 our 242nd episode of Think Pickerwise, Human Humane Architecture, and you are about to be our 12,940 second viewer. And we're reporting life again from our transcontinental transcultural triangle, however, a little reduced this time because you, DeSoto Brown, in your Bishop Museum, hi DeSoto. Hello, everyone. And me, who we wish so for quite a while in the past, viewing the things in Honolulu from a distance, which sometimes makes a lot of sense. But also it makes sense to get up close and look. And that's what the two of us, DeSoto, are again, because I returned to Honolulu and I'm reporting here from a recording and reporting from my BB, which don't be afraid if you watch or pass shows. It's not one of these big bathrooms, because luckily or I should say, you know, fortunately, I can't afford one of these and never would I want one of these. But it's my bunkered bathroom in the Grand Hotel of Waikiki. And the reason why we can't basically do the show from outside, which is my ongoing experiment of easy breeziness with a single length hair blast jealousies of the sliding door open all the time is because we haven't converted Waikiki into what you suggested, DeSoto, about two shows ago into a more walkable neighborhood. As of now, we have the distraction of leaf blowers, lawn mowers, AC units on food delivery trucks and you name more than that would not allow you to listen to me. So that's what we're in here. But to be transcontinental, we are only things to you, Ron Lindgren, back in your Long Beach, California. Hi, Ron. Hello, everyone. Good to have you back. And Ron, again, thanks all the time. The more we think about what we have to report on in these shows, we can thank you enough for what you blessed us with the most exotic tropical architecture. And I was just we're just chatting before the show that I did my reconvene my early routine tour in your Hale Kalani and you agreed it by all the ground staff and they're happy to hear from you and we're happy that again, as we reported in a couple of shows, really not much significant change has happened. Even the bar that you were happy and you thought it's a great addition is now clad with some white tiles, pretty nondescript. So they're not really pretty much in your face. And that delivered your kind, generous opinion that you said, Ron, that you should have added that bar weight back then. And now that they do makes it makes it even better. So on these happy notes, unfortunately, we have to turn into some sadder stuff, very bad stuff. First slide up, please, because we don't want to forget that I just escaped the temperate and flee to our tropics here. And not very few people in the Ukraine have that chance. And the way their homes look like is what even the star appetizer here on the left pays attention to where all their facade or their threshold is blown out. And as we've been talking, this spring has been dragging along and has been really cold. So that easy breezy tropical exotic that I can demonstrate here is not possible over there, unfortunately. And on the right side, we see a couple of show quotes. Once again, Ursula von der Leyen inherited one of the worst possible form of this towers by Cope Himmelblau and that tradition, as we're reporting on some shows in the past here at the bottom left, is continued by colleagues Björke Engels and Ben van Berkel. And sort of ironically dismissing on what had been setting a signal beacon like in Frankfurt, which was Norman Foster's tower, the commerce tower, which we just reminded ourselves by looking it up is actually Korean now. Koreans bought it and at least the initiation of the developments in our area here in the Alawana area is also a Korean developer. So I thought immediately, well, then they should know if they're interested in buying a beacon of sustainable high-rise architecture, right? Maybe we should remind them of that. So they look up that that knowledge again and apply it to these projects here and lifting our spirits up a little bit when Iran had notified us about a number of how many residential high rises are destroyed. What is that number again, Ron? Yeah, in the city of Kharkiv alone, they're counting up as many as 1900 high rises not all flattened to the ground but all made completely uninhabitable. Yeah. And that's obviously utmost tragic as it can be. And lifting the spirit up. Is that no form and foster again? The architect of that most sustainable at least at its time high rise that he blessed us with in Frankfurt now basically reaches out to a mayor in the Ukraine and saying when hopefully this war will be over soon, I'm going to promise to help rebuilding. And then obviously for you, you know, the historian, the Soto you know, has two sides. Of course, you know, you want to bring back the historic legacy of but then as you also have always been looking and are looking to the future, you should also innovate that tradition. So obviously this is a great opportunity and Jay and I talking yesterday, it would be something to look up to. And if anything, and I think that's the way foster also meant it, not saying he wasn't serious. I think he's probably dead serious, but also it gives us a chance to gain to lift up our spirit and, you know, keep the fingers crossed for that happening sooner than later. But things being, you know, yeah, and I can also add to your home country of Germany went through this in World War Two even more extensively than Ukraine has. And there was exactly the same debate. How much do you rebuild? How much do you restore? What destroyed buildings do you replicate? And what new buildings do you build? So you, Martin, have lived through this. I've seen the end of tail end of that. So you know that is those are the things you face. Yeah, I know it is. And but to be fair and correct, right? We