 Welcome to Human Humane Architecture here on Think Tech Hawaii. Normally, this program has got three hosts. There's Martin Despeng and there's Ron Lindgren and there's me, DeSoto Brown. But today's episode is Just Me and I'm gonna be talking about my specialty, which is history. Except I'm gonna be talking about something that is very recent in our history and that is the COVID-19 pandemic. And this show is illustrated mostly by photographs that I personally took here in Honolulu during the pandemic. Now, this program is being recorded in the middle of April of 2022. And the COVID pandemic, of course, has now been going on for more than two years. Let me point out that back when it got started in 2020, we were mistakenly thinking that this is only going to last for a few months. Well, even though all of our mask mandates have been dropped here in the Hawaiian Islands and we were the last place in the country to do so, COVID is not gone, COVID is not dead. COVID's still with us and it is very likely that we will see mandates and restrictions return to our daily lives. So we're not out of the woods yet, but we can look back and see what COVID did to us and to see if there are things that the COVID shutdowns can tell us about where we can go in the future. So let's go to the first slide. And we see here some of the things that were occurring in the last two years. We're seeing that, yes, as I just said, Hawaii was the last state to drop mandates and we also see the potential return of tourism back to its levels of 2019 or close to those levels. But there are other concerns that COVID brought to the fore. And one of the things which you see here is mentions of the climate, et cetera. I'm gonna be talking about those as we continue through the slides to show you and to talk about some of the effects that the COVID shutdowns had for us. Next slide. So here we go with a series of then and now or before and during photographs. And again, as I said, these are pictures I took before the pandemic and then during the pandemic, particularly the shutdowns of the pandemic. Here is a shot of Nimitz Highway before the pandemic late afternoon traffic. This is something that we were all accustomed to and we are now again accustomed to. But let's go to the next picture and see what it looked like in 2020 when everything had shut down. Now remember, back two years ago, we went through a period of unprecedented restrictions in modern life. The only thing that I think is comparable, somewhat comparable, is the years of World War II in the early 1940s when there were a lot of restrictions placed on activities and what you were able to do, but not because of a disease, but because of the restrictions imposed by the economic benefits, the economic effects of World War II on the economy. There were lots of things you could not do because you couldn't buy new appliances, you couldn't buy new cars. There were severe restrictions on how much driving you could do because it was gas rationing as well as the rationing of rubber tires. But what do you see here? You see a street that is empty of traffic, which normally would be filled with traffic. What were some of the effects of those restrictions? Well, let's go to the next picture and this is a view of the same intersection of the same location on Nimitz Highway and again, lots of automobiles. Now, we live our lives, many of us, using private automobiles and we drive ourselves to and from work and out for pleasure, recreation, or all kinds of other things or just because we wanna go for a drive and look at the scenery. Every time we do that, we are causing environmental pollution, unfortunately, not only because we're using mostly internal combustion engines, which are putting out poisonous gases. We're also using, as I mentioned, rubber tires. All those tires are being worn away and all of those little tiny particles of the black rubber or whatever, whether it's synthetic or natural, are being deposited on everything, plus we're breathing them. Well, the next picture shows us what life is like when you don't have all of that going on and what this shows us is the lack of traffic leads to a tremendous decrease in pollution. Now, here we didn't see that all that dramatically, but there were other parts of the world where the air quality is terrible or I'm thinking primarily of India as one very major example, in which pollution levels dropped precipitously because people weren't driving as much. This is something to keep in mind. This is the effect on the environment that we could look towards if we are reducing our internal combustion engine use as well as tires, as well as all the other things we're burning in order to create energy for ourselves. Next picture. Okay, in Waikiki, the effects of the COVID lockdowns were particularly dramatic because Waikiki is normally very full of people, not only driving, staying in hotels, but walking around on the streets. Here's a picture of Kalakawa Avenue looking up Kutulani Avenue, looking Maoka. And this is early in March of 2022. Well, within a very short time, next photo, we saw these urban scenes in Waikiki change astonishingly. Now, one of the things that happened was because of the economic slowdown and because of the lack of tourists. Because remember, we went from 10 million, over 10 million tourist arrivals in 2019 to about 2 million arrivals by airplane in 2020. That's a huge, just unbelievable drop that nobody could have ever believed. So one of the things that happened was construction projects also got put off. And if you look at this picture on the left side, in the middle left, you're seeing two of the original buildings of the Princess Kailani Hotel, the first one from 1955 and then the one on the right from 1960. That complex of the Princess Kailani, the owners have been proposing for the last, oh, maybe five years or so, a complete redevelopment, complete leveling of everything on the plot, just a big size piece of property in the middle of Waikiki to be