 It's awesome to have you back as likely being our 12,722nd viewer in our 239th episode of think tech Hawaii is human humane architecture. We're back with our transcontinental triumvirate from you to sort of brown in on a little Hawaii. And you run Lindgren or mid-century modern master back in your Long Beach, California. Hi guys. Hello. Good to have you back. And go to the first slide and start on a very depressing note unfortunately, because me Martin this bang would you wish so still back near Munich Hawaii makes it only less of a drive of a day drive away from the Ukraine. Where it's getting worse and worse. Right now, as you know from the news, humanity is butchered in the little town of butcher near Kiev. And in Kiev. We have our weekly German lesson for you to solo. What does the news article that the very bottom right tell us what else is going on in Kiev. Well, it has the think tech logo over it, but it says, let's see it says something about the apartments in Kiev have been cold since Monday. And that that I didn't figure that out on my own I have to admit, I was told I was I was given assistance. You're a good student and you know the the weather over you from our iPhone there in the center tells us that April or March, April is the roller coaster with temperatures, you know, going up and down. And we had and they had snow back, as that snow simple says over the weekend. Now we're a little up, but again, the nights are still close to the freezing point and even day times, upper 40s lower 50s isn't really anywhere close to the comfort level, the perfect normal level of the human body. So it's quite still some miserable conditions. So obviously, you know the worst condition, people being slaughtered and butcher there. The second worst conditions is the one still living, being left without the necessary, existentially necessary enclosure of what we call the third skin being thermal epilogue and facades that you see on the story of the sanitizer news picture there with the facade being blown away, and only parts of the furniture still in there. So most ironic where we would need that fenestration so badly, we decreasingly have it. We really don't need it because we have that thermal comfort perfect 70s almost year round which is back with us in Honolulu Hawaii. We increasingly have these and the way that we pass it on to you Ron, put some more illustrations pictures to your analysis from the past that is way worth reiterating so please take it from there Ron. Yeah, last week, we had all described some elements at the copy Olani residents, high rise condominiums that at least in my opinion are sort of contrary to the notion of luxurious condo living. In the upper left photograph. We're looking at an empty bedroom. And you'll see just outside the glazing the end wall glazing, sort of a little blue box sticking out. That's actually a balcony. Now for most units, that balcony happens to be yours. In other words, this shot is taken from inside your bedroom. The door is a, a balcony that pokes out and does inflict the pot the problem of privacy because you know someone you might have been invited over as a guest who's in your living room might be out. And then turn his head around when he's standing on that balcony and look into your bedroom. But even worse, there are two units on each floor of the copy Olani residents, where that person who is looking into your bedroom is a next door neighbor. And this seems like an egregious planning stage. If we go to the center left photograph. We talked about the fact that this building was glazed in a very highly tinted blue material. And this photograph shows that I look by having to look through that blue glazing, especially when, first of all you look through the end wall, and then you look into the literally blue tinted glazed glass railing. Look how the view on the lower right portion of the end wall becomes a sickly blue pallor. The absolute glory of Hawaii of Hawaiian tropics is completely lost. The person in their million dollar two bedroom unit are looking out on a view that is saturated and ruined in a sort of blue miasma. And if we look at the lower right photograph. The, what what I'm showing here is here's here is a balcony. And there's a strange black lump outside on the back on the balcony. The balcony is already very small it's less than 70 square feet. What is that lump. The balcony is being used as as a place to store outdoor mechanical equipment. It is a compressor condenser unit from something called a mini mini split ductless air conditioning system. And it's connected to what you see in the upper right of the of this picture, which is the second component of these systems. And that happens to be a visible and rather nasty looking air handling unit and evaporative air handling unit that the element outside which is blocking the view and making the the low nine nearly inhabitable is connected to that air handling unit through a conduit that connects them together. And that particular piece of equipment out there is also intentionally pouring condensate water onto the line idea, because it has to it has to get rid of condensate water that's created in the air handling unit that is pumped back to the compressor condenser and then literally dumped outside. Well, and how that then appears from the outside gets us to the next slide. Because we are on the Capulani residences or the Azure. Or what, maybe I think this is the central. This is the central. It's hard to tell. It's hard to tell you're all just big blue concrete boxes. Yeah, this is another one in the same vicinity. Yeah, this was supposed to