 ThinkTek-A-Waii, civil engagement lives here. It's awesome to have you all back on Human Human Architecture here on ThinkTek-A-Waii. The show that is not giving up on trying to find ways to keep our islands of Hawaii inclusive, which is increasingly problematic because it gets more and more exclusive and not affordable more for too many of us. We've been talking about that actually from the very beginning and if we can get the first slide, that was a show I did a while ago here about a project that we do in school that is called Stratasphila Nigh Grove, which is a pop-up installation inhabitable out of found objects from the cargo shipping realm and we had the chance to present that about a year ago at, must have been that time of the year on Earth Day actually at Mark's Garage, which is one of the main hubs for the art scene here in Chinatown in Honolulu and the next page is it almost looks like it could be the same guy but it's not, it's he's just as bald and bold as I am and that's today's guest who has to do that in the institution and was and the associate director of Mark's Garage. He has also been on this show with Donna Blanchard way back, as you can see at the very top right, but it took until next page the emerging generation of architects got us together and got us up to Rich Richardson next phase in his life and to share that with us he's here today. Hi Rich. Hi everybody, thank you for having me on the show, I appreciate that very much. Thank you for being here and so the students we're doing a studio that the students are in charge of orchestrating every other week at what we call an XP day, which is both experiential and expeditions so they go out and about and find things relative to the design task and the design task is nothing more and nothing less to make the most with the least especially for these people who are in such urgent need and that's exactly what you're doing in this exciting new phase in your life and if we can get that page this is us on your lani right at home so what are you doing up at home because you've been the fancy sort of art director and manager up in Chinatown being busy running around and what are you doing up there at home in your valley? Well I decided to do something on my own for a little while at least that was proactive addressing some concerns that we all share I think on Oahu providing affordable housing. I figured I could approach it as an art project and rebuild my own life a little bit less social perhaps being up there alone in the valley banging away with hammer and nails on this project but nonetheless I think important reinvigorating and feels very good to have accomplished. And let's bring up the next slide because that shows sort of a selection of inspirations you had sort of where you came from what inspired you and it's a movement that's known actually national talking TV on national TV it's called tiny homes so it's this awareness of that we can you know live on a smaller footprint that would benefit us in multiple ways last but not at all least what's most problematic on the island is the affordability issue right so these are just examples of what inspired you right as I understood you were in Chinatown which is pretty much out there and it's very much on in front of your doors you're confronted with the issue is because the rising homelessness is there and I understood you you were feeling a little bit too sort of you felt awkward in sitting you know at your nice desk with your Apple computer and pushing buttons while out there struggle was going on right existential struggle it's correct you ask yourself well what can I do what what can one person do to stem the tide of global capitalism you know how can one person make a difference and I thought well maybe I can make something that somebody could live in yeah so I started with that premise I can build something I've built a lot of artwork in my life I could build an artwork large enough for somebody to to sleep in well and yeah so my first instinct was something maybe improvised structure made from found materials and and then I dug into it doing some research found a whole world out there to explore and very exciting those are English Shepherd's huts that you see on the pictures yeah yeah so let's go to the next page which addresses another issue because what you just said I would call it the art of dwelling that you try to recreate on the island because many of us lose it there was actually I was watching TV here public TV and I saw a founding father Jay Fidel in the audience and they were discussing you know that the brain drain on the island that many of the talented young people have to move away because they just can't afford to live here right so then there's there's something that sort of society came up with sort of intentionally or viciously you know clever that's called the ADU the accessory dwelling unit which means you can put little units in your backyard but that sounds great but it's not that easy right and it's sort of iffy and so you went another route and I was sort of a subtitle of the show or actually the show of the title I call it or riches cabana mobilier for the poor and brackets for the real rich and and and mobilier comes from the european terminology where real estate is called in french immobilier or in germany immobilia and it means it's something that's not mobile while here your trick is to do the opposite to put it on wheels right right i think these were born of that disaster in norlands katrina where the americans involved in that were met with these fema trailers that were toxic and you know square and some inventors out there decided they could do better and this tiny house movement i think is born of that instinct okay this is all i need yeah but i can make it great yeah i can make it really fun to live in it doesn't have to be something just utilitarian to get me by i can want to be here yeah and let's jump right in because you had to start with from the very beginning and so the next picture is you uh looking for the chassis for the foundation for the mobile foundation and you told me you had to look for it somewhere it came from the mainland via the big island and finally to you so you started pretty much with that that's sort of your foundation right on wheels yeah the project is taking me down so many avenues the finding the the trailer um shipped from built in texas shipped in a container yeah across the country on a train to oakland shipped to the big island and then back on the barge to wahoo where i picked it up my Subaru wasn't going to pull it so i had to buy this big old truck and so just starting at the very very lowest level of how do i how do i make