 Think Tech Hawaii, civil engagement lives here. Glad you're with us anymore, or again I guess to say? Yes, that's true. And you stay with us? Yes, yes. So we're broadcasting once again from Honolulu, Hawaii, here, which we consider to be our progressive paradise, as it used to be, especially the midst of the last century. Yes. And we're not giving up on thinking we can bring this back. True. And we've got two examples of things we like and not necessarily like. To do and to not to. That's right. Exactly. That's right. So first picture please, we're going to basically, this is a continuation of last show where we looked at one of the new buildings in town, and this is at the corner of Kapahulu and Kohiu. This is the new den is here. And this is an update. I could not show this to you because this is how it looks. Well now it's even more completed, but this was a couple days ago. So we get a Tuscany tiled roof, that clay doesn't exist here to my knowledge. And then we got these former structurally CMU pillars plastered with these pebble pattern. As of now it's all, which is the favorite color here of the industry? Why it's beige of course. Of course it's beige and cream colored somewhere. So there it is. So Kohiu is considered to be our, used to be our gritty strip. Yes it was. It's to be gentrified. In the process. And we have done, so there are three arteries for the ones who are not from here that go through Waikiki. And the one on the Makai is Kalakaua, we did a couple of shows that touch there. We can call that the glitzy or glamorous one. And so this is the third one we want to talk about today and if we can get the next picture. And I like to call that grotesque, I don't know if that's fair, but you know, because you look at, took these pictures, you look at Maoka and Makai, but Makai shows you artificial mountains and Maoka is mountains. So that's what you see, right? And it's a natural vista on one side and a man-made vista on the other side. So you with your brilliant archive material show us how that looked to begin with. Yeah, well we go to our next picture. This is an amazing photograph, it's taken about 1930 and this is after Alawai Boulevard has been completed. You can see that there are street lights there, the road is paved, but very little has been built. So this is the blank canvas upon which Waikiki is going to be constructed. And we're going to be looking at some of that strip that is along Alawai Boulevard that is the Maoka boundary of the Waikiki district. So let's go down there next picture and this is how, shouldn't take pictures while I'm driving and I could say I stopped, but you know, it's going slow, never mind. So it has something I have to say when you cruise down Alawai Boulevard, it has something very tropical, it could be Miami-ish, you know, it's like, you have sort of a view of the mountains and the palm trees and there's some openness, but there's also this sort of urban front. So it has something, you know, very sort of appealing. But for some, and the gentleman I'm half-blocking here, it's, and likewise people, it can be very gruesome to use the G, because my neighbor, yeah, my dear neighbor, John in Waikiki Grand basically got hit by one of the guys' parking parallel to the car as it opened his door and he fell over. So John, please get better and he, you know, that's really bad. So it is, was that always that stupid planning way and can we go to the next picture because you have some eye-witnessing very early memories, right? I do, I do. All I'm on at Boulevard originally was two ways. It had parked cars on both sides, if that was necessary during some hours of the day, it was a two-way zone. If you look in the upper left corner, there's little DeSoto Brown with blonde hair and he used to get driven along Alawai Boulevard going to and from school in the early 1960s in my mother's 1961 Buick station wagon and there it is. And here is a Mercedes in the lower picture from Germany, just as Martin did. So it's once again the DVD, thanks to Stefan who gave me the season two here. There it is. One where Alawai is celebrated. And you can see there's Alawai Boulevard with two-way traffic and not a specific bike lane, which as you pointed out is in a dangerous situation where people can get hit. Exactly. Who are riding their bikes. And talking cars, the bad guys always had the Mercedes these days. I know that. They're European. They're German of course. There you go. There we go. We understand that. So staying with cars, next picture. We have used cars as a metaphor for architecture for a while. So this is one of the cars that parks on Alawai and always drive by and I'm probably sentimental because it's the same year of build than me, 66 and it also has the same issues of things and things here. And the lady who owns it is really sort of very acutely trying to save it from rusting away and she uses duct tape and spray paints over it, very sort of charmingly trying to keep something that, you know, and even though one has to say the building has seen its, the building I'm saying, that's how much I associate, it's right, cars, it's a Freudian slip, you still think it's decent, you know, and it's proud and it was built with pride and the design is figured out. So, you know, it's getting up there in age but still good to look at. And so is the piece of architecture, the first piece of architecture we want to talk about that you have these childhood memories from driving by when it was going up under construction when you were brought to school. That's right. So that we see on the next picture. So there's the Waikiki Bellevue and this little apartment building built in 1962-63. And as I said, when we first started to discuss