 Welcome back to the Human-Humane Architecture here in downtown Honolulu, Hawaii on a early Tuesday evening. This show here being a critical format, we want to talk about architecture primarily. And our founding father of the show, J. Fidel, and I keep constantly talking about the state of architecture on the island, and we agreed that it could be described with a word that starts with S, and I'll leave it to him to ever mention that or not, that exists in both our languages of our cultures. And if Zuri can help us out with a first slide, please, that has an informed citizen's comment about that subject matter. And this is how one of our guests of the recent shows is our dear activist journalist, Kurt Sandburn, and we're sitting together and brainstorming along the lines of that paraphrasing, and this is actually one of the viewers of his civil beat article that he wrote, and so along these lines. But we quickly went to let's be constructive and let's find something that is actually good architecture on the islands here. And as you guys can read in the article, our suggestion or proposal was that the best new piece of architecture is the new rainbow drive in canopy. So our today's guest is the client and owner of that project. So it's Jim Kuzukuma. So welcome to the show. Thank you very much for being here. Thanks for having us. And explain a little bit about yourself, obviously, and the project. And what we will see in the background here is actually the condition that inspired you or informed you to actually make a change to your situation. First of all, I'd like to say thanks very much. And it was a big surprise, first when Kurt approached me and wanted to do an article on the canopy. It was just a canopy and a utilitarian piece for us and something that we wanted to do, of course, to help the environment and save electricity. And then it was a bigger surprise when you asked me to come and think tech Hawaii to talk about the canopy and also that you're an architect and appreciated the structural and the visual elements of that building. So thank you very much for having us and I like to talk about it. I'm the Senior Vice President of Operations for Rainbow Drive-In. It's a family business. My father-in-law actually started the business in 1961. We've only been at that location. We don't own the property. We lease it from an old Kapahulu family that still owns the property. And if you know anything about these traditional families, first, my father-in-law always tried to purchase the property, but they were like, oh, well, as long as mom's alive, we can't sell the property. And then it was as long as the kids are alive and now it's the grandkids. And rightly so. They want to pass it on as a legacy in their family. But they've been so great to us in that they've always agreed to extend the leases. And about five or six years ago, I thought that we should also plan our family's legacy in the business and ask them about getting a 20 or 25-year lease on the property. Previously we had five to 10 years. And they were gracious enough to accept it. And so at that point, you know, we could really invest in some infrastructure into the building and whatnot. And so at that point, solar panels and looking into some sort of long-term solution to this stuff really became possible and feasible. Zurich, could you bring the next picture, which actually shows just for a little glimpse that family tradition, how long it's been around. This is sort of a historic picture here. It actually shows the building as it actually still exists. That was probably taken on opening day or very close to it. They're not quite sure. But you can see by the flags and the flowers. If you can see the flowers in the window, so it's got to be pretty close to opening day. And that originally building where the windows are and that cement around it is still there. It looks a little bit different. We covered it with tile and extended the dining room out to the side and did some cosmetic things to it. But that's basically the building. The kitchen inside is the same size and everything. And if we could get the next picture, please. And I would say, I mean, you're always, I like because you're downplaying things sort of in your humble way, Jim, I have to say. Because the first additions was already, as the background we see all the time was basically adding little knives. I would say you've also changed or optimized the performance of the building, right? Yeah. Because the previous picture had no shade in front of where you get the food. Obviously, for customers' comfort, we, you know, eventually, and as the business advanced and became successful or a little bit more successful, we added lanais and shading and extended the building out, of course, to protect the customers from rain. And the most recent step of that is what we see now here in that picture. Right. It's, you know, the canopy that overhead houses the solar panels. And underneath provides some shaded parking for cars. We didn't lose any parking, fortunately. And also on the other side gave us tables for additional seating and to keep people out of the sun gave some shade. And the previous show I would have left to witness that I read about, so I will listen to it later on because they're all on YouTube, was about, is a car-free Hawaii possible? And I'm very excited about that. It might be a little contradiction with you as being Rainbow Drive in, however, that first picture showed mainly bicycles there. So there is sort of a multimodal aspect of your project. You know, I don't have a problem with a carless Hawaii, just get that rail built and tag it on. Sorry, they mean to be political. But you know, yeah, no. We definitely have a car problem and I guess, you know, we're going to have to change the name to, I don't know, Rainbow Walk-In or something, but that's okay with me. That's very creative. So I actually subtitled these pictures. The first one I said is obviously bicycle-friendly, you know. The next one, it is still car-friendly. There was this picture with, I love