 Fantastic to have you back for a show. I think the wise human human architecture. This is our 258th show and you are around to the earth, 13,850 viewers. So thank you for that. And we have the Soto bag, hi to Soto. Hello, Martin. Hello everybody who's watching. Good to have you back obviously at work in your Bishop Museum, but you don't have to be at home anymore because last week we missed out on you because you took kindly care of your 102 year young mother because she had some cough and she has a great immune system and fought it once again. Awesome. Yes, that's great. That's great to hear. And we can get the first slide up that we're gonna mainly stay on for today. But yeah, health wise, we were just in the news because why, maybe not so surprisingly but we should remind ourselves why, it's been ranking as number one in the United States as the place where people get the oldest. Yep. Not everyone gets to that fantastic age of your mom. Statistically, I think it's 82 or something but that's a lot more than somewhere in the unfortunate Southern belt of the mainland United States down there in the South where there's a lot of poverty, there's a lot of obesity, the climate isn't very conducive of all these things. So that's why the circumstances don't really allow people to be that healthy and that's really, really sad. Here, increasingly many people also don't have the circumstances. Although again, the natural circumstances are still more or less the same or the climate change is affecting all of us in one way or another. But it's always affecting anywhere in the world, always the one at the lower end of the food chain more than the ones on the upper because the upper can always keep maintaining their standard of living. If we look at the top left show quote, this is what we're mainly gonna gravitating around the cell that we were talking to build a show that I have a social study going on that gets me out of my comfort zone which I usually have in a sort of an essentialist way I hope to say easy breezy in my Grand Hotel in Waikiki, bicycling up to Manoa. I have it set up in a convenient way that it works for me, it's in line with my values but I am fortunate to have my wife and her, our sons with me and that puts us in a different position. All of a sudden we're experiencing more what increasing in many people experience on the island and what is that? Let's talk about that. Well, one of the things that you and I were discussing before we started the show this morning was the prevalence of cars. And we talk about this on a regular basis and it's something that interests both of us. And something that I said, first of all, as a historian is that if you look at older photographs of suburbs here on the island of Oahu when they first began to be developed very intensively in the 1950s into the 60s, you see in many cases the layouts of the streets are the same, many of the houses of the lots of the size of the lots are the same, although of course many houses have been rebuilt to be much bigger. But one of the things you really notice is the lack of cars in the older pictures and the abundance of cars in the newer pictures meaning that when some of these houses were built there may be had maybe there were one or two cars per household. Today, those same houses in those same suburbs probably have four or five cars associated with them which means there are lots more parked cars on the street. And that is what you and Suzanne are going through right now you have to have two cars because each of you has to go different places and your sons have to go different places. Exactly, and I used to say that in Germany where cars are way more expensive to afford to run we have a huge tax on gas it's way more expensive, prices of cars. So I used to say that in Germany you were the richer you were the more cars you were able to have for that reason. In America it's been for a while for a long time unfortunately that the poorer you are the more cars you have to have because you got to drive everyone around and people have to have multiple jobs and have to drive to these multiple jobs in the lack of a robust really public transportation you have to do that, right? If you can still afford it obviously if you then can't afford that you need to ride the bus and then you know better the bus system needs to be. Ours is supposedly pretty good but on one day they you know they're in Kalua over the Kuala Mountains I was about to go there and the bus was delayed for an hour. So what are you gonna do? Your employer is not gonna be putting up with that, right? We are privileged again. So everything we're saying now I wanna make clear I'm still sort of very privileged and again even if you know we're paying for things here with money last time I said in your absence the ones in the Ukraine and elsewhere in the world they're paying with our lives. So that being said we're still privileged if we have these monetary problems there's always people who are even worse off. So again everything we're saying here I have to say a big thank you to our magic mechanic Larry who is first generation immigrant American he escaped the Communist Vietnam his native country when he was young because he couldn't stand anymore and on the way getting out he got caught and they imprisoned him and he escaped again and finally he made it and he's the most hardworking warmhearted person on the island. He wanted to help us out which he did with his old well it's a 20 year young just turned basically legal age so to speak 21 car a Mercedes C model and he was talking in a very warmhearted but caring and worried way about his wife that