 Fantastic to have you back for what happens to be our 241st episode of Think Tech wise human human architecture. And you are 12,911th viewer that was easy for me to remember because one that was one of your cars in the past, which we will talk about when we return to automobiles and architecture. And as for now we're in volume five of midtown flung reporting on the new developments in the core of around Alamoana mall in Honolulu, Hawaii, and therefore we have our transcontinental triumvirate triangle back with you Ron in your Long Beach, California hi Ron. Hello everyone. And you DeSoto back in our Honolulu Hawaii in your Bishop Museum. Hi DeSoto, and me when you continue to wish so back still near Munich, Germany. So let's get the first slide up. We're still in the worst that we hear in in Europe have seen in since we call such a mess not that long ago a terrible war in the Ukraine. And this is just some show quotes of not the beginning of this year but the beginning of last year, we were talking about the relationship of architecture and tyranny, and for whom architects might want to work or not. And Wolf pricks caught our attention, who in this article here of this national newspaper that comes from this southern part of Germany does we don't just said to title that the title him the poser for Putin, and architecturally, he blessed us with the W world, which you see at the very top right, which is a rather excessivist building that tries to do the most with the most, and it tries so hard to. I don't know, have a dialogue with the opposite which is fry autos doing the least with the least as the most essentialist approach and that says 72 Olympics. And that, as you can tell, celebrates his 50th anniversary this year, and bottom left, we've been talking about also left on the line quite a bit and we've been reporting that she used to be the secretary of defense of our country here. And when she moved on to become the president of the European Union, little did she know or wanted to believe that she would return to what she's done before with the military. This is a little and now two weeks ago because you kindly the solo covered us last week. This was just when she was visiting the butcher ring and butcher there drove up by a train to meet President Zelensky and to mourn all the all the victims there so we so hope this is going to end soon and then she can return to what she wanted to do is join the leadership of the European Union in fostering what she calls the new European Bauhaus along the lines with the Harris Biden administration or the new green deal in addressing the challenges of our times that we almost tend to forget because we screwed up so badly as mankind woman kind with a climate that we need to fix that before we even think about taking time to fight each other. And that is reminds us of the bottom right, which is the kindergarten for our hometown of Hanover that we were commissioned at the beginning of this now a quarter into the first century of this new millennium. And we have our Hawaiian emerging generation talent Siraj and Chris here. And they were able to visit the director Mr Vitsa that you can see here between them, and this building, if I think about it, has been so ahead of its time and pioneering because not only was it addressing what we need so badly next winter here in Germany to keep ourselves warm without relying on anyone else's resources, which is what a passive house does. But also this was in 2015, when Putin already messed with Syria, and Mr Vitsa was happy. Not about that, but she said what it cost is having Syrian refugees and their kids joining the kindergarten and she said, The more the merrier, we're going to discuss it out and we will find a solution for any problem. And we want to basically train ourselves and test world peace here. So what a what a beacon for both of these kind of topics and again little bit we know at the time we were doing this and we were talking about it. And that's the context that run we just before the show talked about high rises and how they relate to in, you know, they're in here but we save this for our intro for our next volume let's go to the next slide because returning to Honolulu power things there. This is us at last time having looked at what you see in the in the left of the bottom picture, which is the central Alamoana that then across the street. There is the sky Alamoana under construction as you can see there and we were a little suspicious when half a year ago. It was in that phase now it's further up which we see in two slides. But the kind of stills there the balustrades are a little too heavy for how we would like them. So, you know, because the character of the street is basically defined by something very biochromatic that we show quote at the very top left and I let you guys, well on that. So men, are we still do you hear us the solo if your voice is off, your, your sound is off. Can you hear me. Yeah, we can hear you so kick in with a monkey but trees. Yeah, I was just going to say that when we talk about these new towers that are rising up in the coca-cola region and around the Alamoana center. One of the reasons we don't care for them so much just one of them is that they're rather bland and they all look alike. Well, when you're driving down this particular portion of coffee Elani Boulevard. You might see those choppers, you are in a green tunnel, a canopy of green that is glorious. And in fact my first experience of a canopy of green was when I took my great niece and great nephew to Kawaii, and on highway 520 which is just a portion of the