this, I suddenly remembered seeing this building being built as a little kid and wondering what those funny shapes were, particularly on the right. And I couldn't understand what this building was going to look like with these things projecting out on the right, which was mysterious to me as a child. And let's look at the next picture that just gets a little closer. There it is. You know, nothing that this building has is useless or is ornated. The only thing could be these scores and I was wondering how they did that and I did a close-up and I'm still not quite sure but it certainly gives that sort of blank wall texture. Yes, it does. And I wouldn't call it ornate because it's just sort of a treatment of the surface. That's not covering up the surface. No. It's not trying to disguise it. Exactly. The next picture shows how basically architectural elements are basically just inserted into the structure so the building is pretty much raw structure that's inhabited. Right. Right. Pretty much. And we're going to find out why. Exactly. And next picture is showing these architects mid-century, they were getting by with our air conditioning. This is a single-loaded corridor building and these walkways are basically facing south more or less so they're shading and so with the overhang and also the openings in that facade are kept pretty small. And this facade at Puzzled U that has a sort of characteristic shape is the east facade logically and you've got that low sun that isn't really shaded because there's the canal and there isn't any buildings on the other because the golf course pretty much and the school, Ilani school, right? Right. And one of the things that I noticed too when we were discussing this beforehand is that's the side that's exposed to the wind most of the time so the wind and the rain come in this direction. Exactly. So you've got a lot of the solid wall there to protect from those natural elements. So that doesn't overheat and it basically protects from the wind and the rain. Very clever. So this was a bio-climatic engineer and the next picture is showing me vagabonding around and trying to discover the building and I went to the very end where is one of the two staircases, open easy raises staircases that we're going to dedicate a show to by the very beginning of April. But also there was a guy on Alawai who asked me for a change, little quarters and dimes and he was going back to where the washing machines are in the sinkers and so he was filling up his water bottle. So I thought this is great. Usually it's all gated community and here they're just thinking, okay, that little bit that the urban nomad, how we like to call the formerly homeless, you know, that doesn't really make a difference to my water bill, right? So a very inclusive, very Hawaiian as you keep reminding me way. So the next picture is sort of when you go up on the stairs and you go to the hallways there you can see that people, you know, like it. They inhabit it, they put their little chairs there and their little, the yellow vera, I think she's a little bit watering but never mind. And the fire marshal would probably have to criticize that because it's in the fire escape but it just shows, you know, people like their building. And the next picture is, the next picture shows the architect very cleverly did this little, you know, extended landing on the first floor, which you assume there is more frequency. So very cleverly, you know, it's everything is functional, everything is pragmatical. And that probably also gives more shade and protection for the cars parked underneath. It certainly does. And if you look at the guardrails here, don't they seem like infinite pretty much because there isn't any horizontal bar. So this also has a practical, I mean, fields more open, which is good. So psychologically, pragmatically, whenever there's leaf and dirt, the wind can blow it away. So it's clever in many ways. These buildings are multi-duty. This is how engineers think the next picture shows the clever detail, which is basically also technically clever because when you bolt a guardrail to the top of a slab, water is going to seep into the bolts and actually going to make the concrete crack. And here it's basically bolted from the front. This is a welded connection, as you asked me. And I'm pretty sure it is. And, you know, you need to do some repainting intervals, which I have done so it's still looking good. So let's look at the next picture, which is the compilation of the composition. And our friend Don Hibbert was kind enough as always to go to the city and find out who the architect was. And guess, it's a buddy of our very recent guest, Peter Xi, who is up there, because this was Mr. William Chung Ming. So it sounds like a fellow Chinese who was the creator of the building. And equally to Peter, his education was not primarily architecturally, it was an engineering education. So that is why we are saying that the elements of this building that seem so sensible, that are not ornate, that are not overdone, are more from an engineering standpoint than necessarily an architectural standpoint. Absolutely. So next picture is where the tenants basically look at their main vista was, we have to say, because the second half of the show, we have to, unfortunately, talk about something new that we already see a glimpse here. But these in Nile were basically then logically facing north. So always cool, always pleasant, and that's the way it was. So the next picture is finally showing, because when we go back to the previous picture for one more second here, that shows to me how dynamic that facade, that front thing is like, it seems like there's some motion, there's some movement. It's