 Broadcasting live from once again the opposite ends of the world to me here back to near Munich and you just sell it all back and on a little away. Hello everybody. So how are things out there? I think you have some bad news to share, right? Well, as of tomorrow from the day that we are broadcasting this, we'll be back on a two-week lockdown again and that means non-essential businesses will be closed. I will not be going into my job at Bishop Museum and we'll be back to just the essential businesses of food stores and gas stations and things like that being open. So that makes what we are about to discuss very timely as we talk about spaces which are private yet open and more healthy because they have air circulation. Absolutely. Let's get up the first slide here because the last couple of shows we have actually been doing from what we call working from home or home office or office home, however you want to call it. And here's the three of us who have been doing shows together the last couple of weeks, which is our friend Ron Lindgren and which is you the soda and myself. And why don't you start out to explain your sort of homey circumstances which we see at the very bottom? Well, these are pictures of the house that my family's house where my mother still lives at the age of 100 and it's an Asapov designed home and it's on the slopes of Diamond Head. So in these pictures you see that there's an open space behind the house, which is the excavated part of the slopes of Diamond Head that forms one side and then the other side is of course the house itself. So it's protected and it is shady at certain times of day when it's hot and this is functioning, functions as a very large courtyard. And it's a special type one because you have a man made very on one side and then nature made one on the other side while the picture at the top left is one of Ron's spaces and places that helped him survive the isolation that he keeps telling us he isn't and he feels like being in. And this is an impression from that and we will see more and talk more about that and have him back on the show because he has the work of his office to share in these circumstances as well. And last but least in this case on the top right is me together with our exotic kick as an expert Susanna back in her what we ironically call the Department of Bavarian Homeland Development where we aren't as privileged as you guys to have what seems increasingly important in these days of confinement which is besides and private indoor basis which are increasingly problematic because of the lack of airflow or public outdoor space which is also increasingly problematic because you have a hard time basically controlling social distancing. So the thing in between which is basically private outdoor space we don't have and we you know it's sort of getting to us. And so next slide while we're we're missing that as here you can once again see we have a little bit of a deck there a paved deck in front of the window doors and we have a balcony but we don't have any privacy. So once you're outside you can be watched and heard and everything else by everyone by all the neighbors. There is a typology that we already scratched on because you guys are privileged to appreciate them and have them which here Suzanne's youngest son textbook brings back to our memory because it talks about courtyards and they trace back as long as to early Egyptians here where and you know I didn't make you to read the whole thing as your weekly German lesson but you picked up the most important thing and we learned from it that it was the rather well-off people who were enjoying courtyard type and the more simple people were not having that and we're going to dedicate this show towards the end that we want to make up for that and for these days try to find ways to particularly provide this seemingly very important feature of the building also to the people at the lower end of the beach but that later. Next slide. We have been again sharing pieces, bits and pieces of our memory and history not because it's about us but we want to make you the audience think about what you experienced and how you grew up and this picture here amazed you to solo, right? Yes, absolutely. What we see is an urban area on the right and a heavily forested area on the left and as you pointed out this city, this German city has this natural environment of a forest but on the right side all of the urban blocks have central courtyards so the exterior boundaries are built on and the interior is a vegetated open space and so as you said living in a place like that you can go to the front of your apartment and look at the street if you want to or you can go to the other side and look out onto nature to an open space which the inhabitants of that block can use including children and it's really a combination of urban and natural and of course if you within a short walk you can get into that big huge forest on the left. No, absolutely. So these are courtyards on a large scale, on a macro scale. Yes. Along the street on the interphase of green and red in that case these are brick tile roofs. We have seen one of these units from the inside because our Tiki basement bar expert, Stefan my dear buddy and wife person live in one of these and so let's go to the next slide and make me share how I grew up because we were privileged because my parents were able to rent a prime piece in one of these blocks which was the top unit with what we can call a sky when I or courtyard and at the bottom right is my father and me my sister in one of these at peak season of summer bottom left is when we moved on and my parents bought a townhouse that they remodeled he also added Lanai is also one to the roof top which you can sort of see linching through the big tree there. And at the top left is my parents right now and my father lounging on yet another roof terrace at their location in around a boil near dress. So this is a theme that again has been with us throughout the history of our family and we've been enjoying that and know the value of it which again in these days becomes so much more valuable because it's the place and space that actually keeps us the safest and the challenge of a global pandemic. Next slide a couple more reflections on my childhood here right on the edge of that forest was a location of a trip I was able to every once in a while do when my father drove me to a grand last place of a friend of mine and there was another kid in the neighborhood who lived in a huge and I couldn't find a picture of the original house which I'm pushing has torn down so I only provided the A-frame house design that we were proposing over my sabbatical last year. He had a huge A-frame house and he was sort of a pioneer in fitness design bodybuilding his name was curable or he's still alive I Google them and he had again all the fanciness of space age we've been talking about the soda we had. He drove a Porsche 928 which I put in there and his son had all