that, with the old VW bug, which I see a lot of these old German cars being frequent customers of yours, but there's also these, these, these, these buggies. I see a lot of these buggies and then the most crazy way, right? From time to time, yeah. See, so there's, there's that. And then the other pictures actually show it all encompassing. It also shows actually fauna, shows birds. And I know it's sort of like the birds are kind of a love-hate relationship. Yeah, absolutely. But, but you don't kick them out. You kind of live with them. There's kind of a coexistence to it, at least my feel was. And then I see plants, you actually put plants down there. So you got the whole ecosystem pretty much covered in, in that. Yeah, you know, I don't know if we purposely did all that, but you know, I mean, I'm glad you see it that way. But you know, you know, plants definitely add, add a better feeling and, you know, we thought it, it, it would definitely cool the place down, you know, rather than just have a bare parking lot and bare columns to, to try to add a little. And then, then we're planted friendly because you actually, you know, the roof top, the roof cover, the, the rain membrane, talk more specifically what that is. The solar panels themselves. Yeah. So, you know, we, and in, in thinking about it where we started to think about actually doing this and getting the cost together and then the design of it all. Yeah. Then we decided to, to definitely put it on top of Academy because as far as solar panels go, the roof of the actual drive in itself didn't have nearly enough space to make it worthwhile to, to put panels up, you know, and, and, and make it pay off. So the only alternative was to, to build a canopy to put enough panels up there to make it worthwhile. And in doing that, then we thought, hey, you know, we'd just go ahead and, and use the panels as a roof covering. And of course build the structure up high enough so that cars and some, some, some sort of trucks and things would fit under it without hitting the panels or the structure. And then decided to move it out, cantilever it and put seating on the other side. So it all kind of came together as a, as a organic thought thing to satisfy, satisfy both sides. Yeah. It was me like a very informed client. I wish I would. And I had clients like that, but I love them because I need to have an informed client. I said in the last show, unfortunately a lot of architecture happens without architects, which sort of a little bit selfishly, I'm kind of torn about that, but it can never happen without clients. So the client, we need to inform and educate clients and you're informed and self-educated client. And I just want to point out, this is really provocative and I know I put myself on a hot spot in the hot sea here. So we call Kurt Sandberg the most activist, you know, journalist on the island. And an architect here and educator, we call the best piece of architecture in Honolulu. There was no architect involved. There was an informed client involved, but you then had a contractor, you had a PV consultant and that's basically it, right? Yeah. You know, the PV company, we just come on a solar, can I say that, I don't know, of course. We worked very closely with them and I was fortunate enough to have a very good representative that worked from their company that worked with us. And they actually obtained the engineering company, but I was, and they came up with several proposals and we sat down and talked and sketched out different alternatives and things. And I think all in all between what we needed and what they proposed and then also what was engineering possible, you know, I think we have the best looking building and the best structure and the best practical things to, yeah. And with that, I allow myself to be the academic in me, you know, who's reflecting on things almost like a theorist, which is not my main field, but I myself to reflect on things is like, and this was interesting when Kurt, and you already said it a little bit when he approached you, you're kind of puzzled and a little perplexed, right? Because you say, well, I don't know. He actually asked you, he confronted you and says, this is a local building. Yeah. And I love your reaction was like, well, actually, no, but maybe thinking about it and you admit it, you know, it might, but intuitively and, right? Yes, exactly. I mean, we never designed it to be local or to be architecturally pleasing or anything like that. And, and I still am in awe that you recognize the building and, and consider it, you know. But you saw so eloquently and elaboratively talk about what actually a building should do in Hawaii, right, which is your home. You say it's a basic protection from the elements being the sun and the rain here. But it wants to, and you're a big fan of the breeze, the easy breezy. I really am. I'm concerned about, yeah, the movement of the wind and how buildings are changing that basic flow of energy or that natural flow from the mountains to the ocean. Yeah. Yeah. So definitely we wanted to build something that allowed that also. So, so as a theory proposition rather than doing something that's invasive and then decorating it local, right? You're actually doing something that's exotic because steel, to be honest, if I have to explain to the students, I say mainly per default steel is not good because it basically rusts on the island. But in your case, you know, achieving what you wanted to do, it was the best choice. And if you take good care of it, just like with a car and repaint it every once in a while, if you saw an off and it can actually last pretty long. So it's a very logic decision, right? If you say so. No. I'm still, I'm still really in awe of reading Martin about, about, you know, your, your, your, your, you know, being, being so impressed with our building. So I got to try harder and I will do that after the little break we take. Okay. We're going to be back in a minute. Bear with us. Hey, everybody, my name is David Chang and I'm the new host of a new show, The Art