almost like it's a car. It seems like it's venturing out, and it's doing that. And then what attracted me, as a child, to think, what's that stuff sticking out? And it could have been like, it's the streamline, because some decades earlier, when you weren't around yet, there was Art Deco, and they were using streamline in a formal way. Things weren't fast, but they made them look fast. Exactly. But this is much more angular and much more sort of punching. It is. And that is a very typical modernist type of attitude. It is. And the next picture reveals sort of the secret why, because you basically wanted to put cars underneath. So every two-park stores, there's a wall. And that wall then grows its long nose and has a tail. And that's pretty much the structure. Then the floor slabs are basically resting on that one, nothing more and nothing less. And this reminds us of reference to a show we did about crazy cantilevering canopies. And this certainly is. It's an inhabitable canopy. Exactly. And so the next picture shows a little detail where the partition wall on the nice between the units are also not put up to the beam, but there's some space in between so the air can pass through and you get some light in there. So nice detailing, but all very functional, a very logic, no BS. And next picture shows the building now from, I'm on that staircase and I'm looking into a neighboring building, which is diagonally behind, which is the one on the left side. And that must have been built some years later. Although you still see some reference and it's there's some nice logic of tectonics, you know, plates and infill and there's still glass jealousy. So this must be from the 60s or early 70s, I would say, but there's something that's irritating because there's something that we keep talking about at some point made it into architectural ornamentation. And which is that? Well, that is the Chevron motif. And we're going to see that again in just a little bit. And you see in the center of each one of those window wells, there's a little decorative motif down at the bottom and it's a Chevron. And for some reason that's turned into sort of a trendy thing today to make things look more ornamental. Maybe it's supposed to be looking more Hawaiian. Yeah. We're not sure. That's what they think. Yeah. But here it's almost ironic because if anything, a palm leave is something natural, but you're hiding something really nasty artificial behind, which is the single wall AC unit. That's right. So, but that wasn't bad enough because we're talking about the evolution, unfortunately, here, because the most recent one is way worse. And that's the one you already can see glimpsing through here to my very, to this side here. So we go to the next picture and it's just to give you an idea how close we are. So these people don't have that view anymore. The bell views on the bottom. There's, yeah, there's no bell view anymore. There's no bell view anymore. Exactly. So it's always up to if you'd look in a particular direction and up at the top of that picture is what we're going to now discuss with everybody and show them. And that's next picture is how it looked like when we were curious because you're as curious, if not more curious than you were as a kid. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you're looking and what did you find intriguing about that construction method? The thing that really struck me was that you could see the individual cement blocks that were being used for the walls. And as a rule, a building of this size would have poured in place concrete walls. Exactly. And I would normally think that a concrete block building would maybe only be three stories. Yeah, and this is almost a high rise. It's a short high rise, as you pointed out. I subtitled this here, the castle, because it almost looks like the fortification towers are in the corners. And it looks so hermetic and solid as it wants to defend itself. And the next picture, I was excited about this easy-breezy element, but that's unfortunately only the circulation, which is already good. I didn't enclose that one. But that's probably because of budget reasons. But the next picture is guess what color that building got? It's beige. It's beige, again, and cream colored. So that's the combination, right? That's the combination of the day. So the next picture shows what Peter so eloquently talked about that he said, don't put makeup on buildings. And here you can see, I mean, the cement block here has a tectonic logic, because it has a bond. And the cement is good looking. So why putting makeup on? But the social tell, as we keep talking, problem, because you go to the drug stores and you've got, you know, basically. Makeup after makeup. Exactly. You've got aisles full of makeup. Pies and aisles of makeup, exactly. So the next picture is getting even worse, because the craft is an issue. The craft is a real issue. And Peter had so perfectly. And we forgot to say in his show, so we say it now. What he invented, which is basically epoxying CMU and the very specific double eye one that he developed, he didn't do for personal profit. He basically said, I got it patented. And then I put the patent out for everyone without him profiting. So he really wanted to improve the construction realm with that. And unfortunately, people don't take advantage of that and go the old fashioned way. And then they don't know what they're doing. And it ends up being like this. So what they try to do here is cast a shadow reveal, which was a very prominent thing that you have the floor slab be slightly shorter than the wall that sits on it. So it casts a shadow. And in this picture, just underneath you is where that shadow