 And welcome to Hawaii is my mainland. I'm Rob Kinslow, guest host for Kauilukas today. With me today is Kristin Olivera, a Sustainable Community Systems Designer. Welcome to the show Kristin. Hello, thank you for having me. Sure. Can you tell us a little bit about your background? I met you some years ago and you've exploded into this new potential and I want you to tell the audience a little bit about who you are and what you're doing. Okay, well I was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, moved away for college in San Francisco, studied sustainable community design, interior architecture and design as well, where I really blossomed into understanding what I wanted for the future. And so now I'm back here, back at home, working for Koko Kolegi Valley, a non-profit where I do a bunch of different things. I wear a lot of different hats there. Oh cool, can we see slide number one and we'll talk a little bit about Kristin's projects from her school and then we'll segue into Koko Kolegi Valley. Okay, can you tell us a little bit about this image? So this is, in school we're always given something to redesign structurally, internally and my designs are basically formed from nature and so this is a library in Half Moon Bay. Originally the structure was just a box and so what I did is I took parts of nature and I made it into something else that was formed through nature and so this one was shaped as the gourd, the concept was of gourd because in Half Moon Bay that's what they produce mostly is pumpkin. And so I wanted to use something that is also culturally significant in many different cultures. People use the gourd as music instruments, as food, carrying, as knowledge to prolong knowledge and so through this building I created different spaces through a library. Just wanted to bring a different sense of education to a library and so here we have different ways to learn how to farm aquaponics. We have a apothecary, we have different viewings of media because kids nowadays they don't really want to open a book and so we have that there. This is a living library? Yeah, it's a living building and so it was, the water is really filtered throughout the walls and so The walls of the library filter the water? Yes, the different stages of filtration and it also collects water vapor which produces the energy. So you're collecting rainwater? Collecting rainwater and the moisture in the air because it's very, that's really innovative. What other innovations do you think you, that people in Hawaii might be interested in hearing about from this design? Well this design there's a lot of things that are going on right now in Hawaii but through this design I really use the gray and black water treatment, vapor collection, the surrounding filtration through the building and so the water that's collected throughout the building also cools the building and then the living room system and when I was in college it was passive cooling too. Passive cooling, yes and I was really into biofuel and algae and so creating energy through that and so underneath the building there's a place to renew energy with biofuel so this whole big concept and ideas I just do everything into. Okay so the concept is a gourd and then the walls and the structure of the building and even underneath the building serve as sources of energy and water and then tell us about the interior what, how did you design the interior to be like nature? Well I also also follow biomimicry and so to try to look at nature and how it evolves and so a lot of the wood is of course natural wood from there but the paint and the windows there was something about biomimicry that Jeanine Benias was looking at the abalone shell and how they collect energy through the abalone shell and so my idea was to have the sealant on the windows as like solar cells to collect the energy through it so everything every material in there has a purpose not just a chair or a carpet or a wood floor it's more than that and so that's kind of where I was thinking in school is that everything has different layers to it it's not just one. And that's a core concept of biomimicry is to use nature's efficiency and nature's design to create more efficient structures that humans can use as well. So where can you put that image back up again? Let's look at that again I want to ask some more questions about that so I see the shape of the gourd in that the you know the curves that you have there so this green area on the right as opposed to the brown area on the left what is that that oval egg looking thing in there? Oh the egg so that's the skylight that also acts as a part of the collecting the water vapor and so through that it brings it down I don't have a 3d image of that but in that you can in the building there's a long passageway that you can see the water that's collected in the different steps of the filtration so it's also not just having that in the building but also showcasing it so people can understand understand that flow of nature and that flow of harvesting natural elements around them. And so tell me again the school you went to and why you chose that school? I went to the Academy of Art University in San Francisco and I chose that school because a lot of the advice I was getting was to leave Hawaii in order to bring something back that wasn't being taught here and so San Francisco is really innovative and I moved when I was 22 and so I kind of had more of a sense of what I wanted and so I feel like going there helped me evolve into what I really wanted for a whole year what how I wanted to contribute to the community and my culture. Okay and so let's talk about let's segue right into that how are you contributing to Hawaii at the moment? So right now I work for Kokoa Kaleegi Valley which is a non-profit in Kaleegi and it started in the 70s from we call them super aunties they went door to door and asked the community what they wanted what they wanted for health and they wanted all these different things like elderly care dental just medical and so it grew into we have now have nine different centers and we have elderly programs