trip from the to those southern resorts near point who we hit this mile long planting of eucalyptus trees that were planted apparently back in 1911. And for a solid mile, you've got these tall eucalyptus trees and the shaded tunnel to drive through, which again reminds me of my wonderful time in the Midwest where in the summertime, all of us kids played in block after block after block of green tunnels because all of the elm trees grew together in maturity with their branches intermingling amongst each other. And then one of the great ecological disasters of the Midwest was the sudden appearance of Dutch elm disease. In a period of two years, I saw all of the elms in my hometown dead cut and thrown away. Millions upon millions of such trees were lost in the Midwest. So it was made the point that if you rely on a sort of monoculture of vegetation, you can set yourself up for tremendous loss of losing all of one kind of plant. And that's certainly what happened there changing the very nature of sustainable and happy and shaded living in Midwest. Yeah, and you can even experience the relevance. If you allow it in an existential way of this shaded canopy here when you're not driving as most people do an enclosed air conditioned car. But if you're doing it like our PI mobile that you enjoy riding in run and with a top down. We sometimes if you know right up to the red stop lights. If that's in the sun, we don't stop there if we don't have traffic behind us we let ourselves fall back and stay under the canopy and and stay cool. So, once again, only fossil fuel allows us to be ignorant of this one here and so of this great sort of inspiration and local sort of character. So, let's hope that the developer this developer finally picks up on that and gives us back some tropical exotic and that gets us to the next slide. Let's keep the fingers crossed. Yeah, I did this so are you back with your audio by any chance you hear me can hear you a little echo but we're there we prefer that or not so over not well what we're looking at is the rendering of a view from the central building that we just were discussing. This is a fantasized view of what you might see. Well, unfortunately, what we're seeing is not what we like because we're seeing a room that is turned into a bakery because those glass walls mean that while the view is what is being touted here. This is the beautiful view you'll get. The sunlight flows in unimpeded and even if you were to put up curtains to keep out the red direct sunlight, you're still heating the room because the radiant energy is still coming in there. And as you pointed out before we got started this morning, Martin, it's preposterous that the bed in this bedroom has got this thick plush blanket folded over it because in the afternoon. The room is not going to be any type of blankets you're going to be frying in there even if you've got AC blasting. We don't want people to be in rooms that are either being fried by the sun or being artificially chilled by the use of a lot of energy to make them cold. So what we're seeing is a pretty picture of a beautiful view that's taking nothing into account as to sustainability or livability of what this new building is creating. Yeah, and at least the person who rendered that was brutally honest by rendering that that shadow that that's even the lowest sun of of, you know, the sunset sun coming soon but that is so brutally hot. Even in Germany, we used to have a little vacation condo studio at the North Sea in Cuxhaven in Germany where the building also had the wrong orientation and the sun was just like beating into it when it was setting and it was just unbearable hot. And that was at the North Sea and the North Sea isn't anywhere as close as he problematic as as Hawaii is. So that's just like one one more of these boo and unfortunate and let's go to the next slide. And that's another catch of your disorder on that picture. Yeah, this is the sales office for the sky building which is now under construction across the street from the central. The building are actually it's a complex to buildings and the one on the left is the condos and the one on the right is condos which are purportedly affordable on the bottom and the rest of the building is a hotel. And they're probably saying that the condo side west tower is sold out. So that means that all those condos would purchase. Well, one of the things that we're about to talk about is how affordable is this really as well as the tower on this on the left, which is the condo part has the tower on the right does not now perhaps they're going to be used because of its location by vacationers as much as business people who theoretically don't want alumni or balcony to go out on. We don't know. But again, we have our criticisms. Yeah, absolutely. And then the other side to further that criticism. This is the plan that we're able to find. It is the same old 20th century double loaded corridor. It's a suffocating one because you don't get any cross ventilation there. And this sort of new old trick that the Alamoana building was introducing a half century ago is getting light at into this tunnel hallway from the side is sort of minimized here to this little mouse hole window that's between the elevator chefs there and so probably not enough to really bring significant light in this one here. And also we see that the photograph of under construction is from the website of the developer so it shows how far the building is is probably we we estimated like two thirds up. And above there we can see a exonometric explosion drawing of a unit. And so