caused that misery to ourselves back then and the Ukrainians have not, right? We don't want to absolutely. That's right. That's right. But carrying buildings down and actually decent buildings and good buildings is unfortunately something we have to continue to report on. And on that note, let's go to the next slide and you update us on that one. Just a little. Well, this is actually a complex of two different buildings on Kapilani Boulevard. And that's what we're going to be focusing on is what's going on on the Kapilani Boulevard strip, which is being extensively redeveloped right now. This is actually, as I said, two buildings. The lower building in the front facing Kapilani was a two story furniture showroom constructed for the C.S. World Company in 1958. But they always had the idea that they were going to add to that. And in 1965, that three or four story building behind it was constructed as well. But they're all together as one as one unit now. And this is yet another building that is probably going to be threatened or is threatened with demolition for yet another high rise in this area, which is growing up very quickly now. And obviously we look towards what are the good things on this older building? And not only is there sort of that interesting texture of those sort of shields, concrete shields that are across the tops of each one of those vertical windows, but they do probably do have some level of performance as well because they do provide some shade at certain times of the year. And shading, as we will talk about and as we have talked about a great deal, is very important here in the tropics. So just making a plain glass box is not to everybody's advantage. And if you can add things to cover up the sun, you're doing a good thing. Yeah, and I want to add the rain to that one. And they really remind me of what whoever created us has given us, which is eyebrows. And we all know that when it rains, the rain gets redirected to the side and keeps our visibility right. So they're pretty much like exactly right or lids very cleverly designed. And as you see in the row up there, portrayed by Bundit Kanista Khan and his exhibit about the master Alfred Yee that Iran had the privilege to have been working with, with your firm, he was as Bundit reminds us, the structural engineer on this project. And he was using something that great specific Rocky Mountain precast up to these days has the up all skills in which is prefab because prefabrication is very efficient and effective, and especially these lids are prefab elements that got basically craned into the project. So something very innovative at its time and actually pretty innovative to these days as well, because pouring these high rises in plays is actually pretty ironic with the cost of labor you have on the island. This is the way in efficient and effective way and using really the skills of great specific Rocky Mountain precast out there in Campbell Industrial Park would be actually way more clever. But then again, the Soto and Iran as well. We're, you know, progressive enough to say, OK, if something and, you know, we have a couple of questions from our colleague, Mark and Mark, thank you for all of these. We will address these over the coming volumes of the show. They're primarily, you know, what are these developments about, who's benefiting from them, what they're missing out on and would there be alternatives? And so while certainly I would up front and say we are basically trapped between two mountain ranges on the island. So we have a limit of land is garcity of land. So building high is pretty much the only or the main solution. So the problem is not that we build high, but the problem is how we build high. And that that needs to be addressed in a more creative, creative way, as we think. So how will this? So we're saying if something really good gets replaced, has to be replaced, maybe for a density reason, because this is only four or five stories high, then maybe needs to be replaced with something taller. But then, of course, something that is even more innovative and that exceeds the high level of innovation that this building already had. And if and how that will be achieved gets us to the next slide. Are you like wowing and are super excited about this? Do I hear that? Well, it does. It does harken out yet again. This is this purportedly is what's going to replace the buildings we just looked at. And it does have this kooky connection between the two towers. And it's not unlike the landmark building, which already is standing in Waikiki as sort of the entrance to Waikiki. But how innovative it is, we will have to wait and see. And Ron, you certainly have been informing us about some buildings like this in Singapore that really do have innovative aspects to them. And that is picture four, Michael, if you can zoom on into that one. And that's a safety Singapore, Ron. Tell us about it, please. Yeah, I was going to say Kapiolani 1500, which is the sort of cryptic name for this project, is about 500 independent residential condos. And I have to admit, it has a very lively massing to it. And when you look closely, there are some very serious attempts to go green, to bring gardens into the sky. In some cases near the ground, you see some very large wall surfaces around the plinth that are actually covered from top to bottom, side to side with live greenery. And there are ways to do such a thing and to make that be beautiful. And on certain lanai floors, there are actually pretty large-scale trees showing growing. And then there are two amenity decks, one on top of the plinth, which is parking above retail at grade. But the one at the top is at a 34th floor. And that's a sky deck with a very large pool and a lot of greenery. Yeah, I think you have to give a lot of