 We the Soto Brown and Martin this bang welcome you back to the show here that looks into if the built environment can't be anywhere closer to the so stunningly beautiful natural environment correct we don't give up on that one no we don't we don't we don't we don't and this is sort of our first fall episode that's true and we can say that's easy breezy guys we can actually not sweat at night's having the window open I had a blanket last night there you go it's chilly right it gets chilly and talking about get the first slide here the grass being greener on the other side mm-hmm it gets green here when it becomes closer to winter right so this is our hooked volcano that's right turns green because there's more rain that's right and my whole new the Hawaiian green sea turtle is back since a couple days so you who you interact with when you go swimming we do exactly all right good so usually at other places in the world these 60% of other climate places which is tempered actually things go brown because these are the leaves falling off the deciduous trees and after that it gets white right it's a white Christmas sometime because there's snow let's go to the next slide here because our next slide please our culinary a cosmopolitan connoisseur Clara and Joey as we reported a couple of shows ago they are doing a pit stop in the national capital city of Berlin that's great and they were going there with their feet 500 that they rented and we promised the audience to give a proof of evidence that they have been around here that's right now for left corner there is a little fiat 500 car on Kalakawa Avenue in 1961 and there you go and they were tiny the the current one is almost twice as big you know it's just but talking big as far as our shows about architecture as well at the very top right what do we see there what do joy and Clara have they've got a big line I with with a couch on it and that is something that's very unusual because in Germany as you keep pointing out you can only use a line I for maybe three months of the year and yet it got great big ones and how is that in comparison to here we they're bigger you're telling me they're bigger they are they are so and in many of the cities actually Pacific Northwest of the mainland there was already more than usual snow and so there was obviously here in Berlin you see that German traffic sign here the German your weekly German lesson is bewohner mit Park ausweis für zonen 29 frei as very on having to translate that and there is a German flag so that's Berlin right well that's a trick because I wanted you to see that picture to see if you could recognize it that's actually merchant Street in downtown all the way where you and I frequently stand and have conversations after we have done our human humane architecture show and that was for the TV show lost they threw shave ice on the street they put up fake signs and they pretended that it was street in Berlin oh wow oh wow so let's news go the next slide and not fake but the real because that's what I put up with when I was back home for most of the year over my sabbatical and this is that funny picture that we showed before where we have electrified cross-country skiers now this is a guy who stands there takes the train to go out into the countryside and what they do around that is what people hope well I'm here and in fact it happens we got to talk about it today is transit oriented development this is again you got to bundle up you got to have your puffy coat so that's why the architecture look like that and they they want to like decorate that looks like a down jacket with a pattern on it yeah it's insulated never mind right and so I'll go to the next slide this is the previous city where Joey was in training this is the only real high-rise city in Germany that's Frankfurt Germany and compared I mean to you know the the top six in in the United States which we currently have position number six with almost 500 high-rises that's right this is ridiculously low this is more the average American city correct somewhere with a couple of them but they're building the highest this is your weekly German lessons well I can't remember how to say it but it means the highest the highest high-rise dwelling tower in Duisland that does it that does all right good good and it's only 47 stories though it is it is but it also has at least balconies you know they seem to have a decent size but let's go to the next where did this typology of high-rise dwelling basically where it was born that was in the United States yes absolutely and this is talking Berlin who he built the the National Gallery in Berlin one of the most fascinating buildings I've ever seen in my life and I've been around and I'm an architect you are me's fundamental project when he was kicked out by the Nazis lucky America picked him up and lucky him and lucky him and he built these two towers here this is the Lakeshore Drive apartments from 1951 and don't get your hopes up too high I can't speak or write Chinese but I had the chance to write an article for the Chinese detail magazine I included that took me until my third trip with the emerging generation by that time I was still in the Midwest which Chicago technically belongs to yes it is and only on the third visit we realized there's this little door in the back of one tower and it turned out to be an integrated local grocery store and that lady there in her home dress with her hair you know in the process of being done walked her lunch being a sweet potato up and that is would ever thought that me's fund a row was a sustainable right but that's the nature of it because if you have to go into your multi-storey parking