uniform environment, you still as individuals will have individual curiosity, lifestyles, and cocoons is an opportunity so you have diversity within that one structure to have study a certain way, to live a certain style, whether you want to cook a different way. So the cocooning provides an opportunity for individual diversification within the structure and it provides a clever mechanism to customize if in a unique area so that the cocoons can be specialized in your particular environment or a particular user in there if they have particular interest in use. So think about their acorns and their seeds depending on what you're growing in and where you're growing in, whether it is in the after effect of a volcano and they grow up that way or in a lush environment. So that's a very clever tool for having a kind of stylistically unifying theme yet within the cocoon, you can have specialization and you can have a diversity, which you also, as people, we want diversity of behaviors, diversity of individual things. And so you have to think cleverly about using that so it can be stylistic or aesthetically pleasing at the cocoons where the color is shaped and stuff like that. And so I thought that was a very interesting avenue to have interesting diversity, interesting possibility for a continuing evolution adaptation. And so I think almost all of the things you can do as a chance to inspire, to think clearly and then also think about like in climate change in all the environments as they change, how do we adapt, how does the building adapt? And I think that's a beautiful metaphor for thinking about climate change and as an instrument to look at the model, how we adapt, how our buildings adapt. Thanks, Thomas, appreciate it. And Jay, if I can turn it to you, you're the one who is exposed through your think tank wide to the most variety of opinions, of attitudes, of aspirations on the island. What are your thoughts? How would this fit in given that context that you expose yourself to on a daily basis? Thank you for this opportunity. First, I'd like to say that this reminds me of the spiral staircase idea, the spiral up. Really interesting. It does remind me of the Guggenheim, if you recall, on Fifth Avenue. It reminds me also of a castle that I saw in the War Valley where the spiral was inside, not outside, but it was the same idea where you access each floor through this big spiral. And finally, it reminds me of 677 Alamoana, which is not too similar from the castle, believe it or not, in the War Valley, where you have parking access through a spiral, a spiral roadway that operates inside the building, perfectly spiral, and it takes you to each floor of the parking and the building. So I believe in spirals. And I think your team has done a remarkable job in addressing so many issues and possibilities. It's been impressive watching this, but let me give you some thoughts about some of them specifically. First, the ones that were not discussed. One is some creative solution to parking, if there is parking. Number two is location. All the locations that you considered here are in the middle of the city. And my reaction is this is a beautiful possibility, but not in the middle of a city. I know we're sort of slightly super creative and whimsical, just not like Joan Baez, but by Janice Joplin, who I had a crush on for many years. I'm your age, George, or maybe worse. But anyway, I mean, it's very creative, but wouldn't, rhetorically, wouldn't it be better out in a kind of remote area or semi remote suburban area than right in the middle of the city would have a chance to work that way with parking? And also, I mean, I liked the Christmas tree idea going to a crown, so to speak, but is it have to be that tall? I think if it was only a few stories high, it would be perhaps more intimate, perhaps more, you know, more of a working community, so to speak, instead of having all those spaces for all those people. And finally, I think, you know, you have to consider, I'm not sure we're here to do this, but you have to consider the reactions of the Department of Planning and Permitting. If you have any ideas about putting it here in Oahu, there are several wonderful ideas here that'll never get past them. I don't wanna comment on their honesty or integrity right now, but let me just say that, you know, there would be issues. And finally, there would be, although I thought I saw you, Martin, in one of those renderings without the clothing, was that you, honestly? I'm always overdressed, that couldn't have been me, you know. Never mind. Just for you, I'm wearing a T-shirt today, otherwise I wouldn't be naked in front of the camera. But I thought, you know, the idea of walking around naked is, you know, it's a lovely idea. We all wanna go back to stock. We wanna go back to wood stock, right? Where everyone was liberated. But you know what, in today's state of Hawaii, I think you'd have HPD knocking at your door. I also think you'd have some people who would be surveilling you at distance to see who was who and what was what. So, although I like the idea of the cocoon for privacy, but I think open nudity is not gonna work here. It's a wonderful idea, but it's not gonna work here. I love the idea of running the water up through the top. What do they call that in a wind turbine, wind turbine structure, capola, where you have this structure at the top and then the water, in this case, the water comes down and you use the water. I don't think you're gonna get enough power out of solar or out of the force of the falling water to lift it all up again. But it may have to use some wind electric power on top of that, unless you have substantial batteries that you talked about batteries and maybe that would be a real important piece of gear under the ground level there. And I love the idea of growing crops there. I thought you were gonna come up but I thought the team was gonna come up with growing crops along the wall rather than in the green zone because along the wall, it's like Singapore, they have proven they can do this. They have all kinds of technology that and then you take advantage of rain and you take advantage of the water running down so you can water your crops, so to speak. And you could actually get a substantial amount of food that way, might even be, honestly, if you're a vegetarian, might even be self-sufficient. I wonder, what, you want me to stop? No, I want, you know, George is nodding at times, not only when you're a shared crush on Janice Joplin but what you just said, because he's our utmost expert from our own resources because he's a raw vegan. And so he knows what you