 welcome you to our 223rd show of ThinkHack Hawaii's human humane architecture, broadcasting live from two different locations in the world from Long Beach, California with architect Ron Lindgren. Hi, Ron. Hello, Martin. Nice to see you. Yeah, good to have you back, Ron, and myself, would you wish so from Munich in Germany? And so last week was Thanksgiving. So we were thanking all the good things in life, and also the people that were blessed to have around us. And today, we also want to remember people who we had just recently lost. And if we can get to the first slide, that is Bob Lilliestrand, who filmmaker and architect and historian. And we all remember him for his lifetime project of preserving his family home in Lilliestrand house, which is up on Tantalus in Honolulu, Hawaii. And Bob just recently passed away, and we most obviously dearly miss you. There's a great article in the Star Advertiser that we showed that we quote up there. And also what we show for here is that Bob had been one of the earliest doing a show here on this program, which you can see has accumulated quite some views and quite some likes. Not surprisingly, the great guy that Bob was and for us in our memories will always be. So we dearly miss you, Bob. And on your side, Ron, let's get us to the next slide. There's a gentleman related to this episode and the ones we're on currently that you dearly miss and just have have lost. Yes, Ray Shigeta, the former project superintendent with Hawaiian dredging general contractors, had contacted me just recently to mention that of the passing of Ken Mizuno, whose pictures appear on the screen. I first got to know Ken back in 1983, while the Holly Cloney was under construction. He was a new employee. He was the trusted and direct contact between the president of what was the Holly Cloney Corporation. At that time, that Japanese corporation was in the process of building the Holly Cloney Hotel. And so Ken was the go between between Chuhei Okuda, the president, his architect, myself, the general contractor, and any number of other designers and people and government law people about the use of the land and so forth. With the hotels opening in 1984, he started a 37 year career with the Holly Cloney. And he was the hotels, what I call the engineering manager. Some people say he was he was chief engineer, but that doesn't cover what he really did. He led a crew absolutely responsible for successfully maintaining all of the utilities, the machinery, the technologies that are necessary to keep a hotel going. And only with all of that working smoothly, could the Holly Cloney employees then provide the very finest in hotel service, which they certainly have to their great credit. But also every time I came to Roy, I was always amazed by what the hotel looked like, because he ensured that the hotel exterior and the landscape grounds always look wonderfully maintained, bright, crisp and just as new looking as the day the hotel it opened. But also over those years, he was again the contact between the Holly Cloney Corporation, and all of the people involved in those necessary refreshing of hotel properties that can take you know, between seven and 10 years, sometimes less. If a hotel gets really beaten up, sometimes its success means that it has to be refreshed sooner. And that included the renovation of the 450 room Holly Cloney, plus the 300 rooms across the street in the sister hotel, which at that time was the Waikiki Park. And only very recently was he working on a very major renovation of the Waikiki Park into the Waikiki Holly Puna hotel. And every time he was involved, he he could show a really encyclopedic knowledge of construction. He was a man who knew how a hotel operated in terms of again, all of the utilities and things to keep things moving smoothly. And for the guests, they have the finest experience they possibly could. And he was always very diplomatic and fair, which wasn't always the experience I had with dealing with some clients reps. He was always a welcoming, very steadying influence. Because sometimes remodeling a hotel can be fraught with a lot of conflict. I think, in my opinion, that Ken Mizuno deserves a great deal of credit of the well-deserved success that Holly Cloney has achieved, both now in Hawaii and in Okinawa. And that was immensely assisted by the very wise, the untiring and the fully committed efforts of the late Ken Mizuno. Now, I got to know him so well because we shared a common bond. And that would be that we were both hoping to help in our own way to establish that Holly Cloney brand as a really unmistakable presence in the competitive world of modern worldwide tropical hospitality. So I'm so grateful to be able to offer my sincere condolences to the family. It's a great sorrow that he won't be joining them on his beloved ski slopes this season. Thank you, Ron. Much appreciated. And let's go to the next slide because thanks to you, Ron. Even I had a chance to get to know Ken. And that was the situation that we see at the very bottom right here. And thanks, Michael, for zooming