once again, we see something that we don't want to see but we were afraid to see again, and we call this the BB and what is that wrong. Bake bedroom. Yeah, it's not Brigitte Bardot. So you don't have to see it long to talk about it but it's once again giving which room, the most fixed glazing without any shading, it's the bedroom. So they call them the bedroom. Exactly. So, next slide. That's from you to so once again, you reading the news and this is the star advertiser some while ago, and you said this to me and I put it in there and in our discussion I basically said to you, what is there to bless and you please tell me because it's your culture and you know which things and when one Well, it's always been a lot of cultures and certainly in white culture as well there were types of blessings and or rituals that you performed with construction of a new structure. Now in traditional times, this was not a Christian blessing of necessarily good things. People were sacrificed at times for the construction of new buildings, but we don't do that anymore. Unfortunately, we do have Christian based blessings. And the question is, yes, how much of a blessing is this for a community in terms of who is providing the shelter for and how are they able to afford it. And we're going to talk about that in just a second. Yeah, and also as we already analyze it how want to bless something that's basically against your environment right against your climate. Yeah, it's invasive so you want to bless something invasive, maybe not. Where is the sacrificing lamp you know that's this guy you're starting here. So, next slide is something again from the developers renderings and what are we looking at and how is this context wise guys. Well, we are seeing the usual parking plan at the bottom of the two towers and the parking plans to us are an unfortunate part of how buildings are constructed these days. First of all, these buildings are being built in this area because of the plan. termination of the train system at all on the center that is up in the air right now because of financial discussions. It's not totally off. It's not totally gone, but it is something that's going to continue to have to be worked on. And even under the best circumstances, we're not going to see that built until 20 open and built until 2031. So in the meantime, people are still using cars and cars take up a lot of space at the basis of buildings we see in the parking plan, which houses all the automobiles and these vehicles usually are shielded from view from the outside through decorative metal screens or some kind of other decorative facade. And so that's what we see in the rendering here above Cappiulani Boulevard, pointed out however before in our previous discussion that at night time is all reverses because the interiors of the parking buildings are illuminated. And so all the cars are visible when you're going past at night so that shading and that covering up doesn't go there but another thing is that this decoration or what might be nice to live with. It doesn't get used for where people live, it gets used for inanimate objects, which are our vehicles. Again, something we've discussed a great many times in the past about the reuse of parking space for potentially housing people. Yeah, or a new developments reverse the whole thing as you said reversing cars don't mind and we don't have to be ashamed if we have cars don't be ashamed of them. We have a show going on talking automotive architecture we love both. And the cars don't mind being out there in the easy breeze and the people wouldn't mind being under these under these screens here as top right King center does very successfully ever since Takashi on the build it mid century. Right, even at the top left, even the central the previous project has that but in a place where it's pretty much performatively useless between the units and the parking. It should be where the people get baked. So like the BBs might want to be screened with ease, but never mind they're not. So next slide is also lifting. This could be the secret of another hope we had. This is the pricing of the unit and maybe Ron you want to talk about that also as far as the affordability. Yeah, again we're talking about the sky Moana project that two towers we've been we've been looking at. The developer was required to provide something called quote affordable housing unquote. It's a very relative term. I think they're in reality was more a matter of maybe something that was a sort of moderately priced, but even moderately priced here for you know this is not housing for poor people who can afford anything decent. The 84 units in the bottom floors of the East sky tower were called flats, and for example the two bedroom flat would still cost about $800,000. Interestingly enough, affordable housing, you know should have some limits, but here, because the median amount of money people make in Hawaii is really pretty high. I said developer said that in order to be able to apply for one of these moderately priced so called affordable units that you could not earn more than 120% of Honolulu was medium income. Well that income at the moment is $84,400. So you can all apply that by 120% and that means you could make $100,000 a year and still be able to get and reserve one of these units. That is again another indication of the housing crisis, people making $100,000 a year are not poor by any means. This is not affordable housing for the poor. These are those who desperately need decent and safe and humane housing. Yeah, that meaning flat that makes them fall flat on their