this happen yeah and the next picture is that's when you started actually so you were building on the foundation and basically sort of leveling it and putting out putting on the the first layers they're needed to for inhabitation and we should say that while you started out and saying i make something you know artsy and crazy through the process of saying i want this to be my life you basically said well this this has to work has to be professional it has to be up to codes and standards so it would be accessible and legal right so you started to get pretty serious right along the lines of building i'm you know improv improv improvising all the time i've i would love to build something wild like a tree fort with fun doodads hanging off everywhere but i realized reading this literature on on these tiny houses that to do it right you really have to know how to build well otherwise people won't trust that it's a safe place so that's where i got into the nitty gritty and taught myself how to build to international building code okay and let's look at that because the next picture illustrates that that all of a sudden there's framing going on that's been put on the trailer and the next picture is the framing in process here and also you started out saying well i'm out there by myself um but you're not right because we see someone in there who's with you at least yeah my daughter is there uh she's part of the crew that's her with a chainsaw or some nail gun or something and we were saying isn't that beautiful because what makes construction so painful here is like unions and and safety and enclosed close uh towed shoes and helmets and stuff like that i don't see that here so much and she's still happy and healthy and alive right oh yeah and then you were also saying this extends beyond because there's a house in the back on that right picture there's a neighbor who's chipping in with his like what do you say 40 years of experience in the construction industry right i had people checking on me people offering to help i wanted to do everything by myself um just at least the first one yeah to really learn it from the ground yeah yeah but i had uh i have one guy who stops by and and helps me um with my most difficult questions for the week yeah very very and most difficult is the next brings us to the next page here because you said well you wanted to be really sort of you know affordable and efficient and effective being the artist you are you didn't want to give up and you didn't want to make it a plain and boring sort of female box which you already said you wanted to make it the art of dwelling as we call it so you said this vaulted ceiling was important for you and was was worth investing literally and figuratively speaking so here you're basically materializing that dream right and making that right i i'm learning how to build uh for that that fixation of mine that arched um uh ceiling uh took a lot of uh research and experimentation yeah that i think paid off because it does feel very very roomy inside yeah and it changes it to something poetic rather than something just functional yeah uh it makes me really want to be in there not i can survive in here but more i aspire to be here yeah no it's so let's look at the fancy shop where this is all happening and coming together next picture here right this is pretty much your carport lanai which is the extension of a little shop you have in the back and that's where you work and live and all of that perfect and next picture is where you basically then sort of the the genie in the bottle that you let out you know that vaulted roof meant to bend basically corrugated metal so you needed to do that and you've figured out how to do it you sort of trade yourself and entrepreneurial i tried but i what i found was a guy in kalihi at a machine shop who remembered how to bend metal for once hot repairs which is another great precedent for that sort of simple dwelling right right another yeah i lived in one for five years so i love the sound of rain on those structures yeah that's poetic talking poetic right single layer single layer membrane yeah you couldn't talk on the phone yeah in the coincident when it rained really hard you know it's just too loud in there but no yeah but a beautiful shape and uh luckily these guys helped me out and bent that to to perfection so no and next page is finally sort of the the raw form is finished and you know the vaulted roof and you're probably there and and and sort of celebrating the the main construction being completed and next picture once again celebrating with you are these awesome construction workers here who you know kept you you know you said it was uh it was it was quite the struggle and and i said well you know you are an artist and you approach us as an artist and isn't that what art is about there is no art without struggle so i mean you know yeah and you're what i find amazing is that you didn't approach this like from the end from the product you didn't say well i want to get rich playing a word game with your name once again by doing this but you said i want to engage in the process i wanted it to be a lifestyle change for myself so the process was as important maybe more important than the product right well the product is an outcome of that sort of engaged process yeah i wanted to create a lifestyle for myself um and the product is secondary the the process was like a dance the first six months i really enjoyed the the physical work uh the framing especially building that boat-like shape for the top was really gratifying yeah yeah um figuring out every step became the most difficult part for me as the learning curve was was struggling with yeah you know each thing being new to me and now that i've basically gotten through it yeah no and take a little closer look i mean the little picture i put in because i was you know popping my head below under your trailer and was taking that picture of that sort of clarity of construction i would call it that sort of logic and next picture is the same in the rock construction of the building so um everything is is serious and it's a double wall construction and it's insulated which came after you know this stage here so we we should point out that this is uh this is an easy breezy cabana how i call it this is naturally ventilated there's no ac in there and you put just the right amount of fenestrations in there that it pretty much works and you can get the wind doing the job and it's well insulated so it doesn't overheat and the little picture in that on that page here is is me when you opened up the facility room which is sort of backpacked to the to the thing and and there you can see a rainwater