 to Soto and Martin on our relentless search for humanity and humility on our inclusive welcoming islands to Soto. Is that the right way to? That is a very complicated introduction. Yes. How do you do? Sort of okay. Sort of okay. Well, should we go to our first slide and get into that? Probably should. Okay. Let's go to the first slide. Martin just came back from his sabbatical in Germany in his homeland of Germany. And he's kind of in a post sabbatical stress or tension syndrome situation because while he was there, he was thinking he was going to a socialist nirvana where costs were under control and it was more possible to build things for the common person. And you said you were approached by a potential client to build a house on property that the client already owned. And you looked into building a house which may have been an A frame you said a very dramatic thing like that. So there's your weekly German? I can't remember what it was. It means all roof building. All roof house. All roof house. Meaning the whole thing is made of a roof or two roofs. But you discovered to your dismay that trying to build this affordable house, single family house was going to cost 500,000 euros. And was that just materials or construction as well? That was both excluding the land. Excluding the land, right. So it really wasn't. It was pretty much like it is on Oahu. And you had not found it as wonderful as you hoped it would be. No, the other event was our exotic escapeism expert, Suzanne, being a native of Bavaria. She's facing a similar thing to, and I call it the Department of the Varying Homeland's syndrome, where because of the same reasons that the locals, the more normal locals can't make it anymore, the government tries to keep them and helps them out. But even with a quarter of supporting them, you end up with a 1400 square foot slice of a row house for about a million euros, which is about the same as dollars. Right. So there we go. That formerly, to say the least, socialist sort of culture went away, right? So I'm coming back here, sort of sobered up. And let's go to the next slide. Because that was about, you know, we shouldn't even do, if we look at the bigger, biggest picture of the globe and we shouldn't do single family anymore. We should keep any land that we have unbuilt because we need it for anything else, but sprawling it, right? So we need to densify the cities and we need to basically build up. And we should also go back to renting, right? Because why does everyone have to own a piece of the earth and hold onto it in the most frantic way? Why don't we share the earth, right? And we are visitors and get away from this sort of paranoia idea of owning and having to have it. But that is here the next problem. These are rental prices here. And this is per square meter in euros. And so we got to convert that here. And Munich, where this is all happening on the personal side, is in the lower third, even. And that is 10 euros per square meter. So this translates into a dollar per square foot. Paris and Oslo and some other Scandinavian and metropolises are... You said London too. London too, half the highest, but they're not even reaching 30, meaning $3. And we get to... I mean, even the affordables here are pretty much like $4 or 40 euros per square meter, right? So that's where we're even topping that. And next picture, this is really sort of hurting me or gets very to my heart because as we talked a lot, I grew up like that. And in an urban fabric had my most beautiful parts of my childhood on that rented space out there in the attic with the roof terrace. And I let that inform my work. So the project at the bottom, we've been talking about at times here post occupancy evaluated. But that gets... That's the treetop. That's the treetop apartment. This is all getting tougher and tougher because as we said, if you have this discrepancy between that rents are not basically... People don't get paid proportionally more. So they can only afford so much and so little. And then the cost of renting and owning go exponentially through the roof. Then you get this discrepancy. And that means as a developer who we most likely like to not blame but to guilt, maybe, right? We can't even do this because even if you're not making the super profit and run away and get rich, right? If you try to do it in a reasonable way, you have a hard time because the cost of construction is so through the roof and out of control that the margin is just not working anymore. So we really need models. And while trying to get back to the paste here and being on a jet lag next picture, please here, I'm running in the morning and I run into a Rainbow Drive operator and owner Jim Kusukuma who according to a discussion that Kurt Sandburne and I had a while ago, we were saying he built the best piece of architecture on the island at the top right, which is his canopy addition to his facilities out there on Papahula Avenue. And he was saying, Martin, I just came back from Tokyo a couple of times and I thought about you because there's a guy who impressed me because he was able to make it to live on the dollar equivalent or the yen equivalent to a thousand dollars, including eating, which is his field of expertise and dwelling. But