be a joke, but a bad one. And then, well, yeah, well, and so let's be try to be fair. Ron, you once rightly so said I'm quoting you, at least these have. I don't know if we want to call them the nice that is debatable. You already called them balconies which is probably more what they deserve to be called but anyways there is some outdoor spaces there. So we're in its favor. One can say there is actually a variety because there are some that we learned how they're called when we're looking at the cool a tower because they're all tucked in pushed back, open just one side and these are called And there is a subversion of that logic because the role of three on the right side, the one on the on the end is open to one other side. And then there is the one that you pointed out Ron that's the all cantilevering out so at least there is a variety. But then again as you reminded us Ron let's not judge a book just by the cover even though the cover is pretty clear and transparent there really and put literally and figure will be speaking. Let's go to the next slide and analyze the building more and it's anatomy and let's look at the floor plan, and it is a double loaded corridor once again the glorious times of the from a developer. You know today considered to be inefficient single loaded corridor that would allow easy reason is our long gone, they all do the all American hermetic 20th century double loaded core, but at least one little thing they do again like the recent one. And they create some light at the middle of this tunnel that pours in from the open end of the, what's in between the elevators, and that one might actually be attributed to what you see at the top right, which is our favorite building in the area, which is the Alamoana building because that does the same thing, but that seems really about the only thing at all that it borrows from because everything else it does differently. And we're about to say wrongly starting with orientation the Alamoana building runs. This building is facing is turning 90 degrees to it, the opposite. And is that way facing directly with his long side Mark and Makai the north facade then is is then worry free, but the south facade is the worst trouble. You can get yourself into that let's look at that trouble and go to the next slide. And it also contains an extract from the previous plan that you are most curious investigator private investigator Ron spotted that how honest the developer was and prove that through drawing. Point this out to us, that's what we see at the very top role. The first that to to introduce the central Alamoana. This is a 43 story tower with 512 units, which means well over probably 1200 people live in this up there for right you can see that a section just a slight strip from the floor plan has been has been highlighted. The developer to his credit, when they illustrated these relatively small balconies to prospective buyers, did show a little rectangle which takes up about a third of the space of the 72 to 76 square foot balcony. And that, once the owner asks well what is that would realize that that is that piece of outdoor mechanical air conditioning equipment that is required to be there on each and every balcony of this entire tower. Yeah, and in between these, let's call them nice because they're a little deeper as you also font found out Ron, and they're also a little bit wider. So and they're facing south. So they are actually doing a job just like your, your cap. When you're looking south midday, the lid is covering your face and, you know, keeping it from getting burned. So that works. But then that means it doesn't work at all what's in between. And there is this blue glass again, and the blue glass is is is BB and that is not as sexy as Brigitte Bardot. But it's baked bedrooms, because you always have the bedrooms behind that flush glass with little to know these little, you know, really pretty silly awning little openings there but pretty much nothing. So what choice do you have you just got to pull that curtain close from the inside. You're not doing much because the sun's rays had already been converted into heat. So as you call it, like a tragic or intentional planning mistake, Ron right there we go again why would one do that, because in a bedroom, you want to stay cool while you're only going to be there at night, but over the day that has terribly heated up unless you're doing what you should decreasingly do because of all the geopolitical and bio, you know, climatic problems of burning fossil fuel and cooling yourself, but you have no other choice because otherwise these bedrooms are unbearable. So let's go to the next slide and see how the and how the developer sells this with a suggestive illustrations rendered at the very bottom left. And let's analyze that and let's compare it with other experiences and again turning it over to you Ron, because we're comparing it to your immediate surroundings of your house that we have been dedicated numerous shows to and compare this to the situation of the unit in Central Alamoana is a corner unit, and it's going to be baking again through those windows, which in this case, I'm looking at trying to look at it closely I don't even think I see curtains. There are there are there are some there are some yeah. Oh that's good because my vision is a little bit. Not as great as it used to be, but to the left of that is my lucky situation where a portion of my living room is all facing north, which means there were drapes there originally, I was able to just tear them down. And my home is air conditioned at all. And in fact, in weather like