entirely redeveloped into a new high rise and new ground floor amenities, et cetera. Well, that didn't happen. And across the street from that, a very large timeshare condo slash combination. The land was cleared that had been King's Alley shopping mall. That is still empty because that project didn't go forward because of the COVID shutdown as well. Next picture. One thing I wanna emphasize is the speed at which the shutdown occurred. And again, thinking back on it, it is astonishing. At the time, we were all thrown off balance but we were just going along with it. But when you look back, it's really amazing. Here again, Kalakawa Avenue in Waikiki, looking towards Diamond Head. Early March, excuse me, 2022. Next photograph. This picture was taken only about 20 days later. That's how fast the first COVID shutdown occurred and it happened internationally. So when you think back on other astonishing historical events and read about them, it's hard to imagine things like the depression or World War II or things like that, which were so shook everything up so much. We just lived through that. We just lived through this COVID shutdown. So again, look at this empty, completely empty vista and think about all of the economic, the closures that resulted from this and how big an effect this was on all of our daily lives. Next picture. We're going back in time even further, back to June of 1963. Here's another view of Kalakawa Avenue but for a less disturbing reason, at least at the time. This is President John F. Kennedy's motorcade through Honolulu, which happened in June of 1963. And the second vehicle back, there's a white car and then there's a black car, that is President Kennedy's limousine. That's his Lincoln Continental 1961 Lincoln Continental Limousine. It was only months after this that President Kennedy was shot and killed in a similar motorcade in Dallas, Texas. And he was riding in exactly the same car, in the same open car as he was going to be shot. We did not anticipate, of course, everybody standing on the sidewalk had no idea how tragic his life ending was going to be in such a short time away. But also in this picture is a really cool piece of mid-century modern architecture. And that's on the left side. That's the Foster Tower Hotel, which was just in the process of opening when this picture was taken. And it has this wonderful wavy canopy over the sidewalk, which you can see not only in the larger picture, but in the smaller picture on the right, through which there are palm trees extending up through holes that were made in the canopy. When the canopy was built, the palm trees were already there. It was built around them. Well, all of those palm trees are now dead because they all got to be too old. But the wavy canopy is still there. And that's for me to just point out that our legacy of architecture needs to be preserved, needs to be accepted. It needs to be paid homage to and it needs to be preserved for us to know that it was there. And so something like this, let's not lose it as we do more and more redevelopment of our city. Next photograph. Now, this is a fantasy view, you might say, of what Waikiki might be like if it was redeveloped to be more people-friendly. And if we look at Waikiki deserted during COVID, we can think about, and that was such a dramatic change, we can think about perhaps other dramatic changes that could happen. This fantasy view proposes that Waikiki become much more human-friendly. And in that, there would be the diminishing or the reduction or the elimination of motor vehicles in some locations, the introduction of other types of transportation. So you see here an overhead tram, for example, or an overhead mode of transportation. You also see like a little people mover type of vehicle. And it has a wood body. Yes, it's possible to do things like that. And there are types of wood, particularly bamboo, which can be, which grow incredibly fast, which can be harvested regularly, unlike regular trees, which are cut down and which die. You can cut stalks of bamboo and the plant keeps growing, keeps sending up shoots. Those are the types of things which can be renewable. And those are the types of things which we can look towards as potential ways to move people around that don't use as much of the, don't require as much energy and don't require the amount of space that motor vehicles do. Because remember, if you're just a single person in one car, that car is taking up a ton of room only to carry one person. There are lots more efficient ways to do it. And these are the types of ways that we can look to the future in order to improve our lives. Next picture. All right, now we're going to look at a different part of town. We're going to look at the Capulani Boulevard area, particularly in the area around Alamoana Center. And these, there's a spate of new buildings which are growing in this particular area right now. And in the regular think tech programs or in the regular human humane programs that I'm participating in, Ron and Martin and I are looking closely at these different buildings which are being built in this area now. And we are critiquing them as to their livability, their sustainability, et cetera. But here again, a pair of photographs pre COVID and next picture, that's what happened to Capulani Boulevard when everything shut down. Now, one of the reasons that these buildings are being built are the main reason these buildings are being built in this particular area is because it's in anticipation of our train system eventually coming to its terminus at Alamoana Center. That is not going to be happening for quite some years to come. In fact, as far as I know, it's not till 2031 if it even happens because there's discussion about cutting out the last two stops on the train line. Regardless of that, in anticipation of that, buildings are being built to take cars off the road where people can live right near the mass transit of the train system where they will not need to drive as much. So