he says he shrinks his down his footprint of lodging even more like a square feet or something. So this reminds us of the metabolism movement of the capsule kind of, you know, whole trend. And he says, we got to get back to that, especially in Hawaii. We're climatically privileged. We could have the whole island be our living room. He practices that always meet him. He's out there on the beach and watches the surfers and surfs himself. And then, you know, that's his living room time in the morning. Right. So I, you know, Jim promised we're going to tackle that and address that and try to with emerging generation, take you up on your offer to do research on that one. But for the time being, let's follow my jet lag here. Next slide, because I was in jet lagging, couldn't sleep. So I was stumbling on our strip, which is Kalakawa Avenue. And you see the urban nomads coming in at night. If the police is not coming out at night, we should say. Exactly. And I feel increasingly bad because our promise that we made to people like Jeff up there in the in the left corner, who's an urban nomad of the finest kind, we haven't been able to provide solutions for him as we show in the top right as the stratosphere lanai growth that is stacking cargo or containers just like to a height on the ship. So we yet have to get there. And instead, I'm thinking I maybe have hallucinations. And there's some alien in the back there. Is this blue thing blue thing? So what is that? Let's get closer. Next picture. Next picture. Yes. And it's you can barely see. And this is interesting. We're like, comparing, you know, human activity to buildings activities, right? And this reminded us of the pre contact days of what you did it in the when it was dark, right? Absolutely. And back in those days, native Hawaiians had no virtually no light after sunset. You could build a big fire. But if you lit a kukui nut, there's barely any light at all. So once you're inside your holly peely, it's black and you go to sleep. Yeah. And the Waikiki Circle Tower that we did a show about that long ago is nicely within that tradition because people are mostly asleep in the middle of the night. So it's not there. But that blue thing out there, what in the world is that? So let's get going here. And we try to let's picture we try to identify where where it was in our walking encyclopedia. Don Hibbard is about to get us the data from the DPP. But he's so busy around teaching. Thank you, Don. And also preparing the national locomotive museum that you're involved to it will take a little longer. But we got pretty close and were able to sort of bracket the era of when it was built, right? Right. Because this one here was when Kennedy was cruising down that street and there was in 63. Right. That's in the summer of 1963. And few months before he was doing the same in Dallas, which was tragic and tragic as we know. That's right. And then the other sort of proof of evidence we found which is the next picture here. This is the when the Wi five O start and that was in 68. Right. The fall of 68. There we see it's already there. So somewhere in between it was built. Right. Right. That we found out. Yeah. And then let's go to the next slide. It's, you know, that kind of glow. We've been featuring a couple of incidents in the past. There was the sort of neon halo around the La Rue. Yeah, that's right. The Alamona building. Right. Seen in the opening of holy five Oh, exactly as much as the plinth of the outrigger on Kallakawa, not that far away across the street from from this project here. But these were like the sort of more innocent sort of like hey days of everything and showing off and neon. Exactly. In these days, it's probably LED. So it's environmentally a little bit more, but just still thinking about why are you like highlighting every slab of the lini of that building in such a pretty obnoxious way, right? So there must be a reason. So what makes this building so special in order to be justified to do well, we're going to see. So let's, you know, wake up here. Let's go to the next slide. And this is how the thing looks in the mornings. And we see there has been some makeup, you know, I've been doing some makeup artists was, I guess, brought it in to make a facade look more beautiful. And we will see what what that means in detail. And next picture here, it wasn't that I wasn't warned or prepared because you kindly mean, you meant well. Well, I need to let you know, you need to prepare me to sort of moderate the shock that I was then yes, getting into because you sent me this article sort of halfway through the sabbatical and it basically told the story that this was formerly an 88 room, small room hotel that a developer, a Japanese developer bought for 25 million and put another 50 million or twice as much into it to remodel it to basically make each floor one suite of 2250 hundred square feet. And that if you do the math means almost 6 million per floor per suite. And that wowed us. Well, and one of the things that I had sent to you was these smaller 1960s and 70s hotel buildings have smaller rooms than what people prefer now particularly bathrooms. There is no way to easily go in and remove those interior rooms, they are part of the structure, they