credit to this developer for putting together a project that is very lively and massing. It does have balconies, at least. I'm not sure I can call any of them lanais because I'm not having enough depth or furnishing, but the attempt to make things green must be applauded. Interestingly enough, as far as the market goes, 1500 Capiolani with its 500 condos, 60% of them are studios-only. And to make this a discourse, again, appreciating your collegiality, Ron, and recognizing there's something finally coming up that is more than just one plain box. But I will counter that and say, here's actually two plain boxes that maybe the green in there isn't as essential but more sort of effect-driven. Yes, you have one tree every, what, six, seven floors. But that is not, Michael had intuitively zoomed into number five. Can you do this again, please? Because this is a better example and this is what this one might borrow from because this is by Woha and Woha is that firm out of Singapore that prides itself to looking most into bio-climatic high-rises. They're easy breezy. There is some criticism to that as one of the external consultants that Bundit brought into the current, the ongoing Tropic Caring show where he was saying, well, they're mostly doing this in the common areas on the ground but the units are still pretty much conventionally conditioned. But again, you see similar elements in here but you can say Woha takes it to a more substantial level. And also the number four, Ron, tell us a little bit about what DeSoto was pointing out to that this project reminds you of Marsha Softy's project in Singapore and share with us to what regards. Yeah, when you look at Copy Lime 1500, you will see that that sky deck is actually a bridge between the two towers. That's really quite an interesting thing but it's really just playing off of something that most Softy has done extremely well over the years. Ever since 1967, when he built the habitat in Montreal, which was, oh, 350 or so concrete boxes that ended up being 158 houses. But from there, he found work in Singapore and the one that we were looking, the flag we were looking at just before was something now called the sky habitat in Singapore. And it has, again, this time there are two towers and there are actually these bridges, three of them that connect tower to tower. An interesting thing to do. The top one at the roof at the 57th floor has a 100 meter long swimming pool as the bridge but the two bridges below are actually meant to be communal spaces for the people living in the 500 or so condo apartments that are in this project. They actually are combination streets, terraces and gardens in the sky and the two towers step very interestingly and energetically and every unit has a very large lanai quote unquote because they're almost nine feet deep so that one could actually furnish them and use them as an outdoor room. What doesn't show in the most Softy schemes that really appeals to me is that these full block and sometimes larger projects can just be a block from getting from one place to the other but Softy wants his projects to be penetrated by sidewalks as continuations of city sidewalks. He wants the public, he wants to create a whole new sort of public forum and he wants to make these buildings not be so hermetic and looking in on themselves but welcoming and pulling people in from the city and live in a new urban experience. Yeah, and using these multiple piece that you provided, you know, the perforated with publicity. I also recall the term that used previously porosity and to bring porosity, you said he doesn't, he is actually objecting the typology of high rise and he wants to keep the ground floor open and porous but he also does that if you guys look up, we provided the link here to that source of architectural digest. If you look at it, also the fenestrations have that aim. So the project almost, we're still on the number four picture project is trying to read it dematerialize itself in its appearance almost decomposition itself. And I think that's what the new proposal isn't doing. It's doing the same old. We see too much glass. We see glass guard belts, which Safdie's project basically doesn't have. It has a combination of opaque ones that you can hide behind and find actual shade. And then there's open ones from the side. And also again, the greenery seems to be more decorative in here. And once again, it's certainly another exclusive project. We should also point out number five. This is Safdie's first inaugural project. It's actually his thesis project that he built. And that's an encouragement for the emerging generation. Make such an awesome thesis project. Make your thesis project that awesome that it will be built. And that's the habitat building on the Expo. Yeah, that one in Montreal in 67 where the multiple shows with Larry Medlin was doing the German Pavilion together with Fry Otto. So anyways, there's way more substantial innovation which is what Safdie is known for as, and the names of the architects of this project here we couldn't really retrieve to that regard which is also quite sad. And again, going back to Soda to the Landmark building we're also challenged and charged to maybe write one of the first architectural guides about our city that has been there in a while. So I, you know, I'm not saying it won't but I'm kind of questioning if that building might make it in there, although it has this very catchy gesture, right? Of that hole in the middle in that bridge up there. But at least there's some function above that in that bridge and here it's just a gentrified pool scape for the very rich people. And is that really, do we really need more of that? That's to be further debated in this show and in many more shows obviously coming. We no surprise are questioning