 This is Stink Tech, Hawaii. The immunity matters here. Okay, we're back with you, Maine architecture. I'm Jay Fidel. This is the 4 p.m. block. And I'm with Jason Selly. He's a co-founder of Workspace Workshop Hawaii Research and Design Studio. And they are in hotel in one of downtown. And they're, oh, I should say, and their website is www.workshop-hi.com. Thank you for joining us, Jason. Pleasure, thanks for having me. Great to have you here. I want you're an architect by training, but you're a designer, and that means you're sort of a picture of creativity. Yeah, we try to, like I said, treat our studio as a SWAT team of designers, and we try to pick up a lot more than just architecture and interiors, but product design, furniture, lighting, and graphic. You know, a lot of times, you need those instant gratification projects, too. So it takes something on that'll take a day or a week or something fun like that. You know, I mean, I really believe in creativity. I think your life is better if you're in a creative space. How'd you get to be in that space? Did you read a book one day? Did somebody tell you that you have a dream? What? You know, I grew up on a small farm in Nebraska, and I think I had a lot of time to myself. And in the summers, you're always kind of out in the shop tinkering around with stuff, and you're building new things, and you're kind of keeping yourself busy. And I built a lot of forts and a lot of structures that I burned down and shot, you know. With your hands. Yeah, yeah. And I think that's kind of where it started. You know, you're just, with the amount of time you have just to be creative to keep yourself entertained out in the country. You know? And so, you know, I worked construction, and I kind of enjoyed bringing things to life in that sense and understanding building technologies. And then when I went to Iowa State for college, I started out in the vet program because that's kind of what I was interested in off the farm. But quickly, I had some friends in the architecture program and I thought what they were doing was really interesting and it was well-rounded. You know, you're learning culture, you're learning history, you're learning technical, you're learning creative. You're learning nature. Yeah. The tactile experience of nature. Frank Lloyd Wright, you know, kind of drove a lot of our program and a lot of our field trips, too. So, yeah, it was good. And so, you know, coming out here, I think as... 15 years ago. 15 years ago. As my practice and interest evolved, you know, understanding and the amount of time it takes to develop a building in Hawaii, it's kind of nice to have some side projects that were a little quick and working with different kind of bubbles of people as well, you know, not just developers or those types of clients. Let's say about real estate. Real estate is not about land, it's about relationship. Yeah. And I suppose you can say the same thing for architecture and design. Absolutely, yeah. You know, since we started our studio, it's been, you know, all of our relationships coming to us that, you know, we've worked with in the past or word of mouth, especially not a whole lot of marketing here. Somebody hears you're doing something new and they're curious about it. And we start talking and gotten a great, great portfolio in the last couple years. Have you heard of design thinking? Design thinking. Yeah, I've heard of Stanford. And Oceanit, which is down the block, a tech company sort of brought it into town. And the whole thing about design thinking is you have a client and the client wants something, but then you're giving him feedback and you're saying, no, no, you don't really want that. Let me explain what you really want and then the two of you negotiate what he really wants and then you take that road instead. And so I have a feeling of design thinking, you know, the word design is the operative word there. And so you probably are engaged in a process just like that when you are respectful of the client's wishes, at least to some extent, but you also feedback on the client's wishes. I definitely think that's our job and that's why we bring value to a client is, you know, our job is to bring things to the table that they might not be aware of or, you know, like I said, focused a lot of my career on design or performing high performance design, environmental design, or products that they're not aware of, you know, technology is evolving so fast. The whole world and synergy is everything. So what I like to do is take that basic idea that they've given us and then showcase a lot of kind of products or ideas that can stem off of that that they might not have thought about and see, you know, what direction they want to take with it. They would come to you Jason and say, we know that you are nascent designers, you know, you're going to come up with stuff. So look, here's the box, here's the container. We don't really want to influence you. Just do something inside the container and we'll do it, whatever you say. Have you had that experience? You know, I wish I could say I have. There's always parameters. A lot of times it's money, the budget. Sure, it's always money. It's always money, yeah. Time and money. But we've been fortunate to have amazing clients that have given us a lot of freedom and have trusted that we are going to make good design decisions and they're investing a lot of money into that and so you're taking risks as well. And I think with the new studio, with Workshop, we've had a lot more of those clients saying, we want to do something different. We're not quite sure how we want to do it. Let's throw around some ideas. And as a smaller shop, I think they can afford to have us give a little more time through that creative process and not just get straight to production. Well, you want to make a statement, but sometimes the client wants to make a statement. Oh, absolutely, yeah. And I think brands are changing. How quickly the trends are evolving and what people really want. You imagine the craft beer scene and the coffees and these other boutique kind of restaurants and cafes. People want handcrafted local something with a personality and kind of steering away from the big boys, I think a little bit more. And that grows to