 Welcome back to the think-tack-wise human humane architecture on a wonderful spring break March day of 2017. And instead of having gone to Cancun or other attractive places, we decided to spend spring break in the jungle. And in our urban jungle of our city of Honolulu. And spring break coincides with an annual event of the AIA, the American Institute of Architects, and the chapter Honolulu, which is architecture month. And there's going to be a kickoff this Friday. And we can get page number one exactly. And we can zoom into the glasses, the white round glass there. We can see the participants who are going to be part of that. So there's going to be a picture kucha event that's going to kick off the month of architecture. And the topic is as we can read our urban fabric. And today we're going to have my co-presenter because I'm invited as well. And I thought, because I'm representing the category of education, how can I do that without the ones who educate me as much as I educate them? So we're going to have an expert in jungleism here. And this is Chris Chibweta. Chris, thank you for being on the show. Thank you for having me. It's very exciting. It's awesome to have you. And so let's jump right in. What is that thing with this jungle? And for that, bring picture number two. So what are we looking at here? So this is a model that we explored during our 342 class. So this is downtown where we're at. The urban fabric of downtown. You can see all the high rises, how it's represented with enclosed facades. And I guess just the architecture of what it looks like today. And you can see later on that the steps that we did to just explore different scenarios of I guess reinventing what downtown can be. What's the better way of making our buildings here in Hawaii? So number two demonstrated Kazi Ashraf, who has moved on that we remember him. We'll always remember him with the best feelings. Kazi has a book out. It's called Hermit Hutz. And so we use the term Hermit as we titled this here as the Hermit's Hermetic Honolulu, right? We're all sealed off. It always reminds me of one of the beginning scenes in the Descendants movie by Alexander Payne with George Clooney and others where there's this moment. We watched it actually together where they're all gathering in a downtown building, just like the one we're in here where it's all fixed glazing. It's all ACed. It's all Loa shorts tucked in the pants, which is probably good because they stay warmer because AC makes it so cold. And so number three, I'm going to provide here a couple of glimpses of bits and pieces of my professional work with my family business that could give clues of the actual sort of architectural case studies that sort of demonstrate the human event and activities. So I choose this one here to say maybe the only potential we have in the current fabric as it is maybe to inhabit the rooftops, which are currently wasted spaces. They're mostly just the tarp or the water membrane, which gets beaten by the sun so it won't last long. So maybe we could start to invade, inhabit the rooftops. Then more importantly, because that's rather marginal, what else could we do? And that's the next picture. And that's rather radical. And here you are literally speaking. What are you doing there? So what you see here is just a class. I guess we had 13 of us. So we wanted to explore how downtown would look like with facades off. So what we did, we had a temporary wrap around the building just to like, so it's easy to just take it off. And then inside we see like the bones of the building, like what you say, the beauty of the beast. Just basically if you zoom in, you see just like repeated slabs of each building and clear floor plan, just air going through, just like a beauty, like a beauty sense of what I guess a comfortable building would be. So it's really radical sort of stripping the naked, right? Yes. Really like down to the bones, as you say. The next picture is an office building we did back in Germany on number five, which is just demonstrating we're still going to work in downtown. It's still going to be a work environment, but not exclusively anymore because right now it's pretty much a monofunctional hermetic environment, nine to five people work here and then they drive home to the burbs and it falls basically empty. So working is still going to happen there, but in a way more open, way more daylights filled, way more naturally ventilated, easy breezy way, right? So that is then number six, right? Number six is demonstrating what you were talking about before, right? Yeah. So this is just like what I said with the stacked floors having the beauty of the building showing the inside of a building, because like we said, whatever is on the inside is what matters the most, not the outside. And it's just a better environment of what architecture can be in Honolulu because right now every building here depends on AC, which is not really the Hawaiian way. Like where I live, I don't have any AC. I live in a mountain. I'm very like breezy. I just open my jealousy and let the wind flow through. And it's just a better way of living because I guess it's the air is cleaner over here. So why not we just take advantage of the open air and make our buildings. Absolutely. Yeah. And if you could get a zoom in into number, we go back to six and zoom in. We basically see the porosity, right? We