nutrition diabetes OBGYN we just we kind of housing compass the encompassing of health and we're the first organization health center in Hawaii that has a nature preserve so we have about 100 acre nature reserve in the back of Kaleegi Valley that stewards land connection to people in health and so even that right what you just told me is innovative because you're working from the community first yeah tell us all that and so I when I came back from college I really I was going to work for a firm but I really wanted to reconnect with the land so I was farming for a while and then I did harvest management data collection moved into budgeting work and I was running the front of the house of our root cafe and then now I'm a mobile market manager so now I'm in charge of the distributing the accessibility to organic and healthy local food to our community and so I feel with that I'm learning community outreach and how to speak to our communities that really need help and to help them and so and with that I'm also using my the skills I learned in school to do graphic design so I'm creating a lot of like informational flyers handouts recipe cards banners and different things to kind of provide the community with the information they need to sustain healthy lives wow that's really exciting I mean I think that's cutting edge innovation you know government isn't like surveying its customers to find out what they need and then providing those services in that way but yet this private non-profit is actually filling a need that government at the moment can't fill so that's very innovative I think yeah and so you know we're kind of we're kind of really grassroots down in the community and down in our food systems thinking what they need and how are we going to connect them back to you know because in Kauii people aren't just from Hawaii they're from Micronesia they're from Salon there's we speak 21 different dialects in our centers and so um how do we help them connect to something when they're when they're not home and so you know a lot of Hawaii houses people that call it home but they're from other places so yeah what kind of foods and what kind of things can you provide for them can we put up the next image so that we can talk about that image a little bit tell us about this mobile market program that you're now the manager of so yeah I run the mobile market program and basically it started off as the people in our center we have we have two different um farmers markets where we double people's EVT and so they give us $20 we give them $40 back so they can have the feasibility of fruits and vegetables and so this program came about because our staff were able and other people were able to get the vegetables that we were selling and so we started loading up carts and pushing it around and selling it to our staff and then it just kind of grew or um I brought on about seven to ten new organic farmers and so we're completely organic now before it was um it was just local but now we're completely organic and what's the purpose of them why is it mobile and what does it do you mean so the mobile market we bring it to elementary schools we bring it to elderly centers we bring it to resource centers in Kalihi and so it just kind of provides the accessibility even further and I also make value added products so I'll pickle things I'll make like kalo chunks or kalo pa different things that people may not know of or have a hard time cooking or just are lazy to cook I'll provide it for lunch so they can try that and eat that and I'll explain the value in it it's not just making something it's actually adding value okay let's put that image back up again and you can point out the different areas of this image and tell us about what it you know what you just said okay so um the banner on the top is what I've created for um letter community you know what we have you know we we take EVT we don't double it we only double up to five dollars um we're funded by a little Karen snap and then the the the cards on the right hand side um that's kind of what we push around in the community oh so you go actually go door to door yeah no we did not throw it yet but we're just going through our community center and our cooperative health center um and then the bottom left is me and um our ahua lo kiki which is our um Hawaiian children's and family program that we also run with root um but they were helping me prep for the next picture which is the senior mobile market at the gulik center um that's one of my favorite mobile markets because I'm Filipino and so I get a gift back to my community in my my culture and so um that's their spining faces and then the last picture is of ulu which people the cultures in kuli he really love and they they have a hard time finding it so I try to bring it to them for an affordable price um does kuli he valley grow any uh i mean they grow all these vegetables right yeah we grow a lot of food up at whole line up but basically that's to share food that's the tissue community how to grow food and how to work with each other and it's also a place where you connect back to the earth which connects you back to your health and so it's not just um eating it's more of a spiritual experience so it really it kind of cleanses you and we also have a kulua pulana which is a community garden in kbt or coheal park terrace and so um that's where we also are able to show how to grow food for the community that's really exciting i you know i was born and raised on a farm and so to see this evolution of food growing and supply and availability uh into like a mobile kind of food market and this intergenerational sustenance providing that you guys are doing is just really exciting to me and it's i'm really thanking you for being involved in this yeah i really love the work that i do which is why i think that um i've taken a break from actual design and it's been designing for communities and thinking of ways to um bring apart health not only in spaces but in people's lives and their bodies and uh what what does that mean to you uh bringing health into people's lives what do you mean