are poured concrete. So that's why if they did this, that's why there was such a huge expense per floor. Absolutely. And then let's get to the next picture because we're like spying around and seeing what it is. So the sign was up. I'm not as fluent in Spanish as others as Susannas, for example. So it sounded familiar to me because there is our little at very top left our little pying car in Germany is our vintage little Renault. And from Renault, this is the other sort of evolution there. There was a car that was launched to be the competitor to Lee Ayakaka's original Chrysler minivan, which I can see it looks very much like exactly in the mid eighties and it evolved pretty well except the very last facelift sort of like, but that's making it look more like an SUV. Exactly. And so that part they lose me on that one. But but sort of never mind. But so I know the term from there and it basically means space or in this case, pretty pathetically, space shifts, right? So that means the bigger the better. Yeah. And we go to the next slide here. So the this is sort of the makeup on it. They're putting rouge you you said. Yeah, right. Rouge is the stuff you put women put on. Yeah, sometimes there's this little sort of bedazzling. You can put a little glitter there too. Yeah. So this reminds us of that one. And you gotta wonder why and again, next picture is I mean, there's rouge and then there's sun lotion where there's sun protection that you got to put on primarily here. The the building is privileged because this is pretty much facing sort of southeast. So the building is lucky to have as cute and sexy cylindric neighbor next to it because it's going to shade it at some parts and points in the morning. But here not anymore. This is sort of like 11 ish or 12. And that way it gets pounded by the sun. And this reminds me of this sort of like, suntan intensifying lotion that people put on which every skin doctor says no, no, don't do that right. That kind of coconut oil or whatever it is. Yes. So that would be the analogy to that one. They're on black tiles. Right. They're glued onto it. So you would think I mean, in Germany, if you're doing a remodel, it's also going to be an energetic remodel is no doubt. And they get tax, you know, support deductions for it. But here it's just about the surface, right? Correct. And so that's sort of unfortunate. It's a heat sink. It's a heat sink. It's going to conserve and put heat into the building, which then the AC has to cope with. Absolutely. The next picture here, you know, again, it's it's it's a building that has a nice integrity at the top left. We have tropical tutor, Bill had it Suzanne and me out and we were right on the other side of 1350 and I want a boulevard that is currently getting a facelift as well. They decided to do some parts in yellow. Yes. And so, you know, but but it is still the original concrete that just got some 10 on it, right? Yes. Yes. But here they're like in major parts covering up the buildings, the building and their pride themselves of having imported the most fancy materials from all over the world. And then again, thinking about the carbon footprint of shipping this stuff in makes you wonder makes you wonder why right, right. And let's go to the next page here. This is the entrance. And you have this little which ticked you off a little further down the road, right? Right. Well, in this picture, we see there's a green wall on the left of the entrance. And that is in theory, not only to beautify things, but it gives off oxygen as well if you use living plants. Just a little bit down the street, the Waikiki Beachcomber Hotel remodeled its facade. And they put what looks like the green a green wall up above their entrance. It's fake. It's plastic. So it's an absolute antithesis of what green wall is and what it's supposed to do. We use fossil fuel to make plastic to put up to look like plants. Well, as we said, you know, if you would do this in Russia, because of exotic dreams of life, you know, but but here we have a 12 month growing cycle where you got to stop things from growing. You do plastic like there's no go right. And then they make this other wall, which is probably want to look like a volcano because it's slightly tilted and battered wall. And next page, they also which is very hip these days, they basically put green walls inside these poor walls and it's AC so they probably freeze the roots right right or whatever. And once you go outside next picture here, you got the real green in front. Right. And here you got our urban nomads, you know, and, you know, I didn't smell but you know, it is a water bottle. So I'm just giving him the benefit of doubt that it wasn't vodka in there. Yeah, right, right. So this guy is taking a break. Why? Because it's cool under the tree. Right. And at night next picture, the the greenery on the street right next on the other side of the entrance of the hotel. This this this green is nicely camouflaging and giving sort of protection to the urban nomads at night. And so is next picture here. My home, the Waikiki Grant that we did a show about a while ago here to give credits to the board and to Ray and to Stephen to everyone who brings back the lush nature and this is an exclusive