really see this as this layered. And you nicely use the term stacked and that gets us to number seven. And this gets credited as our Frankfurt Sandburn, most critical investigator and activist who always said, you know, stacked lanai, that's what we should do. So every building we build new. This again is in Germany. It's still trying, you know, for the few months that you could be out there, do the stacked lanai, but basically it's glazed for the winter. We wouldn't have this here. So, but it just gives you an idea how we would live more in balance, reaching out to the outdoors. It's called tree top apartments. So then go to the next step, number eight. So this is what you see is just an exploration of densification. What would the Honolulu look like downtown Honolulu look like if we incorporated more tall buildings so that we provide spaces for people just to dwell in. And just visualizing in a sense where it's sensitive to the Malka Makai because over here we really take pride in what we see when we are in a building. And that's the mountain and the ocean. And this building is just, I guess the Malka Makai sense is, it's more orientated so that it's sensitive to the environment where the wind flows through. And having a face in that orientation, you're taking care of, I guess, your neighbor. Because when wind flows through, you're dodging your facade and it's going on to the next building. Absolutely. So that's why you tested these sort of Malka Makai slabs, right? And number nine is a micro and architectural interpretation of that. So why don't we build more exoskeletons that, tectonically as buildings that would sort of allow people to dwell in the buildings. And so learning in sort of these bioclimatic exoskeletons would be one suggestion. But then you could go another way, which is number 10 here, which is more the skinny way, right? Yeah, this is a more, I guess, a more intense way of densification. But more so like having a smaller footprint. So it's touching the earth lightly, which also brings people more closer together, which is what you want in architecture. Because in architecture, it's always about people and just interacting in spaces. So having a smaller footprint, you have more people that would just be more closer to each other. And you can have just programs where it's more inviting rather than having private spaces. It's easier to say hi to your neighbor. And that is the perfect way to introduce number 11. This is what's happening here. You bring the essence of life back into the urban fabric. So this is a community grocery store we did. And this, we have to say at this point, this is not food land. This is not whole foods, which is pricey, right? This is meant proletarian. This is meant for the people who are currently cut out at the lower part of the food chain. So this is a $50 per square foot building budget that we built this. And here you can see that to the left you would traditionally call these people homeless, what we call them an urban troubadour. He's playing the harmonica next to where people actually have to lock their shopping carts and then they get their Euro out back. We don't do this here, we should do this here. We have this stupid thing with a break here, which is a little funny and weird. This is better. So very perfectly positioned because by the time the old gentleman basically puts the shopping cart back, he might be likely to gratify the musician, the urban troubadour with a Euro, right? So a very sort of inclusive, sort of humanitarian kind of way. Zooming out again is number 12 here, the sort of resulting fabric, right? Yes. That, you know, we can say this is sort of bi-climatically engineered, right? People might say, wow, this is really dense, this is sort of comfortable, but if you look at nature, we'll get to at the very end, you know? Nature actually works like that, forests work like that. And the jungle is a tropical forest, right? So it might as well. Number 13 is a very important component is socialization, right? So we need places for people, as you said, to hang out. Interactive. But these cannot be, you know, again, gentrified places. This needs to be, there's a cafe we did with a very low budget where we used vinyl as sort of a, to cultivate vinyl as a material that you usually wouldn't use, right? So it's really bringing this sort of, make really nice, you know, high, high end, high quality places for really kind of low budgets. So we're not talking, this is as people can tell, this is not Howard Hughes Corporation. This is not Kakaako. This is a different logic here. This is way more proletarian than the other models. So number 14 is what kind of sort of testing device did you use to test the system? So we had a, you can't really see it, but we had a fog machine in the back, which was very, it was, I guess we tried to play in there in a way because as you know, hot air rises. So we did a lot of exploration and trial and error where we had fog machine that would go through a cooler, filled with ice. So it makes it cooler. And then it would just act as wind. So it's lower on the level. So this was an example of us testing wind. So where the fog is, that's, I guess, how the wind flows through the urban fabric when it's just a Staklenay architecture. It proved to be a very great sort of phonological device. Or pedagogy. That being said, we're going