maybe there'll be a reduction of traffic, not as dramatic as this, but maybe we can look towards that next picture. Okay, here is Kei-Yamoku Street looking Maoka from Alamoana Center. And this picture obviously again is pre COVID because there are lots of vehicles, but also you'll notice on the right side of the street it's still just a bunch of low rise buildings. That's because this redevelopment I just mentioned had not yet gotten started. Next photograph. And one, here we are. This is what happened, everything shut down. There was nothing to go and drive around to do because everything was closed. And this is what the streets looked like. It's amazing. And it's amazing now because we've gotten back to our normal traffic and we no longer remember what this looked like. But you will see on the right side of this photograph also one of those high rises being under construction. Just Maoka of where this picture is a few blocks up. An entire big block has just in the process right now of being demolished for yet another one of these buildings. And we'll see what that one ends up looking like and what we think of it. Next picture. Now this is a particular, this is also the same area we're looking obviously at Alamoana Shopping Center, but this building in particular is one that Ron and Martin and I admire or at least we admired it the way it used to be originally. This is the 1441 Kapilani Boulevard high rise which is also called the Alamoana building. Obviously it's part of Alamoana Shopping Center. You can see the plinth on which it is located at the base with those distinctive breeze block, concrete breeze blocks. This building originally had a very distinctive exterior which is very environmentally sound. Let's go to the next slide. And here is the empty COVID view of that same intersection, but older photographs of the Alamoana building when it was first built in 1961, it had a very innovative system of vertical louvers or shutters and those were metal. They had a different color on either side, a subtle difference in color. Those automatically opened and closed, they tilt it, they pivot it in order to block the sun from beating in through those windows at the most hottest time of day when the sun was going to be most directly facing the sides of the building that we're going to be receiving the most heat. This system unfortunately has gone now because it was no longer able to be kept up and it was removed. The building has just a normal sort of a lattice work around it now, which doesn't perform as well. But remember, this building was very ahead of its time and it was very innovative for 1961 and I don't just mean here in Hawaii, I mean all over the world. This is something that we admire as we want to reduce our energy usage and we wanna reduce the amount of air conditioning we have to provide for the other buildings which are being built in this area which are essentially glass boxes that are sealed, but you can't get any natural ventilation through and they just heat up. Well, this building originally dealt with that in a way that we would like to see more of. Next picture. Well, in Olimwana center itself, we went, again, it went through a dramatic change too. This is the selfie wall in the center of Olimwana, right by the center stage and it's very vigorously in use as you can see. People are posing, people are having their pictures taken. Well, next picture. That all came to a very dramatic end when Olimwana center essentially shut down completely and there was nobody in it, including nobody to take any selfie pictures. Now, one of the ironic things about the selfie wall in Olimwana is here we are in the tropics. Here we are in a land where plants grow incredibly well all year round. It's warm, it's moist, it's sunny. Well, the selfie wall, ironically enough, is entirely plastic. There isn't anything natural about the plants that you see in this picture. They're all fake. And plants are very important for keeping us going. Plants put out oxygen. That's why the earth has an atmosphere made of oxygen. That's what we need to survive. Therefore, we want as many plants as possible and big plants and lush plants. So in the upper right corner, you see one of the theoretical high rises, which Martin Despange's students at the University of Hawaii, the emerging generation of architects have designed. And every year they design a different type of building. And again, these are mostly fantasy, but they're trying to put into practice things which will be beneficial. And one of the things that this Primitiva III proposal has is an abundance of foliage and abundance of living plants, which again are not only good for the environment and they're good for the people who live with them, but they're also a calming and mentally good element to have in your life. Plants and animals make life better and they reduce stress. Next picture. Well, speaking of Alamoana and going back to mid-century architecture, as I mentioned earlier with the Foster Tower Hotel, here is the second phase of Alamoana, which was constructed and opened in 1966. And this is a particularly striking element of the original phase two. It was located at the Diamondhead end of Alamoana in front of the Liberty House department store, which was a local department store now out of business and replaced by Macy's. And one thing that I mentioned earlier about the air moving around, air movement is something else, which is very important in a time of a pandemic or the time of a contagious disease. The more out in the open you are with more moving air, the healthier you're going to be because you have to be in close proximity in order to get a disease which is spread through the air by people transpiring, coughing, sneezing and breathing. The more of this we live with, the better we are going to be and the healthier we are going to be. So it isn't just because it looks pretty, it's also literally healthier. Next picture, the food court at Alamoana, the main food court at Alamoana