the whole thing about providing a good experience surrounding somebody with space that enlivens him or her and sort of engage with the creativity. So we have some photos. Why don't you describe the photos for us and see the real you, Jackson. Yeah, yeah. So I think I just put together a couple fun small projects that we completed this last year. And even two years ago, I think right when we first started, but this is the Harley-Davidson boutique shop in international marketplace that we had just wrapped up with late last year. And the clients had asked us to kind of rethink Harley-Davidson which has such a strong history and brand and you don't really want to mess with that. But the idea of kind of crafting a different experience. So it's like, you know, Harley's the ultimate man cave kind of space. Yeah, yeah. So it had to be consistent with that. Consistent with that. And we kind of looked at materials and the black leather and the steel and a lot of fun design inspiration. And we tried to kind of shop the catalog of bike parts too and you could see in that previous slide. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, we tried to get in little elements without getting too kitschy. But something, if you look close enough, you'd realize that that was off of Harley. You're sending all these messages to people and you're giving them an opportunity to resonate. You're providing a whole affirmation of the Harley brand and all that. Beyond the Harley brand. And to have Harley, you know, as a client ask you to do something like that, you know, and they brought it to national and, you know, they like the idea. So, you know, messing with Harley's brand is sensitive. But this is like evolving the brand for something like International Marketplace which is a little higher in retail experience. So, even International Marketplace, I think was kind of like, we want a Harley in there? You know, does that fit kind of our vibe? Yeah. And then after we showed them the ideas that we had and kind of using the black walnut and the black steel and everybody. And we had some really great woodworkers. So, how does that happen? I mean, you have this moment of inspiration where you say, black walnut, steel. Or you sit down with photographs and samples and spend a day, you know, in angst trying to figure out the right one. You know, I think for us it was combining the kind of biker like that speed shop, custom bike shop feel with men's boutique that you might get a custom suit or, you know, like something literally like rich like a men's, you know, like a whiskey bar or something like that with a black walnut is kind of where we're leading. And then we've got this great display table in the center with turned wood and it's got a Harley, a custom Harley on it and that's the wow. You know, people walk by and just have to go in and take pictures with the bike. And you have to sort of let your mind flow figure out these. Now, you talked before about the SWAT approach. How does that work when you make selections of materials and designs? Well, I think what the SWAT team is, you know, with these kind of ideas we're throwing a lot of ideas out really quickly and we'll get together and we'll brainstorm and, you know, all of us will sit down at a table and really talk about what either the style or the history or kind of the formula, the recipe that we want to use to create something new. And then how do you kind of like mix that up or put it all together in a different way? So it's taking certain elements that you can't, that are fundamental to that brand or the personality of the client, especially with restaurants, you know, that's their personal product. Yeah, there's a lot of character that goes into personal character that goes into the restaurant space. So it's how do you create something different that still evokes that personality? You know, I remember when I did radio the big thing was that you had to ideate the listener. You had to make a Mr. Potato Man person who was your personal listener and see things or hear through things through his ears. And I would guess that this is an experience you have too because you have to see this hypothetical customer, if you will. What has he turned on by? What does he want? What are his sensibilities? What is his life experience and what kind of experience do you want to give him now? It's a matter of looking through his eyes, isn't it? That's great. You're right on track. We've even done design proposals, especially for the boutique hotels, giving you kind of a demographic of who's coming in, their daily experience, you know, what they do from 8 a.m. or 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. or 11 p.m. And you know, the whole, yeah, yeah. And it's kind of fun too, you know, to tell a story, almost to describe the design that you're proposing through the eyes of our customer, our client. Let's see some more photos. I think the other projects we had on here, yeah, this is Mudhen Water, so this is one of the very first clients we had, Ed Kinney, down in Kaimuki. So much fun. Ed just really wanted a kind of cozy community restaurant that spoke to the spirit of Kaimuki and we were like, what elements do you really see on every block in Kaimuki? And it's that breeze block, concrete. And we talked about just kind of keeping a lot of the raw elements of the building that we had kind of deconstructed. So you see the scars of the previous space that are still exposed and kind of just playing around with that indoor outdoor. You know, it was a great project to kind of kick off the studio with. It's very inviting. It's one of those that you feel right at home and it's pretty cozy. I love the platform idea. I love the rail around the platform idea. It's protected. It's for special situations. It's for those who want a little more privacy than the counter. It's for those who want a little more privacy than the counter. It's a beautiful idea. Yeah. And we just did a lot with really simple elements, concrete and plywood. And that was about it. I think one of these slideshow, kind of the one wow element that we were all so excited about and splurged a little bit on was the parquet flooring that we were able to get from reuse Hawaii. That came from the Honolulu advertiser building. So