to go into a quick commercial break here and we're going to be back with Chris Chigweta and his jungleism in a minute. See you then. Hi, I'm Tim Apachello. I'm the host of Moving Hawaii Forward, a show dedicated to transportation issues and traffic issues here on Oahu. Join us every other Tuesday at 12 noon. And as we discuss how we try to solve our traffic headaches, not to include just the rail, but transit and carpooling and everything in between. So join us every other Tuesday, Moving Hawaii Forward. Thank you. Hi, this is Jane Sugimura. I'm the co-host for Kondo Insider. And we're on Think Tech Hawaii every Thursday at 3 o'clock. And we're here to talk about condominium living and issues that affect condominium residents and owners. And I hope you'll join us every week on Thursday. Aloha. Hey, has your signal just been taken over or am I supposed to be here? This is Andrew, the security guy, your co-host on Hibachi Talk. Please join us every Friday on Think Tech Hawaii. Welcome back to Chris Chigweta's jungleism. And the next component in the fabric after all being said and obviously many more is one that's number 15 that relates to Tim Apachello who we just saw promoting his great show about transportation. So if we move, we should certainly use sort of on grades, walking, bicycling or light rail, which we have demonstrated way back in 2000 for the X-Point 2000. Right. To then basically come to number 16, which is sort of the manifesto of that rejuvenated urban fabric. Where this is, again, the stack when I, and then just having it so when it's dense enough, you alleviate from any sort of heat gain because it's creating a lot of shade. So just like an urban forest when you're inside, I guess imagine yourself in a bamboo forest. It's really cool. You feel the evaporation from the shading. Kind of that just bringing that into an architectural sense or structure. If you have these dense buildings around you, it's all shaded and you're comfortable. That's a really relevant finding that you just say cool because traditionally the definition of cool for architecture in the 20th century and the buildings we currently have or embodying that is about a spectacle form. It's a formal approach and not a performative approach. So tell us more in number 17, further introducing yourself where you come from originally, where you've lived and obviously we know where you're now but also which places you ventured out which all sort of made you more aware of this potential. So I've been an island boy my whole life. I was born in Guam and then moved here back in the year 2000 when I started third grade. And just being surrounded by I guess Hawaii's architecture I didn't really get to see the sense of I guess a real developed city much like New York or Seattle. So recently I had the opportunity to study abroad in Europe. Copenhagen to be exact. And it's just really eye-opening because you see, you observe architecture more, you understand architecture more and you're just exposed to a city that's basically designed for people. And if you go back to the images one of the, this building, B.R. Kang goes my favorite architect. This is his eight house in Copenhagen where I really got to visit. And the reason why it relates to this urban fabric is because his strategy in this building is more like a courtyard architecture where you see this mixed building with offices and housing. The public programming of the building faces each other. So that ties back to the whole like interactiveness. People talking to each other, neighbors greeting each other. And B.R. Kang goes story about this building is in Copenhagen they don't really want to build high because of some reason where like churches have to be taller than their surrounding. So he started practicing in New York where the image on the bottom right is one of the recent ones he did. This is called the course scraper in New York where it's the same typology but using European architecture and American architecture which is something that we can take in Hawaii where we can get the sense of thinking I guess more innovatively in typologies making our buildings force people to interact with each other. So here in the next picture this is where you really said this is sort of a global cosmopolitan approach that we're not from here. You climatically more and your background is the Philippines right as ancestry and then Guam in here. So me being the German guy and I grew up in this fabric in this kind of fabric. Five story blocks really dense. I'll never forget 96 steps up and down. Our direct neighbor, a tough lady just turned a hundred and we can certainly say it kept her in shape. Literally and figuratively speaking the mom and pop grocery store milk place was down there and I was the one to go and get it. So I'm totally in support of your experience and your feelings because number 19 is when we actually met over there last summer. Here we are. So this was us visiting one of your architecture and this is the kindergarten right? Kindergarten and one of the train stations which was really eye-opening because you actually got to see people interacting especially in the train station where you saw different types of people just sitting down next to each other. There's nothing like they're not discriminating they're just there, they're people. The timing couldn't have been more eye-opening because