in. And Ron, share with us when that was and what that was. When I was in Hawaii during the Doku Momo conference, I had called Ken Mizuno and asked if there was a chance that we might have the opportunity of getting a short tour of the very major renovation that was happening at the Waikiki Park Hotel. It was such an interest to me because I was the schematic design architect for the hotel. And the general layout, original layout and the room designs and so forth were in my hands and with but only so far as schematics. Fine local Hawaiian architectural firm took over and did a great job with the hotel. Ken typically was so kind and thoughtful that despite his busy schedule, I was long retired. He arranged steps to give a tour both to myself, to Martin, and to one of my colleagues who my thick Martin met for the first time that day, an architect named Carolyn Allardice, who has been involved with the Kahala Hilton and in architecture and in city planning and governmental positions for almost four decades in Honolulu. She still has an office there. That's that's Ken, which is back to us to the right. We're walking through the empty lobby space at the ground floor and this was a day or two before all of the furniture would have arrived and that's such a busy time when everybody's running around pushing furniture around an inch here, an inch there. Oops, that didn't work. Let's get rid of that piece of furniture completely. Kind of experience I've had in the past. Yet he made the time and the public space below was hermetic concealed, but of course my lobby design originally was also hermetic concealed, but my first impression was that there was there was kind of a slickness and an urbanity to it and sure we're in urban Waishiki, but it was again a bit characterless. That's partly unfair because it's amazing what can happen when furniture and fixtures and things fall into place and we didn't have that opportunity, but Martin, you have some strong comments about what you see in the upper right of the slide. Yeah, we do and turn it to to a good angle. I think we're to a more optimistic angle here. Again, we miss Ken and we also miss the easy breeziness of your Hale Kalani just across the street with the lobby and the common areas all being open to the elements which are always summer in Hawaii. So that's the way one would want it to see and maybe before we go into the detail of our criticism, we can go there right away. If you go to the top right which you point out, Ron, this is all we've been talking about that before. This is a show quote when you gave three shows about your Hale Kalani and we ended up also walking over to the Hale Puna here and this sort of collage shows what appears to be in blue in the middle is actually the new fenestration, the new glazing they put in and the one to the left of that one is the original one. And the indigenous guy there in his loincloth is sort of an analogy of what you had implemented there and maybe please talk about the difference, Ron. Yes, the original design allowed for almost all the glass itself to open, especially a sort of short side panel floor-to-ceiling of an opsem-operable glass. What that meant was that taking advantage of the breeze by being able to have the breeze of the wind or the trade winds to come directly into the room added to the fact that there was this sort of side panel as well meant that in a breeze a sort of vortex was created at the far end of the room, which helped to cool the room, cool the glass, cool the guest room, cool the guests in the room. And in the new design it's much more fixed. There's a very large fixed panel that we'll see the interior view of soon and the opportunity to open things up, turn off the air conditioning and enjoy the breeze and to hear the sound of the ocean waves just not far away is lost. And I must say that after having lived in one of the rooms when it was still the Waikiki Park that the ability to open as much of the glass as possible at the end wall did in fact allow me to wake up on a Sunday morning and hear not the sound of the air conditioning and not being frozen in the room but the sound of the ocean waves. Yeah, and given that let's argue with that given the substance, the substantial quality of your schematic design that your Halepuna did something recently, you were kind of racing with yourself in the sprint in a contest and we should first point out to the very top, second from top left which is a show quote that we have been sharing with the audience that a little while ago which is actually a national ranking of resorts in the world and you please recall and read Ron the four top ones. Yeah, we were wonderfully surprised in the County NAS Traveler Magazine which is one of the American magazines that many committed travelers get in their mail once a month. When they selected the 20 hotels that they felt were the best in the world as resort hotels Halaklani led the list. In fact it did for several years. The other three, I really forget the order but they were all out of the Killing's Earth office. It was the Manilani Hotel, the