well through food like you know through food and connection and their family and and really um letting them understand that the land is there for them you know no matter where there's land everywhere you don't have to just be in hoi to to connect to the land you can be anywhere but just appreciate um what you have growing around you and to be self-sufficient and try not to rely on other things like ships coming with food yeah well what does happen if ships stop coming or if we have a big hurricane well i feel like that's what we're teaching the communities to grow for yourself and to to really like rely on your neighbor so one of our slogans at kqv is neighbors being neighborly to neighbors so it's like if you need something ask your neighbor and then if your neighbor needs something you know help them out and so i feel like um you know we teach people how to grow food and so hopefully they'll take that but people are busy so that's where their mobile market and our food hubs come in to like help them get that produce and get that help um do that oh well thank you um i think we're about ready to take a break and uh i'd like to talk a little bit more with you when we come back about uh the other projects that you're working on and what you actually have for envisioning the future okay thank you welcome to sister power i'm your host Sharon Thomas Yarbrough where we motivate educate and power and inspire all women we are live here every other thursday at four p.m and we welcome you to join us here at sister power aloha and thank you this guy looks familiar he calls himself the ultra fan but that doesn't explain all this he planned this party plan the snacks he even planned to coordinate colored shirts but he didn't plan to have a good time now you wouldn't do this in your own house so don't do it in your team's house know your limits and plan ahead so that everyone can have a good time welcome back to Hawaii is my mainland i'm rob kinslow guest hosting for kawi lucas and today again we have with us christin olivera who is a young community sustainable systems designer and she works at kukua kulehi valley and we've been talking about her projects there in this next segment we're gonna talk about uh where she's going in the future and what she would like to uh you know create uh here in hawaii welcome back hi yeah good so can we put up the next image and uh talk about that okay so this is called visions for the future and it's kind of in a collage of a lot of different features and uh i see it's almost utopian if you would know that word and understand it but it's also makes you relax a little bit when you look at it you go oh that's a lovely photo what's here and what what is the potential for our communities that you see um in this photo i it's actually in san francisco yeah i was going to school i found this photo um it is called utopian society actually oh really and so um i don't know when you look at this photo you can really see the land even though it's a cityscape it's breathing it has um natural elements everywhere it's collecting harvesting um what nature provides for us and so for the future i really see our earth coming to this or our peoples and our communities believing in this even though maybe our government may not believe in that i feel like it's in the people's hands um to really care for one another and to care for this earth and so in this photo it you know it shows this beautiful woman out on her balcony um breathing in life and um everyone around her is collecting energy and being happy and there's you see in the picture there's no cars you know people are all walking but you know people need cars but in the sense that people are being more reliant on themselves and other things to get to what they need um well when you move food closer to people and you move energy closer to people where they live then perhaps you don't need and you move jobs into the home space perhaps you don't need uh you know so many cars or so many yeah and so there's a lot of edible landscaping um you know where edible landscaping especially in cities and i was going when i was living in san francisco they were creating that where they dig up sidewalks and put plants in the ground in order to um hold the rain water so that's what this is is two streets that look like they have been dug up and planted yeah and so and so what they this this one man brock dolman he runs the occipital college of art in um san aroza his tagline was slow it sink it spread it and so in order to collect the water because now water is coming so hard yeah that we need to slow it sink it and spread it in order in order for the earth to um to soak up that water because water is essential so i see what do i see back there i see uh i see domes past i see solar panels i see food growing on rooftops wind turbines okay uh what else is in this picture that i think i i actually see now um like these are all things that we could do yeah and oh yeah air flying cars wow like jets and stuff i don't know if it's flying cars i think it's on cables all their own cables so it's like a cable car yeah cable cars in the air not in the ground like yeah cable cars you don't see any utilities lines so all the energy is generated local so yeah everybody's generated i used to say uh there's enough energy for all if we all generate energy and that's same with food right yeah does that so that that is a really inspirational picture yeah if you can kind of get past the maybe the reality of today and it's kind of a dream world yeah it's kind of like something that i like to envision to keep forward my my dreams and my aspirations because in reality there's a lot of really crazy things that are going on and so i feel like if you can keep a higher sense of what you want and a picture that you want you'll get there it may take different paths or different ways it may not look like that but it'll be something like that i've heard that uh expressed in a in a way that really struck me just recently uh one of my teachers was talking and she said you know reality focused focused on the problem is like putting your installing