that was the summer of Erdogan in Turkey the Brexit in the UK. Not to mention the elections here. All the scary stuff and all of a sudden we can see that actually sort of integration and immigration actually works. So we saw Muslims besides Asians, besides Germans there were black people which are there many in Germany so it was really great to see that integration work. So that gave you make you look at your work you had just done before you had left which is number 20 in a different view in a better view right? Yes. So this was my project in 342 this might take in developing or not developing but innovatively creating a skinny tower where the main idea was to have people of every color the rendering on the right shows a nomadic person just like pushing one of his units so that he can dwell inside this house so it's a structure that just involves people of every kind very inviting. The rendering on the left shows like this is the community space where every five floors or so three floors just families can interact with each other there's gonna be spaces where kids can play and then the typology is so that people from the upper levels can view their kids from I guess their dwelling spaces and since this was before this was a project before I went to Copenhagen I guess reflecting back on it was just like oh wow this is actually like the right thing to do you know like people in Europe that's how they act like they're very social over there like people are not really like there's no like a high status between each person it's more like hey you're a person, you're a human being and there's nothing wrong with you no and that's actually a little we know from how it used to be here that's also the way it used to be here I mean the system was very social there was no one left behind everyone was integrated, everyone was taken care of the living was pretty much outdoors it was easy breezy and then I guess America came and brought all its goodies and some weren't that good and so this urban fabric this invasive urban fabric of the current downtown is sort of an unreflectedly imported missionary imperialist system where you just bring the same hermetic skyscrapers you bring to every American city you bring them here and so there it's a total neglect of the very specifics of Hawaiian culture and climate being in very direct response so it was great to see you guys basically analyzing that and obviously not going back to the grass huts because we can't do this with the amount of people we have here and things have changed so we can never go back but these skinny towers you guys sort of propose are sort of the evolution of so there are all the same kind of thinking of living but they do it under changed circumstances of that we gotta densify right there's no other way we can do that and this picture here looks rather intriguing which is our second to last picture so what are your thoughts about that? this was just our class interacting with nature and I guess the lesson we learned from this was how seeing it as a densified nature environment pulling that into downtown seeing it as an intensified nature fabric it works like when things are closer together that's when people will come together and that's something that we learned in an ideal logical way just incorporating that kind of vision back to architecture relating nature and also like a build structure you see that whole thing working as a system no definitely so if you guys would be here with us if we would go out now here and now the sun is low the canyons of the streets are shaded and then you see this lit up backdrop jungle that we have almost like pouring into the city so that's sort of the vision to extend that down and sort of artificially spread the greenery back and not necessarily in a little away but not in a post-modern little away that we're literally greening I mean green should obviously put component of it but we're applying more sort of the analytical systems of a natural environment to the artificial one so we're getting close to the end of the show the last picture we put in here is basically demonstrating that we're already doing it discussions are going on this is our last week this is our founding father Jay here running into the next generation so you guys were the pioneers of jungleism and you passed it on including your awesome model to this next generation this is Chloe and Pono on checking out the urban fabric Jay is in his element chitchatting with both of them with Pono about the pioneering of bicycling and stuff like that so you know I just want to point this out it's a pleasure and an honor to work with you guys because you guys will be the generation that will make this change so it's again it's awesome to be able to work with you guys and I truly believe that you guys have not only the qualification but also the power and the motivation to make this happen I'll get it from you Martin it's your mentoring it's an awesome way to work together and so thank you keep up the rigor and passion and thanks for being here and all you guys please join us this Friday 5.30 at the Center for Architecture just down the road at 5.30 for hearing this show again with the speaker of this year's class Jonathan Quack and all the other awesome speakers that you see listed down there so see you for that and see you next week back for Human Human Architecture thank you