he says she always unfortunately has healthy issues and when one thing is healed a little bit something else happens and he compared that to this car which he had been prepping for us the engine looked like he could eat from it got a tune up but somehow there's something that every other day something breaks down and so he in this case was a serious thing transmission you try to get an old part which didn't work he had to dig into the transmission drain all the transmission fluid he then got a part from the mainland a new part that came in two days ago on 11 PM at night he took off time off work from his regular job where he works on the police cars to keep them running so then dedicate his afternoons and evenings and weekends to us old Mercedes mainly in the past are publicly investigating car that we only drive once a week for that purpose and otherwise stays on the street and I use my bicycle as we said and then two days ago we had that rain shower come through he lives he works in Gritty Kalihi he has no cover so he got all rained on by the time he was calling us and saying mission accomplished he was all wet down to the underwear so thank you, thank you, thank you Larry and this is what keeps people running literally and figuratively who are in the same situations solidarity of other people Larry then didn't charge anything but the support of the parts he donated all and again he's not to use car dealer who gave me a warranty on the car he just wanted to help us out so again Larry we can't thank you more enough and it really gives me a sense of how people must feel this morning I came over from Kailua I got stuck in that traffic that all these people get stuck in who have to live somewhere else then they work so this is really a valuable experience for me and the next valuable experience will not about bill you about transportation will be of inhabitation then what is that one we talked about it that you brought your eyebrows up which you're doing again well yeah as you just said your wife and your two sons that you share are here from Germany your younger son is a teenager he has raised his voice he yells your wife and two sons had to move out of where they were living in Kailua and so currently everybody is trying to you're split up you're trying to make do with what you've got in Waikiki which is an extremely small apartment with your younger son and that obviously is going to be something that you're gonna be coping with as well and so this is something again that is all tied to lack of living space it is tied to having to commute it is tied to all of these things that we have been talking about and it also we talked about the sources of food et cetera we don't have to get into that right this second but you living in an urban area of Waikiki find that you do not have easy access to a lot of healthy food and this is true for a great many people who don't have a lot of money in particular who live in urban areas where there are only convenience stores now you're in Waikiki you don't have easy access to a large supermarket that has a lot of fruits vegetables and other healthy foods so if you were like a lot of other people you'd be living off of convenience food that you picked up for cheap and you'd be eating things like donuts and other stuff in addition to spam music so that would be impacting your lifespan as well as we were just saying for a healthy good lifespan versus a non-healthy one that's another major aspect of how people live and don't necessarily have access to the food that's gonna keep them alive for a good long time. Good point and that's our social study I mean for the time being until we find someone who's able to host two of us we're gonna be the four of us on 230 square feet, right? And so that means but again, hope up and using this in a constructive productive way if I would be back home and we're ending summer soon over there and we're hitting fall and winter and we're scratching our heads over there I'm actually dedicating my first assignment in my studio to that subject matter and I need the help of the emerging generation here to help us out from getting freezing and frostbites over there in Germany. So here we're privileged so we gotta figure it out to once again what we always talk about but when Eric and I talked he said people have all these commodities and comfortable convenient things as TVs and devices and stuff that we fill our spaces with, right? And that we indulge in and you said we got the big freezers, right? So we, you know in the lack of the local convenience grocery store around the corner that some of my research has been going to in Germany which we're building community grocery stores there are several shows out there about it. Here you have to drive out then you buy a lot because you don't wanna drive off often and then you throw it all in your big freezer that we don't have the space here on 203 square feet. So we gotta figure that out probably climb up the farmer's market, you know things like that which you can access maybe and then again, there is the Capulani Park out there that's gonna be the living room as well as the in the show about the Waikiki Grand we dwell on that. We say there is the lobby and in the lobby as long as you behave so again, the youngsters have to control their pupitarian power, right? And I refer them to not that many weeks ago to that other good role model of Dwayne Johnson, right? Because he got evicted and he found a way to turn it into the right angle and basically say, okay that taught me to believe in myself, work on myself and make the best out of it. So that's kind of the social study we're