face. And another another thing that is really disturbing is the East tower doesn't have any balconies at all. So in other words, the people that are supposed to be getting a good deal from the developer in terms of moderately priced or affordable housing. They should have confined completely indoors behind her medically sealed glass and also the the the 300 hotel rooms above that. The visitors there are also confined to being completely indoors cut off from the gorgeous tropical weather. And as you said the solo maybe for the business traveler maybe not so much of a problem but for a permanent dweller on the lower part of the food chain and then almost ironically satirically. They're looking at a nice just across in the other tower that is, you know, that's, that's pretty cynical. And our colleagues from the star advertiser we're doing a good job in the article this is the second page of it here on the on the right side of our slide here at the top right there recalling the the former preoccupation of the building and that's the former building by Frank Haynes founding principle of architects, so why we've been talking about that in the previous shows and next slide. While I think it's no secret for our viewers that you just so though are not particularly religious, but you always have your faith up high for things. I just wanted to make sure that this one here because I think you were praying for something that would have been genius to basically since there are two towers, right. And there are two courtyards one can put two and two together and maybe what it could have placed the towers in the courtyards, and then could have used the existing building as the plinth of the building. And does that sound like totally unimaginable. No next slide, because this is time travel back to when you look at the picture number to the top second from top left. Martin, who had here. When he was defending his, his final project is his thesis project in front of his professor, who you see left of me on number one this is a month for Chomas, and he turned to me some years later and he said, Martin I really really. I don't know how you did this because you are even more important project way more than your thesis was Joey he was just born and his stomach wasn't quite entirely developed so he was expressing that and he was, you could say maybe cheerleading me and yelling all the time and he said, I don't know how you were able to still focus no one else was and thinking about it maybe that was our strategy I don't know but anyway so what does this have to do with us here to the to the right of me on number three is my other professor, Peter P. And then started working for while being in school at the office had just one, a tower project that was called the Hessischer London spunk, and, or the mind tower, and the mind tower we were able to get up on with my tiki basement expert friend Stefan this summer. We were able to go up into the tower and talking about a fenestration and facades that we're increasing the critical of glass curtain walls in our Hawaii here. We actually might increasingly need them and especially double them up as a as a as a double facade because comes next winter. We might not have Putin's oil anymore to keep ourselves warm so maybe these double facades come into fashion again. Here was successful with that they got value engineered out and instead he developed something that you guys found interesting and we see that they're picture number six at the bottom left on the left side of it there's something popping out and what intrigued you guys about that. Well, I'm assuming we were discussing the utility and usefulness of windows that can be opened in some wet manner. And in some cases, windows and high rises can be cracked open at the bottom, which as you pointed out one is not useful if you're trying to vent hot air out of a room on air rises it should be going out on top of these windows. You can't if the window is only open on the bottom but you're saying this window it looks like the entire thing can go out straight. And while that's wonderful for venting hot air you pointed out that when it rains that's not necessarily going to be useful because rain is going to come in so maybe in an ideal world, the window could go out straight or it could tilt out at the top or it could tilt out at the bottom. And knowing how clever the Germans are at engineering, I bet they could invent a window to do that. No, we're happy to help and this probably has a rain sensor to make that work. But what we actually want to majorly point out here is another feature of the building that we see at the bottom right and what is that about. That has to do with a catwalk building or could have. Well, you said that this is a historic building, which was standing on site, and the facade is building was retained at kept down at street level, even though the interior was gutted and redone entirely. I don't know how old this building was or is, but if it managed to survive World War two in Germany, then that makes it pretty historic. So while it may not be ideal to have taken out all of its interior, at least the facade is still there. Therefore, potentially the Kenrock building could have been saved to have become the base of the sky complex, but it didn't happen. Unfortunately, not. And how that story continues to unfold along Capulani Boulevard, we have to save for next week in our volume six of Midtown Flunk. And until then, please stay increasingly essentialist versus excessivist and stay peaceful, most importantly. Bye guys, see you all next week. Aloha. Bye.