reveal kind of is. And then you move over in the other direction. Exactly, exactly. And they screwed up. That form slipped. And then the makeup doesn't make it better, unfortunately. And the next picture, I leave this up to you, because you're the Chevron expert now. There's our Chevron again. And just like the building we just looked at, and it's kind of like, here's our motif. Whatever our motif is supposed to be, there's our motif right under the window. And it doesn't serve any function, but it's just there to be motif. And it's also really shittily done, as you can see. And then once again, next picture, the makeup makes it better. No, no, it does not. Or you would say that the poor paint guy would have, and this reminds me of this is to be gender correct. We want to make sure to be clear that both men and women use makeup. True. So we're going to talk about anyone in specific. But in general, it's like when you already have something that you want to cover up, it's not always getting better when you try. Because if you cover it too much, it stands out more. And it looks more obvious rather than being less obvious. Exactly. So let's look next picture at the entire composition here of this whole thing. And once again, this is like the de-evolution. So you've got that same sort of window sill that's sticking out, or the window is pushed back. But then these palm leaves are no grills anymore. They're just cast in. So there's the single wall unit. Maybe there's a central EAC even there, because there must be. Because I don't see any easy breeziness in the building. That's true. It is very hermetic. It's very single. Which direction is this? This is the east facade that you were talking about. They get pounded by the rain. They do. They get pounded by the sun. They do. There is CMU that's going to overheat. They're probably going to say that is sort of reflective glass, which it looks like. But it's going to get hot. But it actually is not because they got the AC. They just cool it. They're going to cool it, but at the expense of the environment because you've got to use fuel. And this is why we call this invasive. What does this have to do with our beautiful island? Well, that is the point. That is what you have every appropriately brought up. But what ticked us even more off is the next picture, what we see here. And me still training the English language, there is the term fence. And then there's the term offense. And I find this fence offensive. And you were pointing out, and this is very true, it is a very in-your-face, as you said, I want to hurt you. Because the top of those posts, each one of those things is pointed. This is not a Hawaiian thing. This is not a Pacific thing. It is from Europe. It's from England. It's from the northern United States. And it is the opposite of the building next door, which you said was inclusive. And this building is very much about. Next inclusive. Right. So next picture is we're sort of, in summary, subsummising we're saying not this specific car, but this kind of car, made in an era where it was not about, well, it was someone made the car and then they had an engineer and he designed in a way that he thinks people would like it. And I bet you is how the developer built this building that he can say, well, I know there's a shortage on the island, so people would need it anyways. So I just make it look nice so people, and some Chevrons, they would say, oh, it's probably Hawaiian. So they're totally Hawaiian. And all these cars have ASEE, right? And they don't age in grays. I mean, both stylistically nor technologically. Older son Joey told me who is in automotive engineering and management. In school, they tell them the car manufacturer basically designed things to last seven to eight years and then it breaks down because people should buy new cars. They want you to buy new cars. And that was not the mindset of the 66 Plymouth, right? No, and that's one of the things that is very clear between those two cars. The 66 Plymouth has much more of a distinctive appearance, a more unique appearance. Car designing at that point was very much more into differentiating. Cars today are engineered to be slippery, to go through the air, and they don't have anything like the distinctiveness that cars have. There was no cultural motivation to design that. Today, it's just all about comers, right? And that's why the next picture is our permanent background picture. That's why we call these two the exotic beauty on the left and the exotic beast on the right side. But then when we did our research for the show, our friend Don Hibbert said, well, why don't you guys pick the building further down the road going ever, which is the next picture, which is very similar, but was actually built earlier. And this was by, and I let you pronounce it, was by Frank Haines. I always oversimplify because all the buildings by Frank Haines offices, I just say Frank, which is not true. And his first partner, you please pronounce because Frank has one taught you how to do that. Exactly, well, the company was actually called LeMond, Freeth, Haines and Jones. And LeMond is spelled like the word lemon, but Frank himself, let me know that this pronunciation is not that way. Right. And this building indeed has the same, you could probably say anatomy as to borrow from creatures and it has the same orientation and it has the same structural system, but it's distinctly enough different. And this one here also has an elevator and that's why that vertical shaft is basically pulled out and actually has more in it, right? And that expresses itself. It also has a second entrance staircase. It's gated, so it's not as inclusive, but in the respect for the