in currently. And again, it makes us really feel for the people out there who are increasingly through COVID, through climate change through gentrification are increasingly in that situation and are unfortunately lots of them leaving the island. So our interest to Soto and Senator Chang who is professional interest in that area affordable and social housing sort of coincidentally or intentionally always sends us his newsletter, right? Before the show and we just said we should return that favor and send them our shows because we were talking about the same subject matter, right? So we are addressing that always mostly not every show but every show volume at the end when we're wrapping up we're having suggestions out there to improve the situation. So let us return to our comparison to the other windy city, Chicago looking at this other show quote at the bottom left there. This is the building we're currently looking at. It is the which was formerly called the Vista Tower and they renamed it to the St. Regis and that is the building that almost parallel to the recent Howard Hughes Tower, the Kuala which I was talking about when our car broke down last time there's always a good thing about everything bad because it gave me the chance having been stuck at Kuala Basin that gave me two hours to look at that building and to see similarities again about the mobile and the immobile and architecture and automobiles that Mercedes is not an easy breezy one. So we have to bring the power windows down on that way one broke. And so that reminded me that it is less bio-climatic than the SL and it also then when you look at the Kuala now that the Lanais that it's greatly has but they don't really deserve the name Lanais they're more Lajias which we explained which are carved out of a mass. So air is not can get to it as if they would be sticking out or as if everything would be easy breezy as we kind of say. So again, I was already sharing with the audience on behalf of you because we have rehearsed the last show that you've got to kick out of the base of that building in Chicago, GD's parallel building to the Kuala, the San Regis because there's hula going on at the bottom of it and there's a hula skirted boat that is named Kona Illinois or Kona Chicago. So that's how much everyone still would love even in the summers in Chicago where it gets pretty hot actually hotter than here and it gets more humid. So even in the summer they're dreaming of us and we were thinking about again just like the sugar cane as an inspiration self acclaimed for the Kuala here we're trying to find out and Jeannie helped us because on her website she talks about gently swinging and swaying in the wind and we said maybe it's wanting to do the hula and I was stumbling around a little bit and after that at the Doko Momo board meeting they announced this article here about Jean Charleau's architect Pete Wimberley's Charleau house in Kuala that Graham Hart contributed to as have been quoting him and this is making us be big there in New York and the New York Times and all around the world where they're reading that and they have this even more wonderful quote that they were sharing about the hula and let's talk about that a little bit about the kind of the spiritual part of it but also the materialist part of that and as far as the different ways of dealing with that and different cultures and religions and faiths, right? So how about that? Well, there's a quote that comes from this New York Times article and it's right there and I'm going to read it out loud. The domain of the native peoples Akua gods was felt in the elements in a swelling wind which dancers would personify through their limbs in their sacred hula and what we're saying is and what we're finding an allegorical connection to obviously is the and as the writer did too how does the movement of the wind for example as indicated through motions for the hula how does that connect to a building? Well, it's easy breezy and that means that you are letting in the air that you wanna have come in but at the same time you also are aware of there are times that you don't want the wind to come in so here in a land where we basically have two seasons rather than four distinct seasons in the temperate zone during the summer when it's warmer we do want air movement but sometimes in the winter we don't want that air movement because either the wind is a little chilly or because it is blowing in the rain. So ideally you wanna be able to accommodate both of those seasons through how the house is not only situated but how it is constructed how you can open it up as well as close it off in the times that you need to. Absolutely, so you're saying that in your culture well in my culture there's only one god for everything and then it makes it a little fuzzy to say the least and in your culture it's way more pragmatical because you have got all these fantastic elements right there so you dedicate a god to each of them and that way the god becomes more tangible so in that case here that we pick it's the wind so the hula is basically an homage to the wind and the dance is an homage to that it's an interpretation of the wind it's people mimicking the wind and therefore it's easy breezy the dance is easy breezy it's the hula skirt or it's the molo they dress less and it's the natural fibers versus the one that we now look at it to the tourists and we don't have enough fibers that we're not interested we make them be manufactured in China out of plastic and just sort of pretend right. So that was really sort of interesting here in picking up on that again and thinking about again a