inclusive welcoming green versus an exclusive because this is along the sidewalk and everyone can touch it and see it and feel it. Right. Yeah. And so next picture. So is the lobby the lobby which was sort of impressing you right because you said way back when that was built. Yeah, it was probably built around the same time. We know when this was built in the other one and it wouldn't surprise me if same architect Ernest Hara would be the architect, you know, of the two buildings. And so the lobby is open and everyone is welcome as long as she he behaves. And next picture. And you said it's even you know, it's it puts another bird because there's a bar. Absolutely. On top of that. Absolutely. In this building that you've got people coming in and out of your your lobby to get to and to get out of exactly when potentially they are drunk. Yeah, yeah. And here this is our watchdog, you know, Morales who is nicely at nights in a very moderate of way trying to always basically work things out with people and it works pretty well. There is no security border or access controlled. You can actually walk up to any floor and knock on everyone's door. That's amazing these days. And it works, right? So why do we have this paranoia of being exclusive and being guarded off? You know, well, unfortunately, the richer you get, the more you have this paranoia, right? That's what I was going to say is the more you disconnect yourself from the real life in real people, which was your point. Yeah. Yeah. So let's go to the next slide, which is me having to thank my philanthropist patron, the owner of my unit who gives it to me for, you know, a steal almost for free if you consider the expenses he has. And again, I'm the beneficiary and I have this easy breezy, amazing tropical exotic lifestyle that you know, I wished I would find when I come to the islands, but I have in very few units, I have that. Here I have that. So how does that compare to the Aspasio? Yeah. Next picture here. Well, this is quite a different situation. And what I was going to say was as you just said, the idea of an open lobby versus a closed lobby connects to what your financial situation is. This is meant for the very upper upper sliver of people who are extremely wealthy, who can afford this to go from one comfortable enclosed situation in one country to another one here. And unfortunately, it's like you never even left because this interior looks like everything all over the world for anybody who's well to do. Yeah, yeah. Let's go to the next slide. Our fellow journalists from the star at the ties always make nice, jokey ironic sort of headlines. So here's the sweet life. There's an affinity pool that's probably going to put some weight on the building and a stressing that structural, you know, challenge that you're already pointed out. Let's go to the next slide and do what we occasionally do here do our little science demonstration because I'm going to wear my cap here and you got to demonstrate. So this is the this is the sun. So here's the sun shining from this angle and you can see that Martin's face is partly shaded by the cap. But if I come down like this when the sun is going down, you no longer has that benefit of the shade there and the direct sun. And you're you're the sunset sun now and this is direction. And this is if we could get to the picture 26 here. This is exactly what this facade is pretty much facing. And we've been saying, you know, being behind glass doesn't really help. It actually worsens that is a greenhouse. And what's that thing in the middle there? What did we find out? Well, you said that that is a metal screen, which looks decorative, but actually it shields the jacuzzi, which each one of the units has. I said, is it open to the open air? And you said to a limited degree because there's not that much of it that's open. So it's really for privacy, not for air circulation. And maybe it's also giving the Hawaiian blessing because maybe these days needs to have this pattern that's like, okay, we can check on Hawaiian. Yeah, exactly. So how do we know all this? Again, next picture here, thanks to our guys from the store advertiser. And we're really cracking up and almost Peter a pants about a certain passage in there. Oh, yeah. And that gets us to the next slide. Yeah. And the quote that was in the newspaper says the views are spectacular. The only thing in the way of the ocean is a banyan tree. Well, what he means is that he's saying that it's nicer than another building would be. But the way it's phrased, it almost sounds like well, if we just cut the tree down, you could look at the ocean completely without anything in the way. Well, the tree is not only a major aspect of Waikiki where the nightly hula show occurs, as you see in the picture. But it's also as we pointed out, something that shades the facade of the building when the sun gets low enough at a certain time of year. So you actually from a, from a post fossil tropical exotic attitude point of view, you want to be in the lower floors. You're shaking the natural protection. And then sins are, you know, friends from the Exotica movement, Martin Denny and Dennis Baxter and Arthur Layman were supposedly in the Queen K and listening to the exotic birds in the