of Thinking Smart. I'm really excited to be able to share with you secrets on giving yourself a smart edge in life. We're going to have awesome guests and great mentors of mine from the political, military, business, nonprofit, you name it. So it's something for everybody. For a very healthy summer, watch Viva Hawaii. We're giving you the best tips and with our best health coach here. So Viva health coach. Viva la comida saludable. Aloha. My name is Reg Baker and I'm the host of Business in Hawaii with Reg Baker. We're a show that broadcasts live every Thursday from 2 to 2.30. We highlight success stories in Hawaii of both businesses and individuals. We learn their secrets to success, which is always valuable. I hope to see you on our next show. Aloha. Welcome back. Welcome back to the show, which I forgot to say, which I called Rufi Texture Rainbow Drive with Jim Kuzukuma. So we started off that I need to try harder to convince you about that you really did the greatest piece of parking technology here on the island. I'm honored, really. I'm shocked. So just like, you know, my proposition is the indigenous ride here actually everywhere, not just here everywhere, even in northern Germany where I'm from, we don't have that much wood. We just had a, we put a tree every three feet as a stud, you know, we call this half timbered. It's just the vernacular that rises out of the local resources and then the means and methods develop naturally out of that. So your thing was like, I have a limited budget. I need to provide shade for all these different species. I want to basically generate as much as possible my own electricity. That way help myself, but also help the environment because you believe in them. That's the future. And for that you just needed the right solution, nothing more and nothing less. And I allow myself to say this is the way people everywhere in the world and also here have done that. And way back they came up with, okay, we got some trunks and we got to do some latching to keep it together. And the best way to put it together is this way because then, you know, gravity plays out. So that's the way. Here is obviously looks different because it's not nostalgically trying to sort of remember that in a kitschy sort of a skewed post-modern way, but just continue that kind of rationality. And what comes out of this poetry is a direct result of this sort of pragmatism. As we look at the hollies, the fetch hollies, so nostalgically and say they're so cute. They're so lovely. Well, they weren't way back. They were just the best they could do at that point. And so you did. And I love about your project. If we can go to the two last slides really quickly here is that you actually then came up with touching the ground lightly and maybe actually the last picture here. There are only three posts where actually the structure, and that needs to be because otherwise, you know, you can't drive there. You can't sit there, all these things. But this is my favorite detail here. And I never actually asked you about it and I do it right now. I find this so extremely poetic and I refer to the previous picture, which is the case study houses in California in the 50s. They were done by these young architects, emerging architects that didn't want to build in a classicist way anymore. They just want to be modern and stripped down and naked, bare to the bones. And this house here is the case study house number 22 by Pierre Koenig and actually the guy that did the Matrix movies, Joe Silver, bought that house. And we talked in the last, one of the last shows, Bob Lilliestrand at his house, you know, has been communicated and celebrated by his Wi-Fi of old people and stuff like that. So we need to make things cool. And I think, you know, maybe not, you admit already that not intellectually and not obviously and not reflectively, but intuitively there was that thing. So what I'm going to ask is why do these beams kind of leave route more than the PV panels, which make them look really light as opposed to heavy. And there's the other thing you actually talked about why the main truss is basically taper, as we call it. So they're actually thicker at where the column is, and then they get thinner too. And why is that? Well, I don't know. I think the engineers designed it. No, the reason why the ends are hanging, I mean, I know architecturally and design-wise and all that, but it's really more just of a practical thing is that the panels didn't make it out to the end. And we had already designed the cantilevers out, and so that's just the way it happened. As far as the cantilevers themselves and the angle on the front and the back side, you know, they could have easily made it straight across. Practically speaking, by angling it out, it gave us a few more inches or feet of clearance on the front side so that if a tall truck or something, by some chance, backed into there, that they would gradually make contact rather than just tear the whole end of the beam out. So there was a practical reason for that. And that's basically what happened. And once they designed it and I saw it, of course, I thought it was really nice. I think it adds a lot and gives it, like you would say, a gracefulness maybe to the building rather than just have a solid beam out there. But it originated with a practical solution to giving us additional inches of clearance. And there we go again. That's what we're talking about. That's frustrating. You are that informed client. I keep telling you about it. You know that. You're not arguing that, you're just arguing the part, that sort of cultural reflectiveness about it, which is good. I mean, that's the compliment. Yeah, I can't really say that we, you know, all of this was specifically planned and detailed out, which is even better because otherwise it wouldn't be true. It wouldn't be authentic, right? A lot of it. Because the only builders, you know, when they would do the canoe hollies, you know, the trunks themselves, they're thicker at the bottom and they're thinner at the top. And that's the