Kapalua Bay Hotel which is much missed and the Kahala Hilton and this was a great surprise and made us realize that we were doing something right in the world of Hawaiian hospitality. And that Ron is ongoing because it's the most recent issue of that same magazine which we're quoting at the very bottom left which is now the last one was top 20. This one here is top 10 of Hawaii hotels. Guess what? We see that in that second from the left column there. You basically surpassed yourself relative to the other previous ranking which was by the way from the early 90s. That's how long it lasts. Now number one is the Halepuna and number three is the Halaklani. It's your Halaklani both designed by you and then number four is the Kahala which is by your boss and friend and colleague and business partner Edward Killingsworth and that was his inaugural project there that you're also very familiar with because you just recall that you were renovating it. So the last grade substantial renovation was done by you. So congratulations Ron. Once again you keep your high ranking top scoring here at pole positions and we don't thank you. That's something that I'm really proud of and I must say that when people choose these lists of course as each year passes there is such a thing as the new kid on the block which suddenly gets a lot of attention. The problem I have with lists like this is that for example if you're dealing with a very high-end luxury hotel very expensive to say for its gas experience and its tropical elegant experience that isn't necessarily the same animal as a hotel that still provides wonderful service and is you know right almost on the ocean as well at sometimes considerably lower rates. It's a little bit like the apples and oranges problem but that doesn't at all diminish my pride in the fact that what began as the schematic designed by myself and then was taken to fruition by a terrific architectural firm at Hawaii, which I'm now apologizing to because I can't remember their name after all these years, but that it should be listed in Kandinez Traveler again as the number one hotel in Hawaii. Yeah and adding to that feel of well-deserved of pride Ron as we said these are the Hawaii the 10 best on Hawaii and all of these the top four ones are actually on our island of Wahu and we know there are other pretty islands that you have been designing on the Kapalua Bay that you mentioned that unfortunately isn't anymore because they stupidly tore it down and even more stupidly replaced it with something rather hideous but all the four ones here are actually on the Wahu and all the three first ones are actually in Waikiki which is my and DeSoto's hood and so you know we're very proud of that Ron that you blessed us with that one and so just so you might wonder what the position number two is it's actually something that we're personally architecturally not that equally fond of because it's rather hermetic and enclosed as the Waikiki Prince Hotel but the picture that the show quote in the in the in the in the top left with Kaili Chun reminds us of this beautiful piece of artwork that she placed into the lobby of the hotel prints that indeed gives it the very tropical exotic feel and touch and has a lot of multi-layered sophistication in it and so I would say given that Ron you just reminded us of what our exotic escapism expert Susana reminds us of that remodeling interval of seven to ten years which he also reiterated and I would say being that that in the last show you promised to be around for many more years I would suggest you and Kaili being the team for the next remodeling phase of the Halepuna first to begin with and I can certainly see there will be sort of the every visiting of some of the features that we started talking about at the top right and let's go to the next slide because that's where we continue that talk just to again illustrate the very top left show quote is illustrating the the year that you Ron when you were as you brought us back to the Kahala and you told us all the details about your remodeling of it at that time you were basically staying at the Waikiki Park Hotel that we see the contemporary interior after the remodeling and you were staying there for almost a year and I'm also amazed that just like Jay our uncle founding uncle is a pioneer in the bicycling culture in Hawaii you have been part of that because you were doing this with your bicycle the commute from the from Waikiki up to Kahala and if you have been driving that maybe you don't feel the incline but I can tell you I've been there on my bicycle few times and it's a lot so kudos to you you did it the post fossil way back then and I must say that I would start the day early enough to jump on my bike from the Waikiki Park and then fight my way up the hill and stop at the lighthouse just as the sun was breaking over the horizon and then I would just stop there take deep breaths and from there I could coast almost all the rest of the way down to the Kahala it was a wonderful work experience and it always brought out the best of me for the work