these you know electronic whistles and bells toys that were blinging and making noises and we were attracted to that. Next slide opposite attracting we were the more down to earth literally and figure of the kids because we played with a big shot and caused American cars and miniature version of matchbox in the same in the garden of his grandmother and it was really the coolest grandma ever. She was a painter and she she drove that to you probably not that familiar car which is the Fiat Panda at the top ride which was an entry level car for the people kind of like the bug the Italian version of the bug and she took out the passenger seat and put her aiming equipment in there and drove out of the countryside and in her yard vegetables and herbs made everything from scratch it was a bird it was a monkey there it was like a jungle back here in Germany quite unusual and Stefan actually went out to take these pictures for us and the house bill and the grandson has died some while ago but the new owner hasn't really decided to renovate it so it's more generally as of these days and this friend of mine you see at the very top left that's on several rock and go the next slide and I've lost touch with Stefan and have to reach the next to hopefully the show here helps me but Stefan had one big hit one one hit wonder back then which you see the album here which I was finding on the internet and he was backed up by the friend of his mother at that time I make it on now I was a rather famous a jazz musician in Germany and they exposed me to the greatest of American culture and music you see earth went in fire you see George Benson's guitar and you see that Holly bald guy next to that black gentleman who is George when he was playing in Honolulu with some years ago and was doing a book signing and Barnes and Noble and I went there and had the chance to talk to my hero and share with him that he's one of the reasons I'm in his country I let you talk about the last two pictures up there the top right okay so maybe Melissa you can try to call the solo again and I will continue the solo set to the picture in the middle on the right that it looked like and he had a try to remember it was him in front of the building on which you chair but that was actually me we both had to chair we don't have any hardly any airlift I should say and I was again a student in the U.S. at that time after Stefan encouraged me and I went to school in Lincoln, Nebraska as if now you know a disorder and I agreed before the show now we know better especially that we got to know Ron and the fantastic work of his firm we believe he actually is the greater American architect and Frank but then again that's all subjective and up to your own opinion. So the great you're back we go to slide number eight these pictures now the following pictures have been done by Stefan and this is the development right across the street from a brand my house and this is a rather confined very dense urban infill structure right at the edge of that forest here and let's check this out a little closer next slide please. The the author is Stefan and my professor Friedrich Spengeline up there and his wife and in life and in business in a board and I did this development here on the left you see an architectural model that they attached to the to one of the walls in the community and it was pioneering something that as you told us to sell though you will and everyone else on the island will have to experience for the next two weeks if not longer is actually a home office so they actually work and live in that community they designed and it's for the next slide and you please share with me what impressed you in the pictures. Well you pointed out to me that this is a very complex development but it has some very positive attributes it has a single exterior corridor that we can see in the lower picture it's got parking that's covered which is also an amenity but also something that I asked you about this is something built in the 1970s and so it's coming up on 50 years old but it is still a very desirable place to live and it's obviously still very well cared for so this means that it is a successful place to live people want to live there and that is the real key I think to successful architecture people want to be in it because of how wonderful it is. Yeah and we can say thank you you're dating it and we can call this this is a prime and fine piece of tempered brutalism because of trauma that majorly has exposed congregate which is way more challenging as far as meat and cold you know conducting and yes it has been maintained and retained pretty much in its original condition for the reasons of appreciation we mentioned yes very much so. Next slide is showing us the circulation in the more one-story part towards the street which are very narrow paths all only accessible by walking and they have a very medieval kind of feel to them and from them next slide you access the individual the individual unit and there's some porosity there's some openness to the public but it's also limited at the same time and next slide shows us what the theme of these couple of shows is which is this photo. This is courtyard it's enclosed yet open spaces and the thing that is really remarkable that I was questioning you about and we're both intrigued by it you can see of course there's the normal outdoor courtyard you can also see the dining room that's got sliding doors that looks out into that courtyard that is open and yet private but on the right hand side you see this really intriguing what looks like an interior room inside a bigger room and we think that that is actually open to the sky so that that is an interior courtyard that is protected because of course this is a temperate cold climate so it's got glass and it's got good robust probably insulation and it looks like a very Japanese style Zen style little view of just rocks and gravel no plants something that you can look at and contemplate something that probably receives rain and probably receives snow but in yet you are looking at it from the warmth and comfort of your interior space absolutely and since the Asian culture has an even more bigger impact in Hawaii you might as well you know look into the same inspiration even more than we have done in the past which we will show a little later so the next slide just confirming what you had just talked about the very sort of Asian feel while at the same time also very Scandinavian which professor Spengelen took a student frequently I shame on me never had or I should say took the chance to be part of one of the trips that Stefan did that went to Copenhagen and look at the great examples of Scandinavian architecture which gets us to the next slide which is a project we've been featuring before which is well it's your former home and it's a true it's an architecturally built home from the 1960s and you live there with your two sons and your former wife and it too features courtyard spaces interior private spaces