that's a 100 year old floor and we had the guys rip about a quarter inch off it. It was covered black ink. It was from the press. When we ripped off that quarter inch it exposed that grain and we just thought, alright, that's absolutely amazing that pattern and we just clear coated it and it's just fantastic. Yeah, it is. It strikes me that you want to have a kind of continuum, historical continuum. You want to connect the place with the neighborhood, with the people who are in there with the history of Hawaii and make it sort of connected with everything around us. And therefore you feel that you're at home somehow. Yeah, I think anytime you can kind of have that heart and soul and that's a good story behind it. It's not just, you just didn't like you said, you just didn't have a clean slate to design something that whatever, just making something cool, it's got to have a spirit, you know, and so I think that was a great project to kick things off and kind of you know, fortunately I think clients are kind of looking a lot a lot more for something with a deeper spirit and soul. You try to do that in every project. Yeah, definitely. Every project is unique. You're never going to do a cookie cutter from one to the other. Yeah, I think for us like the SWAT team and research design we're always like thinking how we can take something, you know, we're getting approached by clients that have had the same formula for years that's worked, but they're like hey, you know, I think it's time to shake things up a little bit. And so it's been fun. Well, you know, a lot of you know, my view, everything changes. They used to say to start charge to the men and now they say to such as to such as I can't do this to such as it's always changing everything. So yeah, so if I if I come to you with my business and I say, you know, design me something or rather take a look at what I have and design me something you're always going to want to put it one step ahead and sort of update it to how things have changed since it was originally. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think that's been the advice we've been given all along to is is you'll come up with something that you think is fun and unique and just start right put that aside and what's next? What's next? So it's kind of been fun. Sometimes it keeps you up at night and you can't ever turn your mind off. Yeah, but you have an audience out there. Yeah, you have, you know, the whole public is whether they realize that you were not. Oh, that's my favorite part of it all is going into the spaces you designed and watching people interact with it. Yes. And you know, like you said, sometimes you're just kind of off to the side behind the scenes and let's watch it. Yeah, yeah, but it really feels good. It's it's it's really fantastic to bring a new idea together like that. So that's Jason Selly. He's a designer with workshop Hawaii Research and Design Studio here downtown and when we come back from this break we're going to talk about a significant change that has just been, you know, publicized and that is the Amazon Go model. And we're going to talk to him about how that might change retail and for that matter, restaurants going forward and what it means for those businesses, what it means for the designer who creates the space for them. We'll be right back. You'll see. Hey Aloha, Stan Energyman here on Think Tech Hawaii where community matters. This is the place to come to think about all things energy. We talk about energy for the grid, energy for vehicles, energy and transportation, energy and maritime, energy and aviation. We have all kinds of things on our show, but we always focus on hydrogen here in Hawaii because it's my favorite thing. That's what I like to do. But we talk about things that make a difference here in Hawaii, things that should be a big changer for Hawaii and we hope that you'll join us every Friday at noon on Stan Energyman and take a look with us at new technologies and new thoughts on how we can get clean and green in Hawaii. Aloha. I'm Winston Welch and every other Monday at 3 p.m. you can join me at Out and About a show where we explore a variety of topics, organizations, events and the people who fuel them in our city, state, country and world. So please join us every other Monday at 3 and we'll see you then. Aloha. This is Humane Architecture which plays at 4 o'clock every Tuesday. We like to examine our world. We'd like to examine how our human experience can be better. Martin Despang is the host of this program. He's not feeling well today so I'm stepping in but he introduced me to Jason Selly who is the co-founder of Workshop Hawaii Research and Design Studio right here downtown and so we're having a wonderful time trying to find out about exactly how design works and how you can express yourself and bring people into a kind of combined collective experience where everybody wins, win, win, win, win, win. This is a marvelous you must be a happy person Jason. Yeah you know I think it's important to be happy when you're doing these types of projects because it's tough and you have to make a lot of difficult decisions and you're dealing with time and money and it should be a fun process for the client too if you're investing that much into something it should be fun because it doesn't have to be painful. You're investing yourself. You're putting a lot of your own personality and hoping someone can translate that into design. You're memorializing your own thought. This is really fabulous. And then you go do the mud hen kind of restaurant thing and you're on the side as an observer. They don't know you're the one who designed it and you see them come in there and they go ooh and ahh and wow that's beautiful and that's a good application Let's talk about Amazon Go. This is really interesting idea that technology is going to redefine how retail works and there won't be any cashier booths or spaces anymore. It'll be very minimalist in a way it'll only have products around although you and I talking maybe a Starbucks kind of coffee shop in the middle would help throw a traffic in but retail will be different if you don't you know if you don't have to worry about the what do you call it the business of shopping. You just go in