collector and you can see um the other sort of technical necessities you pretty much have and also you said you know you you want to have the thing be off the grid so you want to have itself sustained so you were thinking about the photovoltaics to be on the roof but looking at some precedents you decided basically to have it you have the the the owner basically place it outside of the house where the sun is for sure and sort of not have a bit sort of centralized and integrate into the roof but being sort of decentralized and and that way but again it's it's an own sort of self-sustained sort of unit that again i mean i'm amazed you know you you had no training no pre-education you had to figure this all by yourself and and you did it well thank you the the industry is very giving at this point there's a lot of people that are experimenting and sharing the lessons learned which makes it very exciting kind of a pioneering spirit and there's an open source exchange of ideas and techniques for the lay person very important you know do it yourself plumbing do it yourself solar paneling do it yourself yeah water cat rainwater catchment everything's learned from the ground up and and it's all systems that you would find in a normal dwelling at a smaller scale yeah and so that being said let's jump to the next image here which shows the product with a fisheye view and it's basically said it's 110 square foot right interior interior wise and it's got everything you need you got that and you you insisted to make a compromise between you know your your artsy potential and your talent and ability to make things really crazy and and and the sort of sort of expectations and taste of potential users and you you decided to keep it as clean as possible as sort of to make this compromise as a for now for the prototype but nevertheless if we go to the next page because we're looking into that sort of the living sleeping area this is your bed that has this feature of can be pulled out and can be made much wider and to basically house host you know yourself and your two kids and and then you can push it back and then it has storage underneath and the next fisheye view is looking the other direction which basically has at the very end which we see on the next page a full shower and a full toilet which is a a compost toilet that's basically used on yachts and ships and stuff like that so all technology that has proven to basically work so the thing pretty much has everything that you need for life and and that's the that's the beauty of it we're sort of running out of time so I want to put you into a context of body of work and colleagues to make you feel even better than you already should because I'm proud of you and the next page is one of our previous guests who we had already multiple times and this is a Nathan Teuthman and I come to that sort of for my profession and discipline a shocking inside that I realize that actually the best kind of architecture on the islands is made by non-architects as you are an artist and Nathan and Tiffany are a nuclear naval engineers and they came up with this idea same again lifestyle the whole family is involved and send you the links to the shows you will be surprised about the mentality of of mindset of of being a family project here and it's called Elevate and it's it's due to do an update so you guys be excited about an update in a couple of weeks and as close to me the next page is my own family because my son Joey who has a fresh master's degree in automotive engineering and management decided also to not sit behind the table and push papers but basically create his own dream and striking similarity he started with a trailer and he and he built a box and and then he started to cocoon it and and so here here there are and the sort of brown in a previous show and then Nathan who has been consulting call it and a lower ambassadorship because he's doing all this in Germany right and it's it's all the three of you are doing the same sort of mindset and thinking and and here you know Joey it's Joey and my daughter-in-law's project and and vision and dream and you know the whole families are involved and behind it and it's refreshing to see to you know not allowing oneself to be victimized by sort of the systems in place of that you can't afford home ownership anymore and you have to again in worst case to move off island but that there's a way if there's a will there's a way and you guys demonstrate that to an absolute beauty and if you see that little surfboard that they designed to be the signage that gets me to the last page which is again I encourage I encourage potential buyers uh to love it and to want it and then to sort of approach you increasingly as in your initial capacity of the artist and saying how can we now sort of go more crazy again I mean this was sort of the foot in the door I think which is great that you did it that way and now is the time to basically create I will say again like a family you know a large family in Ohana where each kid in the family is different enough and has different character based upon whatever right so I I encourage them to do that and again I want to I don't want to thank you to have made this sort of significant change in your life and and being so courageous and brave to do that and sitting here and smiling and I can see the excitement and I know that this excitement is contagious so again if you people are interested please go on Rich's website which you can see here and then you know him having designed a total piece of artwork if the camera can get to my hand here where I'm holding your business card and your business card is as your project is it's tiny and it's very well crafted and it's basically about art right that says it at the title you know at the subtitle and so um art you can live in exactly so thank you for having been here and shared that with us thank you for having me on the show I wish you all the best and we will watch you and then have you on the show again when the first crazy ones have joined you know in the family the crazy kids came to play along and and then we want to give give an update on that until yeah we'll have a village of them that would be awesome you were talking about that little wagon you know circle a wagon circle around the fire in the fire pit yeah exactly all right so thank you very much Rich again very encouraging and um so we will be back next week with the Soto Brown and our volume two of our trilogy about the architecture of UH Manoa and will be the Thrive episode or the boom episode or the Jetsons episode as the Soto calls it so stay tuned for that and until then stay little and tiny and but think big bye bye