that. So let's go next door to this building. Ever side of this new proposal is next layer. This slide is what we see here. And this might be seen as the sort of initiation or the nucleus of that new development in this area because there's two buildings and one is the one on the left, the Walgreens building and that brings back memories of this owner, right? Lots of. Well, yeah, we had a lot of debate when this was created and as you pointed out, I have told me, this is an architect from Germany who came up with this. So this was a concept that Walgreens at the time, which is the national drugstore chain was trying out, which is kind of a super Walgreens two story with a lot of other amenities to it. And it has this very distinctive sort of fractured facade. The architect claimed to have been inspired by Hawaiian fishing nets, which I don't quite see, but there it is. And unfortunately this shut down because it didn't get enough foot traffic. So it sits empty now. It was intentionally constructed with a parking building attached, which is strong enough and reinforced enough to be able to support a high rise built on top of it. So this could still become another high rise built on part of the lot where this Walgreens, formerly Walgreens was. This also, as you just said, is this intersection of K.A. Amoku Street and Kapilani Boulevard is really the focus or the nucleus of what's going on right now with the construction of multiple high rises inspired by the planned expansion of the Honolulu train system to terminate at Alamoana Center, although at the moment that is up in the air. And if it does come to happen, it probably would not be in place and functioning to at least 2031. That's quite some time from now. However, we still are seeing a bunch of high rises. And one of those, the one that's right in the center here, which is one of the early blue glass buildings, of which there are an abundance and more are going to be built, it's actually part of Alamoana Center. It was constructed at the same time as the rest of this retail part was facing onto Kapilani. And it really does not fulfill what we hope buildings will. First of all, it is oriented in the incorrect direction so that it is interrupting the flow of the trade winds. And secondly, it's just a plain blue glass box. It has no openings, it has no lawn eyes. It will get hot in the full sun and it requires a good deal of fossil fuel to air condition it all the time so that it remains livable. And just beyond that is another one of the early high rises as part of this new batch. And it does have lawn eyes, although you don't see them here. And again, however, it does face in the wrong direction. Its axis is not fulfilling what we would prefer would happen with these high rises. Yeah. And talking your cultural heritage in the solar and us Kuki Germans, Bettina Maynard, who is the one who's a principal and now an architect to why he was once at our school doing this pitch of having the warrants being inspired by your culture. I think it's something that your culture didn't had which is a microwave or refrigerator. And the terms of like these are American terms that I'm actually believing in because we always go back over the summers and the breaks to look at my work and how it's holding up over time. And Americans, these terms don't exist in German. So listen, this is your evidence-based design, EBD, your post-occupancy evaluation, P-O-E of your L-C-A life cycle assessment. And this building probably gets the worst ratings because you took all this energy, all this fossil energy of all these materials involved, built something that is orientation and fenestration wise wrong. And then the most lack of sustainability as this word that summarizes is all it's to keep it as long as you can because you put all this fossil energy in it. And this was only a couple of years before it was closed down. So one would even think was that intentional, right? Just to make a placeholder but it's way too much of an expense for a placeholder. And before we have to close very soon again another story to that one Alamoana to the right that you explained to us when I just came and summarized myself with what is actually the innovative nucleus of the areas of favorite Alamoana building. And I heard that the guy in charge of development is not just a colleague of mine as an architect but also a fellow European who was in charge at general growth properties who sold it now. I did a pitch presentation to him and he basically said, oh well, I didn't know I had such a beauty meaning the Alamoana building. And I said, well, now that you know whatever you do, you do with knowing. And secondly, he said, look down and he said, well, given all that you probably might not like what we have just been completing which is one Alamoana. And I said, yes, sir, that is the case. So anyways, yeah. And we have the Capulani Residences is the first inaugural of that new boom there but these two buildings might have started that in the tragic way. And the story is not over because there is as of now I think we can say unfortunately more to come along these lines but we have to save that for next time for next week. So hope to see you again for that one. And until then please stay inclusively tropical and tropical it's inclusive, not exclusive because these are all exclusive that's in my mind when I'm trying to say goodbye to you, right? All these projects are not for the increasing needs when I will leave this suffocating bathroom now I will catch the breath and breath again and be on my line. And I see the people down in the park that we need to provide for and not the rich ones. We have enough rich people on the island. So with that, see you again next week. Bye guys. 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.