there and you put it in your bag and you walk out again that's pretty good. So how does this change your perception of the way a retail space should work? You know that's an interesting question I think you know with how quickly retail's evolved in the last five years and you know you're seeing the bookstores closing and kind of these you know it's how Amazon's driving commerce you're seeing big brands right now evolving and I think we talked a little bit about Nike and Under Armour and Adidas creating more of an experiential showroom than calling it kind of your typical retail store so they're creating spaces that you go in and you play with their products and you test them out you put on a pair of shoes they actually are scanning you when you walk in they can tell the size of clothes and that was a good point too people feel like it's creepy but once they get past that they really have a feeling like they enjoy that experience and how convenient it was and so it was like they related it to buying clothes off of Amazon five years ago nobody would have ever done that and now it's kind of common for people to do that so I think the majority of the public will get over that really fast because of how convenient and how quick easy the retail environment is going to be I think after that so what Nike is doing is they're creating in New York a mini basketball court and a little track with video screens that you can change in the store that you can change to any environment you want to run through and then you play around with your equipment and then you can decide the thing about Amazon Go and what you realize when you're shopping on Amazon a lot of times they have recommended products so I think the way the stores will evolve retail will evolve I feel is they'll still be not necessarily cashiers but employees that recommend products to you so you'll walk in, it'll recognize who you are it'll understand what you're into and that will then trigger something with one of the employees to go pick up a product that might be good for you, they'll come over and say hey, do you like this if you do you put it in your bag and you just walk out the door let me offer a thought employees, I mean we like employees because it's labor force and it's jobs but in fact this model doesn't really care too much about jobs they want to get the job done so suppose I say to you Jason when you walk in and you swipe your QR code on the subway kind of platform now you're recognized well everything happens artificial intelligence is making a place for you right in front of you is this big monitor hanging down from the ceiling and it says Jay you're back we noticed that you bought 3 quarts of milk last time you probably need some more milk and it has an hour of pointing to where I'm going and it follows me with the monitors and the monitors are always talking to me or maybe on my cell phone, that's cheaper so I'm always getting advice just as you say I'm getting advice about what I might need, what I might consider and the store is giving me a pathway to the best places and then I would add one more thought to that very interesting thing about ABC stores here if a product sells forward and they have more of it if it doesn't sell they move it backward and out of the store not there so the offerings on the shelves are always changing and this really does a great job in selling product I am sure to a moral certainty that's exactly what Amazon's going to do so that means if a lot of milk is selling they'll be more of it and they'll be closer and the signage that directs me to them so would you include in your design monitors would you include in your design modular shelving that can actually be moved overnight or even moved automatically to include the right inventory that will best comport with what the artificial intelligence machine is telling you you need to do yeah I think so I know Lowe's is experimenting with robots already that kind of can help you through one of their their large store one of the large warehouse kind of stores that it's sometimes hard to find things and you get kind of a curated experience by following this robot around so it's something similar I love it something really sweet and friendly that will help you put together what it's doing lights on the floor like on the airplane lights that are moving lights just follow the lights with Lowe's especially your Home Depot and I need to fix my toilet and it'll recommend all the pieces that you might need to do that that way you don't go home and forget something you really needed and I think that's where that artificial intelligence technology is really coming in is it's starting to kind of curate that experience and recommend things for you and help make that easier for you to get in and out I don't know if you've ever been to B&H photo in Manhattan it's extraordinary it's weird a lot of the stuff in the studio comes from B&H photographs it's the king and in B&H photo when you go and you buy something at a counter and you're talking to a clerk he puts it in the computer and some kind of mechanism happens where it's taken out of inventory it's put in overhead racks and you know trolleys and by the time you get to the checkout booth all your stuff is sitting all there you have to carry it it's right there for you so if you know for example that I like one coat of milk one loaf of bread I can have a package like a menu of stuff that I want and I can have this conversation with them on my cell phone before and I can say well give me 6 SJ7 that's my menu and when I get to the store it's waiting I just walk out with it it's fantastic and of course Amazon can also deliver that package to you the question is do we need more space less space do we need open space where is this space concentrated with these possibilities left for retail it becomes I think we talked a little bit about it becoming a beacon for the brand and understanding the soul and the heart of whatever product it is that you're wanting to buy and then you can go buy it however you want to Amazon can drone it to your house now those kinds of things but less about transactional space but more about experiential space that kind of thing so I could see that being the future for these kinds of you know like maybe