yet open to the elements and Joey and Clara has used it as a pit stop to build their shaved ice truck that was been featuring and been talking about and at the top left you see the brave boys basically maintenance in the courtyards and raking leaves here and at the bottom you see its main courtyards a garden space and this is taken from the south so this is a very environmentally friendly house built in the 60s past the solar glass so the low sun can eat up the space that we don't need in a while but what we need in a while all the time is that gap that overhang and that is as you can see in the picture shade the glass wall very efficient so let's go to the next slide and the next slide you see two pictures and they both show the entrance courtyard so once you enter the property you were in a courtyard already the one that the boys were raking and maintaining kindly thank you guys retrospectively and so on the left was what we call the little house interesting architectural background because one of our most prominent German architect to them as many of them were welcomed by your country in the United States when they weren't welcomed in their original country Germany by Hitler and the third rise was Walter Gropius Walter Gropius mostly known for the Bauhaus that we will revisit again in a couple of shows briefly has built one house in my hometown in Hanover and the architect who owns my former house was doing the construction to provision himself being an architect and he had never used what that part of the property was originally made for being a garage and added another part to it and used it as a home office there we go again seems that you know we're around already and become more and more relevant to say yes next slide and the little house itself has one additional courtyard that was felt like two courtyards so again the courtyard theme was really really multiply apparent in the in the property and we appreciated that a lot next slide this is a courtyard of a different kind this is an outdoor seating area where the roof the slope roof continues and is not flat with a fiber cement corrugation anymore but with plexi corrugation and then in front of it has a wooden letter screen once again as you said very Japanese yeah right yes very very Scandinavian and it's materiality because you see also as well inspired and yet you had another intimate space that was protected from the element yet open to the fresh air that we meet more than ever these days yes we do next slide and this was what we saw at the very beginning the main courtyard is the garden space so the largest courtyard and again a very Asian feel I mean this house could almost have been my outfit price in Honolulu yes from very much though yeah you know this kind of seamless transition blur boundaries from inside out through large paint with glass and operable windows by the way on top so you got natural ventilation there the next slide and this is important because this has been part of the project from the very beginning this is what we will call a strip mall in America and in the 1960s this project being in the outskirts of town which we call Southern now the city has been growing and it gets more and more part of town but back then it was pretty much out there but very early they brought a light rail and emphasis on life because we're increasingly stuck with a heavy rail system that's under construction so this is an upgrade system here that gets people out into this neighborhood by public transportation by a tram and at the bottom we also have commercial infrastructure so everything you need for daily basis your bread and your if you want your ice cream here there's a ice cream you do need ice cream yes we do so you have that all there and so that's as we were talking before the show is another element another aspect that has been contributing to the appreciation this project is even earlier the other one was in the 70s this one here is from the 60s so very very early three forward thinking very sustainable although the term wasn't even created because you had everything that you needed in walkable distance and these are really the keys to what we like to call buzzword sustainability right yes absolutely and again the kind of the search we're on about courtyard the courtyard certainly had a large contribution to the success of these projects that again I've experienced myself one very personally the other one from observation from my professor and I have to say not until now I really start and that's the vision of these shows I really start to super appreciate that quality because once again we're all struggling for especially here in Europe where you know it's getting cold pretty soon I'm not as naked as at the beginning and my childhood my father and my sister on the roof parents right because today was the first the last day we jumped into a lake which is a public pool and they're going to close the facility the next weekend because there's most likely not going to be any swimming temperature anymore and then we know we're going to be in trouble because we're going to be indoors we basically get fresh air we can open the window but the other big challenge for the world is the environment right so we can't just blow the heat out of our homes and so we're really challenged here absolutely so again but for Hawaii where we don't have these conditions we should really treasure and appreciate the private outdoor so much when I'm talking to my students now online they're all sitting trapped in their spaces and I would wish they could all have if so a very small courtyard private outdoor space that would absolutely so much help absolutely so this is something that we I was talking about in the show that I did last week of the open space the open air being absolutely crucial to controlling COVID air movement, air temperature humidity all of those things help kill it so that it cannot live in the air and get into other human beings the more we can be in the air the more we can be in moving air the better for us and as you just said we are blessed here in the Hawaiian Islands to be able to do that all year round and not be forced to be stuck indoors when it is cold and snowy as most other parts of the world are going to be experiencing very soon yeah and as we were appalled even before the pandemic when we see new projects going up that have no line eyes we said it should be mandated by cold and why to have a nice and probably for other developments there are more fewer stories probably courtyards might want to be mandated as well as there are such a great safety and sanity you got it okay I think we're on to something and so let's continue for the next couple of weeks our search for courtyards to inspire you and the audience to please do the same and look out for courtyards that you find if you hear about if you might dream about and help making them reality alright so with that Soto and everyone else please stay easy breezy as we like to say okay bye everybody