building, you said that's probably not original, but that's much later, right? Yeah, because buildings built in the 50s and 60s, even into the 70s, didn't have security. And then we're wondering again about other, would Frank and Co have done sort of closed spandrels as guardrails because they were, you know, the Mr. Easy Breezees, but then again, that's all speculative and it's really not the point. And then the point is next picture that then I got out of my Waikiki Grand that we have covered in a show and all of a sudden I'm standing in front of that coral surf, once again, there is another family member from that same species. Absolutely, yeah. And this is interesting here that we say, just like in nature, and we can get the next picture because we talk about that quite a bit in school here and we went into the bamboo grove. So once a species is figured out and makes sense, then each individual plant within that species is slightly different, right? Just like every human is different. And that's also a positive way because if you buy like, you know, bundle of roses for Valentine's Day, you look that you get the prettiest and whatever the prettiest means for you might not be the same for someone else. So you get that diversity within sort of unification of one species, right? Right, and you just have, we've just showed you three bill, we've showed our viewers three buildings that are, as you said, in the same genus, but they could be said to be different species. One of the things I liked that I wanted to say about the Alawai Boulevard Vista is that you have that same diversity. We showed you the picture of the Alawai before it was developed and it's a blank, big, huge thing. Because it got built over a long period of some time, a long span of time, the architectural styles are different, the sizes and shapes of the buildings are different. So even though we can find fault with some of them, there is a vitality to that diversity which even can attract or interest people who are not architects. However, I'm saying then that it has to be all based on the same healthy meaning exotic, exotic code and the next picture is showing other developments that are going up and I would say that's not within because that's like too low rise. It almost looks like a single family residence, could be in Florida or elsewhere, pretty much termite food construction and then some siding on there with some caulking and it's deeper, it has more than one unit but it's just too small. Originally that was what was there on Hawaii but that was then and now and now. You should evolve that typology and that gets us to something that we have been sharing quite a bit over the past next picture, please. And that is? That's primitiva and this is the primitiva one, am I correct? Exactly. Which is a cylindrical building but again it's got a lot of amenities in it for people to stay there. It uses a variety of different types of utility, materials to add to its utility and its usefulness and there's a new one coming up. There's one and this one here is like, we like this because we think it's such a perfect species that we think it could be at different places and then be modified just like the roses. But we thought it's time to generate a new species and that's the next picture and that is primitiva too. In progress here, these are the first, this is the first time people ever see that and how does it feel for you? Well, one of the things and this is apt because you pointed out that it's got again a central sort of a core that's a support but then we've got these projecting eaves if you will that come out that are not unlike the Bellevue that we just saw. So this is kind of a more modern use of like what we just have been looking at that happened 50, 60 years ago. And this is trying to be the evolution of the species. The top left is Les Camper's from Great Specific Rotary Mountain Precast consulting because way back you said something great that you said always the material should always be all the time. So way back court in place concrete was the new fetch and was the new, you know, basically sticks, right? But labor has gotten so expensive, we can't do this anymore. So we think the material, the concrete is still the most local to build for that height but now we got to go to prefab to do the next step. Exactly. And so, and the next top pictures are once again we need the next generation of the Peter Shee's and the Alfred Yees who are the master engineers who think architecturally. And we need more colleagues who at the bottom right which is Ted Pol Studio who did the most progressive building in town right now which was built with Great Specific Rotary Mountain Precast is using nothing but concrete. Everything is produced so delicately that there is no makeup needed. The orientation of the building is right. So this is what we try to say we want to encourage the emerging generation to basically continue that exotic genetic code and continue to write that diversity that you find so enriching. Absolutely. And I agree, you know, if Waikiki had been developed by one person and every building was identical, we'd find it stultifying, we'd find it repressive. The difference is what adds a lot to wanting to be there. Okay, great. I think we got our point across. So thank you guys for having been here. In two weeks, we're gonna be back. We look at something that is a hybrid between dwelling again and hospitality. And it is the... It's the Ilikai. It's the Ilikai hotel and apartment building and a lot of exciting things happened there. We're gonna show you all kinds of cool stuff not excluding Hawaii 5.0. Absolutely. Until then please stay exotically beautiful, beautifully exotic. Bye-bye.