more the retail side but when you're talking grocery store Home Depot or Lowe's I think that the automated fulfillment similar to what Amazon has now with robots taking off shelves what people order and putting them in boxes and they pack it up and it's off I could see a grocery store doing that for you where you just put your list together or somewhere on your refrigerator you could put your shopping list together and then you push order and by the time you get to the grocery store you go pick it up and it's packed up and ready to go for you so it's less space a lot is happening behind I could see more the transactional space you're just picking up a package or bags of groceries that you've pre-ordered and you're walking out the door and it's all paid for and you were mentioning this kind of thing where you have the showroom only but you could actually integrate a showroom only with a delivery point with those trolleys over the overhead somewhere and so you look at the showroom this is like the horn and hardwood cafeteria back in the 30s you push a button and presto digital it appears checkout point somebody hands you a bag full of everything you ordered and it's automatically I guess the possibilities are enormous here when you put it all together of course you have to have your Starbucks as well so you can talk to your friends, meet your friends and have a a Seinfeld kind of experience but the question is how do you design for this it sounds like it has to be completely modular it sounds like you have to allow for change in that configuration and we say completely modular you're talking about kind of the fixturing of the store so you can always be retooling I think retail is a lot like that already you know depending on seasonal items and always kind of playing around with what works and what doesn't and merchandising is tough and there's an interesting formula for that already there's a lot of science and theories that have gone into that different kind of products and where that's at in your kind of field of view and what you put right in front of you when you walk in the store Americans always go right when they walk in and follow you up and there's kind of fun research that's been done in retail people like to pet you want to still touch and feel is still important in the retail environment even if you don't buy it there but you still want to go in and understand what it feels like you'd want to sit in a couch before you this is a couch and a monitor and have something to push buttons that's just it you could have your whole living room kind of curated for you with all the the AV and your couch and whatever else you want you know I've been talking before and the model will ultimately be exported and the technology will be sold it'll be a box of technology a black box of technology and if you're a retailer you can buy that box you don't get to look inside but it will operate your store it strikes me though it strikes me that somebody who can make unique design design unique to the products being sold in the store unique to the community customer base that comes in the store you want to have somebody who understands those things in that situation to do the actual design of the store even though the technology is fabulous and it's going to be global it's the individual stores have to be individual don't you think? I think with the back-end side the technology side I wonder if it's easier just to almost like outsource that and you can kind of have this kit of parts that you need but you don't have to understand the technology behind it you just need to know it'll recognize the person when they walk in and your shoes will be 3D printed by the time you get to the back of the store to pick them up so yeah that's an interesting question I don't know it's one of those things that as Amazon evolves or Alibaba the system evolves I'm sure they'll have the ability to kind of mix and match whatever they need to serve I suspect they'll be there just the way you made that mud hen restaurant feels so Kaimuki you could make a high-tech store feels so Kaimuki the same way I think it still needs to it's got to have the unique brand and that experience that people want to have and that's just the back end of it making it more convenient to get it I think grocery stores are going to pick up on it pretty quick like you were saying at least for Amazon it's all groceries but I suspect once they get the bugs worked out it'll be everything you can carry and what you can't carry that'll be delivered by drone or Uber I don't know where the FAA is at on that so I'd offer one more thought that is that there's a certain life a useful life to a given design right now how after a while in order to renew this business premises you have to update it, upgrade it redesign and redevelop it somehow otherwise it gets old Hawaii is not particularly sensitive to this but the mainland is and if you want this store to be sustainable and resilient against changes of all kinds you have to go in and you have do you agree with me that this interval is going to get shorter I think that you know with how quickly this technology is evolving and how quickly people have picked up on how comfortable people have gotten with ordering everything, yeah that interval is going to get shorter and I think that certain spaces are going to get a lot bigger and other spaces a lot smaller depending on what it is that they're offering but I think they were Adidas having 3D knitting machines that you just push a button and go shop and an hour later it creates this bespoke jogging suit for you it's pretty amazing it'll be interesting to see what people gravitate towards too whether it is customization of everything and be able to just kind of design your own outfit and then it gets 3D printed or knitted for you in the shop which is you know I know there's some shops in New York doing that right now or you can order a pair of jeans and they'll make them for you in an hour that kind of thing I want to have a transitional experience I want to be wowed and you know what else Jason I'll pay more for that experience that's what's coming and you're going to be there you're going to be right on this right on this thing thank you Jason designer par excellence thanks