day that followed exactly and at the bottom there we see the the updated although I don't think that term gives it the right connotation there and you see what's on the very left that fixed panel used to be a sliding door pair so what you've been illustrating we created the term of side ventilation is what what and you said there was this vortex sort of wind dynamics going on that helped you to naturally query a space that's not the case anymore that fixed glazing it's flush with a facade that's facing west so the sun is coming in there without you know any mercy and so again I would say in about seven to eight years you and Kaeli come back and bring it back and maybe you consult please Michael zoom in up the very top right with Tropic here Rockwood who has been with his emerging generation offering this elective where you had the students investigate and actually prototype as you can see there new tropical fenestrations and as you said you know in preparation for the show wrong that you know the remodeling was taking away a bi-climatic aspect performance aspect of your design I guess then it's obvious to want to bring that back so in about again the next interval I can see Kaeli, David and you teaming up and doing that and again I choose the permanent background for the show to be our pying mobile our 560 SL Mercedes and we have to I have to correct myself from two shows ago I was saying when we were talking about this the kind of the the delicate aspect of decadency that has to do with the zeitgeist of these projects that you were in in the mid 80s that it wasn't JR Ewing driving these in the TV series Dallas but it was Bobby Ewing his younger brother and also the model number isn't r102 which I still under my cold as my poor excuse was saying but it's the r107 so at least we got these correct as well anything you want to add to our observation and projection and suggestion for the future Ron regarding the Halepuna it's nice to have reasons to live for at least another decade but I do have to I do have a criticism of what again the new room appears like you are seeing the ocean off in the distance and those guest rooms that do look out over the lowest wing of the Haleklani and many of them do of a building a square building that has views in four different directions four cardinal points take again Photoshop that ocean away and the room again has no touch of the tropics in my mind it's cool and bright and airy and perhaps even a little bit overly sunny on certain occasions in that western sun coming through the large fixed glass pane but just as I have a problem with the non-contextuality of the Haleklani's new room this room made me make a comment to Ken Mizuno himself when all four of us were in the room at the time I said the room is certainly comfortable and and handsome and it looks like it might have been designed by an interior designer from New York and then I think it's true now that we have discovered that indeed it was an interior designer from New York and my rule for choosing interior designers over my career was that obviously they had to have the talent and that talent could be in New York I've worked with some interior designers from New York but those interior designers also had experience and had already done projects in Hawaii who knows if this New York designer had ever even been to Hawaii and sometimes that's certainly the case the hubris of a design firm not even visiting the site to see what the light conditions might be like what the room really appears like in its original form how it could indeed be improved because there are always room for improvement Ken Mizuno took the comment lightly he probably had some input in terms of some of the technical aspects of the room in the bathrooms and maybe in where the new power outlets might be put in case the lighting design for the room had changed somewhat but the design was was highly quality management and Ken had no control over that but he just smiled and let me make that comment and was the gentleman that I knew the whole time I knew him so again blessed his memory absolutely wrong and I think that's couldn't be a better closing note I don't think there is anything better to add to that so I think we conclude it here given the circumstances and we but we will see you back next week Ron and again the secret working title of this volumes of show is the water reasons water happenings for reasons and so this will actually get us back to your home in Long Beach, California and sharing your very turbulent last couple of months that you're very happy to have been concluding now and so what that will be in detail we won't tell you here because otherwise you might not want to join us next week and that's for sure one so look for all I can say is that no matter what you go through if if you get through it but it doesn't kill you it makes you stronger okay no you're living another living example for that Ron okay so with that see you next week and you guys all stay as tropical exotic as Ron continues to encourage us so with that see you next week bye bye bye everyone