genies and a tower and then it's sort of swing and swinging in the wind and let's go to the next slide again in Chicago we got these two different seasons so our friend Ron and long-term co-host has always been dwelling on these blankets that almost every realtor developer seems to need to throw on their beds which Ron pointedly on said they're wrong here because you hardly ever need them but let's talk here about this coming up scaring us because of Putin and everything around it winter coming up and all our heating builds my dad just shared with me the other night that his energy provider just sent him sort of the prepaid notice for his gas bill and a triple right and so that's scary this building here in the wintertime assuming it's really high-end glass in best case triple paying glass when the sun is in your direction of where these binoculars are there then that could help heating you so that's a good situation in the wintertime passes solar again that might help to keep you warm and keep your energy bill low but Chicago also has that other season that summer season that we have and there is heat waves it gets really, really hot hotter than here and it gets way more humid so how is that recognized? We don't get any indication here in that picture, right? So we just are sorry to have to assume this is centrally AC got the AC blasting, fossil fuel, Putin's gas, whoever else's gas that gets us increasingly in trouble economically, ecologically, climate change wise so that is something that makes us wonder about how basically happy of a dancer who that dancer that building really is Exactly and I just want to also point out too that again, as from a historical viewpoint looking back in human history humans went through great periods for most of human history in which you didn't stay very warm in the winter when you lived in cold places because you couldn't, it wasn't possible you just endured and even in the 20th century there were times particularly in Germany and other countries during World War II where there wasn't any fuel where everybody just had to suffer through being frigidly cold and we've attained a state where we expect to be comfortable all the time through the use of fuel and particularly in the colder parts of the world it is in Europe for sure that's not going to be possible this winter for everybody so we are going to have to go back to you talked about the blanket in the photograph people are going to have to be wearing thicker warmer clothes everywhere they go whether they're outside or inside in order to stay warm and to survive and it's going to be going back to a time when we did not have ample electricity ample power to make ourselves instantly comfortable and I'm very grateful I'm not going through that that I'm not in a cold country but it is a very, very big concern as the summer is going to turn to fall and then winter in this year of 2022 yeah and Suzanne our exotic escapism expert with a degree in tourism and business and the combination of this reminders of the term USP unique selling proposition and we're not capitalizing on that as we should do because we don't need all that stuff to keep us from freezing right and the other subject matter we're not capitalizing enough on this is Senator Chang subject matter is affordability right and again just back to the to the to the climate part again the the the aqua tower has the nice that they deserve the most the term then the cooler has some lodges and this one has none so we see sort of a devolution there which we're not happy about we also see a devolution as far as affordability because we started out with the sort of ancestor of the aqua tower the marina city like two weeks ago when we talked about when we found you didn't you could snap still for a quarter of a million then in the aqua tower it's less affordable you know because they're already the cheapest one was half a million and in this one here I think the cheapest is maybe three quarter of a million and the most expensive one is 60 million so we're talking here that the kind of the nature of that beast here is what we don't need more on the island because this is high end not only sort of as far as the real estate but also as far as the architecture of course also making that sort of swoopy curve has a cost there are these dancing columns as they sort of over romantically call them but also that is not an effortless dance and the hula isn't either it's very you know it takes a lot of concentration and discipline to dance the hula but you do it for a good cost for a good god that is sort of helping to conserve the environment for the coming generations right this dance here might be not so much this might dance for the god of capitalism that it does that is very self-serving right in the self-interest here so that is quite critical to basically look at so yeah that's what I guess we have to say for today sorry but again we mean it as an encouragement if Jeanne and everyone else is listening to us in her office we encourage her because she's certainly with the hula it is the coolest tower looking wise of the Howard Hughes ones but it could and should be way cooler substantially and not just formally and we will look into it a little bit more on two more slides when we will then keep walking on and look at the other stuff in Chicago that we seem to be jealous of in many ways as far as our architecture looks here and their architecture looks like and until then please all stay inclusively easy breezy breezy easy bye bye 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 linked in and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com Mahalo