today where it's going to be 89 and tomorrow 96 degrees and Los Angeles. The reason that I can live with this glorious two stories of glass is that the center two strips of glass from Florida ceiling are made up of clear adjustable louver. And all I have to do is crack the louvers up near the ceiling. The heat rises, and it is completely sucked out of the house and in an honor 96 degree day. I'm very comfortable inside. And we're, we're featuring Le Corbusier at the very top left with a show quote for a couple of reasons and we want to remind the audience of Le Corbusier sort of almost schizophrenic parallel applied research of two different sort of philosophies. So what was the domino house and the domino house is mostly known and the most sort of famous build representation of that is the villa sub war as the sort of floating on pilates under the blue Mediterranean sky hovering house, all out and about but at the same time. Recognizing the human need and desire for retracting for being cozy and being tucked away and he called that the model system and he built some model houses near Paris in the outskirts some vacation homes they're way more earth burned cozy. You know, have grass roofs and a way more introverted one could say versus the extroverted your house run and this is the show quote at the very bottom right recognizes both this is kind of your man cave living room. It gives you that sort of, you know, provides for that you moved when you know you don't want to be out and about you just want to be there by yourself and read books and watch movies and whatnot. You don't want to be out on your line I or just in your cobu chairs, just just behind it, talking to Corbusier right and talking furniture. We see a similarity and I throw this out that I think is the only similarity between your very tropical exotic living, and they're very inclusive because your house is also, you know, a mid range price house. And it is easy breezy and biochromatic versus this one here is exclusive because of the price, and very hermetic, very invasive and the only thing they share is that wonderful or killer custody of your glory. This is a beautiful floor lamp from 1962 that I just have the feeling they threw in there into the rendering to distract from their criminal actions of, you know, again, a design mistake of creating a unit that is facing southwest, which is the worst, no recognition and doesn't get anywhere to the point of, that's the other part of the late local busy that's what the show quote at the very top left refers to was getting more into keeping yourself cool through breeze so late. They don't go through this effort at all but there would have been sort of a compromise version and that gets us to the show quote at the top right which we've been pointing out a couple of times with a little bit of German patriotism on my side. Because the all traditional German glass manufacturer with the name of rooster glass glass ball Han with that red logo. They have not giving up in increasingly more than ever us being worried about how we're going to stay a warm during the next winter. We don't have any Putin's gas anymore which we shouldn't. We're scratching our heads. So in this you know we've been getting rid of all the inefficiencies in the building envelopes which in a temperate climate the single layer glass jealousies that work for you in your long beach, in Honolulu Hawaii and for you to so to work there don't work there but they did not give up on that and developed it into a triple pane passive house certified glass jealousy that one could have installed and then in the peaks of the high summer where you think you really need to have the AC you run it, but then in the many months where the outside temperature is exactly the indoor which equals the perfect thermal comfort temperature of in the mid 70s, you could open them. There have been various ways of solving this, even within their paradigm of a glass box, but they took no efforts, unfortunately, and, and, and shamefully, which gets us to the next slide, which is dedicated to be be again baked bedrooms because when you walk around the buildings were at the east elevation that's where the sun rises is very low, who is very hot in Honolulu Hawaii, and you're going to be woken up by the sun hitting your face, making you hot, unless you burn that bloody oil, which we shouldn't do So then let's look at the other side where the sun sets. Next slide. This is the Western elevation and ironically usually you say you know the higher you go up in a condo, the better it is the better is the view. It's all about the view. And more costly is it. If you're having a bio climatic mindset, not in that one, I would stay down there where the neighboring building is basically casting a shadow and you would stay cool. So, is there anything getting close to tropical exotic in the building at all and that like gets us to the next slide and you guys tell me Well, the only thing that really does perform and happens to look nice as well is this metal screening, however, the metal screening in this case is not doing anything very significant because this is just a passageway between the building and the parking structure. You really need any comforting shade in there you're not going to be hanging around there you're just going to be walking through. So what they're doing is using something that's actually performing a function, which is to create shade, as well as allowing site to go in and out, so that you're not closed into a solid structure, but it's in a place where it's not doing any good. Now, just around the in that same