in the center. This is what it looked like pre-pandemic, very, very busy place. If you've been there, you know, when it's bustling, it's packed with people. And not only are there a lot of people purchasing food around the perimeter of this space, but they're sitting and eating food in the center part of it at tables. It's jammed a lot of the time. Well, let's go to the next photograph. And during COVID, it wasn't jammed. It was not only was everything closed and you couldn't buy food, but one of the things that happened during COVID was all of the indoor seating was taken away because you didn't want people sitting around, again, in close proximity, particularly eating and drinking because you can't be wearing a mask when you're using your mouth that way. Well, pardon me, that means that you're more prone to spreading of diseases, and that means that you have no option except to shut everything down the way it looks in this photograph. And by the way, of course, we're back to full capacity again, even though, as I said, we're not over COVID. So don't get your hopes up. We may be going back to some of these restrictions. Next picture, here's Kahala Mall. And again, this is pre-COVID. And around this fountain, not only are there places to eat, but people just sit and take a load off their feet while they're in the midst of shopping. So this is a very convivial place. Humans like to get together. We like to be in crowds. We like to interact. We like hearing and seeing other humans around us. This is what this space is for. Well, again, this is pre-COVID when we weren't thinking about anything and it does strike me that looking at this picture, nobody's wearing a mask and nobody in this picture realizes very soon they're all gonna be wearing masks because none of us had ever done it before like that. Next photograph. And just like I said, at Ala Moana, it was necessary to shut everything down. Not only did they take away all the tables and chairs, but they actually roped off the bench which extends all the way around this fountain, which is a water feature, so that you couldn't sit there. Again, you're not allowed to linger. You're not allowed to sit. You're not allowed to congregate. This is going against a lot of the things that human beings like. Well, why is this more important? One of the things that just showed you at the Ala Moana food court, it's enclosed. It's inside. That's gonna be more likely to spread diseases. And this view at Kahala Mall, similarly is enclosed. Well, let's now go to the next photograph. The Kahala Mall was not always enclosed. In fact, it was redeveloped from an existing older shopping center. And in about 1970, it was turned into the first enclosed mall in the Hawaiian Islands. Now, there had been other enclosed malls before that. And in fact, the first one, what's attributed to be the first modern style enclosed mall was constructed in Minnesota. It's still functioning. It's called the Southdale Center. And it was designed by a man named Victor Gruen. And that was his major accomplishment in his life. Initially, he was very proud of it, but then he became disenchanted with the entire concept. Well, interestingly, let's go to the next photograph. That same architect, Victor Gruen, actually designed the first increment of what's now Kahala Mall, which opened in 1955. And that, at the time, was called the Wiley Shopping Center. And it was a completely open structure. And the second phase of it, or the second section, which enlarged it to the footprint that it mostly has now, is from 1958. This is what Kahala Mall, AKA the Wiley Shopping Center, originally looked like. It's completely open. And not only is it open on the sides, but it's got big holes in the ceiling where in this metal roof, in which there's even more interaction of the air. Now, I have to say, this wasn't a particularly appealing layout at the time, having been alive and having gone to the Wiley Shopping Center many times as a kid. It wasn't that successful a design. However, and I can see why they redeveloped it, redeveloped it, particularly because it was in, was and still is in next to a neighborhood that's a very high end. And there's a lot of disposable income there. But what happened to it is not necessarily healthy in the ways that I've been discussing next photograph. And this picture shows you the revamped Kahala Mall as it appeared when it first was redone and enlarged and enclosed in the early 1970s. Now, there were some of the aspects of the original 1950s mall that you can also see in the upper left-hand corner with this wonderful Wiley Bowling Alley, which has now been demolished, but it had this wonderful space-age cookie mid-century modern layout. And Kahala Mall does harken back sometimes to its original appearance from the 1950s. Next picture. Well, finally to end our program, here is the layout of trying to deal with homeless people during COVID. This is in California. These people sleeping outdoors have been sectioned off into these painted boxes on the ground so that they don't interact too much and hopefully don't spread COVID. And our final picture, let's go to that. And dealing with homelessness, we look forward to a time when there are innovative designs for dealing with homelessness such as developments of shipping containers and shipping containers are a type of housing. They can be turned into housing. We look forward to innovative uses of shipping containers because there's an abundance of them in existence that are no longer used for shipping things and they're all over the world. Let's reuse them and do something constructive with them. Okay, everybody, thank you very much for joining me today. This is I'm DeSoto Brown. This is the end of Human Humane Architecture for this week. We will be looking forward to seeing you again and you made architecture in the future with my co-host Martin Despeng and Ron Lindgren. And until then, thanks for joining me and aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.