tree. They work this into their music. And we reminded ourselves that some kind of witchbirds, the mind of birds, the mind of birds gather in that banyan tree every night and scream until the sun goes down. That's a spectacle. And you don't get that at home wherever you come from. Exactly. So you don't want to block this out, right? So we always conclude with our fullness, polemic propositions. So let's get there. The next picture here. So this is juxtaposing the remodeling and even again, the three horizontal louvers below the slabs don't do anything as far as shading. They just hide the little LED gadgets in there, right? And we were pointing out in a couple of shows at the top how awesome that is to be up there in the breeze and be easy breezy and have as little as possible disconnect you from that. So really filigree metal guard rails have been really proven to be pretty good. And so let's get to the next picture, which also was our opening picture here because when our exotic escapism expert Suzanne was here some 20 years ago, and she was taking some surf lessons with Big Bear there at point. She was having the picture taken in front of the neighboring building, which is the parking garage for the hide and she called that a shadow house, right? Because it's got the shadowing of those vertical. Yeah, those verticals. We're saying the cars have it actually better than the people because they got the breeze and they got the shade. So I want to be your car, right? Rather than be in Espacio where you don't have that. Probably my parking rate is not anywhere close because at this point we got basically disclosed that the daily rates are like outrageous 3000 to $10,000 and that's sweet, right? Yeah, which is really like. So next picture here again is what we dream about is like when people come to Hawaii, present as something they don't have where they come from. And I think there was a show which I'm happy I was browsing through the schedule today and I heard about power greens or something like that. So some colleagues were talking about bringing food production into the vertical, right? So things like that, experience and mix the people who live here with the people who visit this sort of model of inclusivity we're kind of talking about. It's as if you live here for a short time. Exactly. And next page here. Again, this is sort of the suggestion and the recommendation of Tropical Tourist expert Suzanne, but he told me an interesting thing about the gentleman at the bottom left. Well, that's Prince Kuhio, who was a Hawaiian pure Hawaiian man. But as a youth, he was sent to a military school in California in the 1880s with his two brothers. And while they were very westernized, they also were so in contact with their Hawaiian culture that they introduced surfing to California in 1885 that surfboards made and went surfing. Yeah, well, California is a hot bit of surfing now, but it's all because of him and his brothers. Yeah, that's awesome. It is it is. He was an ambassador for both. Correct. And so he's depicted in his Hawaiian clothing. He's depicted in American Western clothing here. He's got on a Hawaiian cape as well. So it's the two cultures. And that's something we're going to be talking about in a future show. We're going to talk about skins. All right. Human skin, the clothing we wear and then what skins we live in as well as buildings. Can't wait for that because most difficult show to do but probably one of the most relevant. It will be. It will be. So next picture here is an event that was just last weekend where all of a sudden I was out swimming. So they were putting the stage together and a couple of tents and they had this sort of block party. And it filled up really like crazy. And it had like, you know, these these local acts here like this, I'm on a girl who played the ukulele so crazy as I've never you told me there are other ones that she learned from. Yeah, and she was telling the story that don ho was discovering her on the street and becoming her mentor. And again, this was a free event and it was sponsored by a couple of people. But one of them, which we had done the show about the the princess. I'll tell her right now. So maybe they have, if they haven't, please listen to the show we did and that we encourage you to stick with your tradition, right? And I see this as a positive sign of sort of a people power, a movement from from bottom up as keeping the Queens Beach public, and and including people and making this a free event and next and final picture here. We hope it's going to spill into the bigger macro fabric of Waikiki and doing all of that and more we're talking about. If you guys find the time our most activist journalist, Kurt had written these beautiful words. So if you can take the time before and push, sort of stop on hold and read through that we won't have the time because we're out of time. So thank you all for your attention. Thank you to Soto. Thank you. And looking forward to soon. I think we're on to something. So I think we spotted a project that is sort of trying to do things a little bit more along the lines we would hope. So let's do that next. All right, all right. And until then, please stay inclusively exotic, exotically inclusive. Bye bye.