can live on, what you grow, right? But I also wanna quickly respond immediately only to also turn to some panel members, one that we unfortunately do not have with us and this is our friend Howard Wigg. Quickly respond to your sort of rain check of DPPJ, right? So the reality rain check, right? So I will recall one thing when Howard had lured me into some code council meetings as a visitor, right? We were sitting in this government building, most people having a lower shirts on, tucked in their pants and still shivering from the air conditioning. And Howard had briefed me and basically charged me to pretend to be even more stupid than we already are speaking about myself. And whenever the hands went up and it's like, okay, all agreed, all in agreement, that's all vote. And that's how I got to know you, Socrates as well as a third member of our little team in questioning conventions. Tim Hu, the head of the DPP basically at some point got it and he basically said, okay, guys, just so you'd be quiet for a while with your reveling here, I give you something. And we were like, oh, what is that? And he basically said, okay, and this trace is back to New York city where some of you are from as Thomas and George, for example, where it's according to safety not to break your neck on an over-iced fire egress that you need to get out of, they enclose that, right? And that's what the invasive international building code that we have adopted in a way as many things that we thought are nice to us, but not so much because that ice we don't have, so that enclosure we don't need. So Tim basically said, I give this to you. The external egress gear cases don't have to be enclosed anymore. And then he said something else. He said, when you guys are ranting about fixed glazing being microwave-ing us in our climate, maybe I should ban that in code. And we got so excited, we said, can you write this down? Can we make a note? He said, oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. And later on, he turned to me and said, Martin, I understand your apprehension and your allergies against AC, but let me explain to you where this comes from. It's actually not about thermal comfort. It's about social. When people have decided they don't want to hear their neighbors anymore, don't want to hear whatever they don't want to hear, they decided to wall off themselves from each other not to hear. And then they couldn't breathe anymore. So we needed to introduce a breathing machine air conditioning. And I found this really, really cool. And I know, Bundy, how highly you think of Tim you because he had supported you to build your Moloevi lofts that are pushing it as much as you can here now. And so that's why, because of these people, in these sort of government institutions and they are sympathetic with us. And that is Socrates and that is Howard and that is Tim. And that's why I had hope that this isn't so far off because even in the sort of Debbie and David Downer institutions of knocking you down, there are these people who are considered part of the team who understand that very fine line of poetry and pragmatism that we are obviously walking on. And that way, Bundy, could you chip into that degree because it was calling you out and your expertise and experiences with the authorities in regards of visions? Yeah, one thing about the government agency, I just want to share with the student too, if you truly believe in what you're doing and it's gonna help make the society better, stick with it and be honest about it. This is how it's gonna solve problem in the future. And Martin will always support you to push that limit, but don't give up pushing it because that's an easiest way out. And as an educator, that's why we are here to really push you out into the practice as well and jump in there and don't be afraid to jump. That's my comment. Thanks Martin for including me in it. I appreciate your thought. And I do like the cocoon the more I think about it. This is something that, is it a landmark or is it a type of transportation? I even thought about having a podium that you can transport the cocoon to another building. Things like that, is it a Airbnb or is it going camping? The experience will be totally different being in this building. So there's something to think about. I want to add to that idea. You can use the cocoon, hook it up to the roof of your spiral ramp and that's your transport down. Yeah, I thought about that too. And then you connect from one tower to another. That's how you create the spider web around town and free auto, we love it. All the web will just connect to each other. Yeah, and I just want to again, what you said, thank you, Bundit. I want to put this into perspective again. You guys should all check it out if you haven't in the Malawili area somewhere around what's the street called. Please locate us, Bundit, where your project is. Oh, how early street? Exactly. You should all go there and check it out and you will see how far, you know, Bundit, you have pushed it as being the most cutting edge, contemporary, tropical, exotic building that you have on the island. I just want to put this into the context of there's not a theoretician talking here. He is a practicator talking. And again, going back to Howard on behalf of him because he can be with us, Howard has been, we all know him hopefully as one of the longest standing hosts on Think Tech Hawaii, Code Green. We know him in that capacity, but there's this other Howard, who is the guy, Mr. Energy Guy for the state. And he has been bravely going up against the invasive international building code and said, it was made for the mainland where we have the cold and in Arizona speaking from my desert days, even hotter than here. So we have to strip naked. There we go again, code. So Howard is our naked hero because he stripped cold naked and fought for a changing code. So only because of Howard, we can basically do, or we can have hopes to be able to do what we're going. And I think, you know, that to that degree it's also a tribute to Howard or project because Howard now that he took on the hard work to butt heads with all the people who want to keep and maintain the hermetic which George always has interesting points of capitalism, right, as a predator beast. He, you know, he wasn't afraid to go up against that but now he needs something to demonstrate that all his hard work was worth it. And that's in some parts, you know, Primitiva 3 as well. I want to now have a team. This is an excellent chance for you team members to bounce questions off the panelists because that's that unique moment here that you have.