neighborhood, however, we can find other performative structures like that that are metal screens. And in the top right corner, you can see the facade of the sunset tower building which is built about 1970, and that's facing on to Atkinson Drive on the diamond head end of all the want to center. And then also we see other buildings in order Lulu that use that similar type of metal screening and again, it allows vision in and out, but it also blocks a lot of the sun's rays so you're not getting the full blast of that energy that you don't necessarily want. And these are pictures of the King Center on King Street again that's not too far away. So, back 60 years ago, people were using the same technique, but they were using it in a way that made sense and was actually useful, in addition to being a decorative statement for the time. What we're seeing now is again modern versions of this like we just saw with the central, but they're not being used for performative reasons, they're just there as decoration. Yeah, so let's say goodbye to this another hermetic blue glaze one with the next slide. And, you know, in sort of fairness, I guess, checking out with its northern elevation, which is the least problematic because again this is where the sun hardly ever is so by climatically, this is okay. But again, you guys were supposed to ask me if this is maybe in Munich, but continue to play games, because we have one standing wave the ice buff, which are exotic escapism expert, Susanna introduced to us so the guy with his car was a surfboard on top and we had to drive to that one, because this building would actually perform fairly well here in Munich, actually would perform better if that would be a southern fenestration. Never mind the summer that we also have where it's hot so you would have to, you know, cover, you know, the blue glass as well for the summer condition. The winter condition that would be very welcome to make up for Putin's gas that we can't have anymore, as we know, because it would create passive solar gain. But how we don't need in a while never ever or hardly ever, except somewhere high up in the mountains, you know, relatively, you know, maybe you can discuss it but otherwise nowhere with you would you want that would you have that. So, again, we're on the ongoing relentless search of something tropical exotic please guys do that and let's get our hopes back up high with the next slide, which is it looks like right this is actually across the street right across the street and the construction fence and the developer gives us hope right because their images of tropical exotic on trees, beach on one beach park, most likely because that's adjacent surfboard guy, and that woman here that happened to walk by just appropriately right now the overdress not sweating she's just wearing as much as it takes to feel comfortable back there we see a mother with some children as another image on the construction site we actually see on one of each part. So boys this must be finally back to tropical exotic tradition, which next slide is actually the legacy of this size. Yeah, this is the the former can rock building this was a low rise two stories complex of three buildings with parking underneath and around it, built from 19 light 1940s to the early 1960s it was something that we really admire it was very livable it was attractive. It had this mid century appearance, and it didn't use an excessive amount of energy and it was very walkable, and it was designed by Frank Haynes and you can see Frank in the upper left corner. He did a tour a walking tour of it for the Dope a Momo organization I did not get to go on that I still regret that to this day. Unfortunately the Kenrock building and the Kenrock complex is no longer with us because that's the site of the building that we are about to talk about the one with the wonderful pictures on its construction fence and do those pictures actually tell us about the real conditions of the building let's go to the next slide. Well, I would say we have to leave that for next big news already at the end at the end of the show but let's make you hungry for that one by saying the solo as much as we, the three of us love the really best practices from the past. You just sort of particular open as sort of a child literally and figuratively speaking of the hey days of modernism in a wide haven't grown up in that fantastic area that I'm very jealous of as you're jealous that I was at that walking tour and was able to listen to Frank in his fascinating way explaining his buildings from the past. I'm jealous of you having grown up when the Alamoana building was around and you and cool literally and figuratively speaking. So that being said, we basically put our doko mobile head aside. When it comes to the evolution of the tradition of innovation as one of my favorite shows of yours that is called like that, that we're saying if something really good has to be taken and it needs to be replaced with something even better, which is tough because the previous one was already really really good. So if they were able to do that here, we will have to save for next time. Not next week because we got to take a little break from this our sequence for you to so to look back into what was before the pandemic and then the pandemic and then after the pandemic and after that the week after most likely really will return with this one here and tell you how the sky Alamoana which is the name of that new building that's replacing the ten rock building. So for then and until then please stay tropically exotic, exotically tropic. Bye bye. Mahalo.