way they put them in because the loads get actually heavier towards the center of the construction. So actually the engineers, they were just following the load lines, right? And that is just like, that's what a wide tree is so organic and so appealing because it does the same thing, right? So there's no superficiality in there. There's no dropped ceiling. There was this funny anecdote that you said, you know, using, and this is pretty provocative because usually we have to tell the viewers, usually you make a roof, you make a roof membrane, and then you stick the PV panels on top of it. And then actually the engineers tell it to angle them in 45 degree towards the sun so you get the most efficiency. You didn't do that. Why? Why didn't you do that? Well, we didn't do that because it wouldn't have provided the covering and the protection from the rain and the elements that we wanted. And because the canopy was already on the southwestern side of the building, we didn't think that we would gain enough sunlight to make it worthwhile to change that design. So again, you know, it was just a practical design element, a practical solution that we needed to do in order to achieve the total thing that we wanted to do. Yeah, which was to provide shelter plus solar power. Call that comprehensive design that's inclusive of everything, right? Well, you know, you got the fancy elements and the academic elements. But seriously, it was, and you know, since talking to you and Kurt, I've actually come to appreciate the building a lot more and see a lot, a lot more in it. And I'm even happier with it now than I was with it. So slowly but surely you accept the award, right? We appreciate that. And I appreciate actually taking the students there and you talk to the students and they were actually mostly impressed by actually your motivation and your ethical principle. And they actually feedback back to me and said, you know, there is this sort of, which in corporate America, you call this a corporate identity. And you're obviously not. You're the opposite of that. But it's where the design ethics are in coherence and consistent with actually the business model. And your business model, I want to go back to that, is actually sort of feed the people, you know. It's you take good ingredients, you know, and make a good meal that's affordable. So there's no fuzzing around. There's no icing on the cake. There's not Waikiki. And then we go with the analogy where you basically fake something as being Hawaiian and you put a pineapple on top of that and some kind of straw and make it look tiki, right? You're not doing that. You're saying we have a serious issue here that we have certain parts of the society that they're cut out. So I got to provide decent food. And it's the same with your building. Your building is doing the same. It's something, you know, that I guess has become part of our business culture because we're constantly looking and, you know, deciding whether to modernize, quote, you know, do the new cuisine or how much of it to put in versus sticking to the traditional food. But, you know, every time we look at it, we're just kind of determined to just keep the food simple and feed people for the most economical prices and yet, you know, use honest food that we can. And that's kind of like where we're at. So it translates over into my thoughts about energy and doing the solar panels. We as a business obviously can't or not obviously, but we don't do everything we could. I mean, we still use plastic. We still use things that we could turn into more disposable items, but then it would raise the cost up. But we can do solar panels. You know, we can do other things that we recycle our oil. We do things that we can within our business model to do that. And I mean, I look at it like if every business did that and did what they could and really put themselves out there that, you know, we overall would have a really pretty good place to live. And it's something we share. You know, we talked before, I call this people and planet-friendliness. So the planet-friendliness is your PV roof. Is your, by the way, I hope you don't mind saying that. We talked about the cars, so the IF3 is yours. Yeah. In that case, and you also have a heart for the people. So that's the people-friendliness. Yeah, you know, I mean, I personally have, personally speaking, I have solar panels on my roof. And I did that several years before I even put it into the drive-in. So I knew about the panels and they worked fine for me. And I knew, you know, what they could do as far as cutting energy down. And then that naturally led to me looking into electric cars. And, you know, of course, people say the batteries, you know, could contribute and all. But, you know, if you can eliminate that carbon output, you know, if you can eliminate using those kinds of energy sources, gasoline and petroleum, and it's not for everybody, again. I don't, I'm not militant to propose that everybody get an electric car. Everybody did, you know, do it with fossil fuels. But if everybody did what they could and within their means, then again, you know, we would go a long ways to becoming sustainable, energy-wise and otherwise, yeah. Thank you so much. That was a great final conclusion because we're at the end of the show. Thank you so much, Jim, for having been here. Thank you for being such an informed citizen, self-trained, informed client. And I insist to say architect. And I know you inspire a lot of students of mine. And I think this is very promising that the most innovative architecture comes from citizens. So it's kind of a grass-root kind of movement. And so please keep that up. I know you will. And I hope we see you again here because we've talked a little bit. You're trying to move on and go a little bit more in directions of people and frankness. So with that, thank you very much. Thank you for having us. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. I hope to see you back next week on Tuesday early evening for Human-Humane Architecture. Thank you very much.