your windshield in the floor of your car and you're saying i don't need to look up because i'm focused on the reality whereas creating a vision is putting the windshield up so you can see where you're going why why would you want to look at the ground instead of looking at the reality why not look at the vision and i think that is borne out by research which shows us that people are not inspired to change by problems they are inspired to change by visionary ideas is that what you're kind of trying to do here in hawaii yeah like paint the picture and have people understand that different things are possible by showing and doing and so you can talk all you want but it's mostly when you show the community that it's possible and say like you build a 3d model and you show that there's this one building this one structure that can happen and people believe in that um i feel like that's powerful and tell me what is the importance of models do you think and uh in envisioning the future i think models are important to see that you know to see the space and to see how people can can live and dwell in that space or be a part of that space and so um it's just it's just really like a vision board to like have a vision about it yeah and same with honolulu i think if there was some group effort at modeling the future or envisioning the future of honolulu you know with all kind of stakeholders we could have uh you know an imaginative effect on designers yeah and i think it all depends on who's the stakeholder and who what vision is it because there's people that have a lot of different visions you know there's someone that has oh we want all these houses we want all these buildings and that's going to save the world but it's really not i feel like the vision is to stop building on ag land and having that for people to dwell in and to learn and to grow and then building in the inner cities and keep that you know keep that in habit and compact yeah compact and can we uh take the next image okay so tell us a little bit about this image it's uh to me it's you know it's soft and it's welcoming and it's a lot of light why did you choose this image so i took this image at 645 a.m. in the back of kubihi at honolulu i know when i was farming and to me this image is multi-layered this doesn't mean a tree with beautiful light in the morning i looked at it i look at it and i see fractals and i see different ways of the exploding exploding of the universe and the exploding of mind and i also on a reality basis i see um what i want to do for the future is build be a part of building natural birthing centers and elder care living um community centers different places where people can learn off of the land and so this is what honolulu land is it's for that like we have we have now um hawaii natural birthing program back there too the all up all different things but that picture really shows my vision of the future and how you know to keep those valleys and the back of the valley sacred so we can hold those spaces for people to heal and for people to be together there's a lot of research now coming out showing that nature and bathing in nature and going to nature is a wonderful de-stressing and it's a cure for a lot of stress diseases that are out there um is that part of your vision too yeah it really cleanses the soul um this one lady that comes and volunteers at the whole line uh she um had a stroke and she would come there every thursday on her growing farmers workday and the more and more she came the more and more her stress levels and the more and more her movement in her face and everything else came back to her because she was on that land and she was working and touching the soil and i believe that i strongly believe that in order for ourselves to heal we need to have that avenue and so if we keep building on our agland we keep building in the back of the valley that's going to be gone for our children and it'll be ruined and so um people i work with were really strong for you know conserving that land and that um aspect that our culture had long before there was building yeah the web of life is indeed complex and humans are not yet so much aware of our role and our part in rebuilding that complexity and in fact you know restoring that complexity based on the previous 150 years of industrial destruction really um so i wanted to thank you so much for coming in i'm just empowered by uh all the stories you told and uh excited that the next generation of designers is you know alive and you know out there embedded in their communities working for uh the betterment of our society and for the restoration of nature and uh i wanted to thank you for having that heart that that soul that that light that uh you know ability to speak your truth of course thank you for having me speak that allowing me to speak yeah we need more of you and i hope that i hope that you'll uh you know also take up a teaching role at some point in your life and train the next generation for you because uh sustainable sustainability will be nothing without that dialogue within generations that we're having today yeah and i think it's important to think about seven generations not just yours we are your daughters or your sons i think it's important to think about their daughters and their sons and and so forth and so my uh native american past says that we should be thinking about the three generations before us and the three generations after us and then of course with us is the bridge between those then we got seven so that's what you're talking about yeah especially like listening to our punna because without them without their knowledge we wouldn't have what we have today and the stories we have today so thank you so much for having that yeah ability to of course to do that i want to thank you all for joining us today with on cali lucas's hawaii is my mainland i'm rob kinslow and we're wrapping up with christa lauvera sustainable community systems designer uh it was a very lovely talk and uh i hope you'll look her up on the web and maybe contact her if you have uh some designs that you want to do in your community