garage make out your car and drive to the big box store and what's the point exactly that's just that's vertical sprawl but it's sort of different but not any better than horizontal sprawl right right so let's move on to the next here because there was a rebel kid amongst the the mesian clan and those boy Bertrand Goldberg and Bertrand Goldberg almost one and a half decades later rebelled against the master and said I don't want to do these square boxes they're boring yeah I want to do some fun organic towers and this is nicknamed the corn cups for obvious reasons but the official term is Marina City and also we said if you're old enough like we are young to appreciate old movies right there's blues brothers right right or falls off and and the bottom each the base of each tower is the parking structure it is and then the dwellings are above that and talking mix use this is really this is why call city they got restaurants they got all right everything there is right that was the idea and that's also the zeitgeist of the time cylindrical buildings it was it was and you saying that a next slide because it was actually the considered to be the coolest stuff for yeah many decades and people said nothing has happened post modernism really wasn't doing anything anyways and so it took until the new millennium and even at the end of the first decade in 2009 where a developer had basically proposed this pretty generic glass box that then the architect studio gang named after its founder genie gang was basically took a piece of tracing paper and made it into what you see here which gave it the name the aqua tower and it's kind of a watery surface it looks like it is although to me it looks like it's not accurately shaved it's like well I know I know yeah you and I know about shaving but it depends and the middle one is interesting because my best buddy from school who works for a helmet young there Dan Kubrick hi Dan he had a project under construction that we were on the top roof and we were looking at it from very straight and the middle picture is that and you don't see any of that you don't see any of the details more dramatic than the closer you are than the more below you are right and next slide as always being interested in not just the surface but the substance there's this German product that's been around for so long and even made it to cold Canada it's basically structurally connecting and thermally disconnecting your lanai or your balcony slabs and the next slide I happen to go in and out of Chicago as my hub when I was still in the Midwest there's me the Lincoln lawyer with my Lincoln and Lincoln Nebraska and in front of what building well that is the Nebraska State Capitol building which is a very iconic structure in Nebraska it was built in 1938-39 they were very proud of it as their symbol of their state and it was because it was the first high-rise state Capitol building and they didn't need to build a high-rise there's plenty of space there that was wasn't because they were all crowded it was to make a statement and to become a landmark which did absolutely and the the funny thing at the bottom left probably most people here have never seen but this is how we heat and this is Kirsten's my landlady at that time thank you Kirsten was hosting me over the chilly winters and that kept me warm so I was looking at how the floor slabs basically project out you see at the very top one that isn't painted it I was hoping to see a line to find that easel shuck built in there but then it when I moved on to the desert I did a trip with my emerging generation there to this studio and the German guy in the office of junior gang and I pulled him aside not wanting to embarrass him and I said did you or not and he said no we did not so it's pretty much like a radiator I mean it gets cold right so you have this cold creeping through exactly and you got a heat against it so I again in this day and age you should have been more more biochromatic and to talking about touchy things here this is probably a very sort of title 9 vulnerable but talking about the typology of tall buildings what's the nickname they gave to the Nebraska well it was nicknamed the penis on the prairie yeah on the plains on the plains obvious reasons right and because it's out in the middle of nowhere standing up by itself and besides that the typology of tall buildings mainly banks or investment projects you know very associate to the male dominance in architecture which is unfortunate and so next slide what's also unfortunate is that discrimination in general and then some man taking advantage of their power and we know this as the me too movement in the Hollywood scene but it's not just in no and no wonder it also at some point reached the architectural business correct and a man that was up for leaving some penises here in Honolulu this is Richard Maya at the very top left and this is a very sort of respectable architectural online medium architect and they basically labeled this article a shitty man in architecture and he was the most accused of that bad thing and so we don't know if because of that or other things or all of that together his projects get pulled and these are the two towers right above the base in there yeah and basically the one behind that who is basically kicking its balls is we're very happy to announce as a lady and that's genie gang so genie gang has a project proposed and that's the project we're actually gonna talk about it gonna analyze today so let's go to the next slide the first time it was it got to us was on like electronic newsletters here on our phones so there was this image of a natural environment of some sort and then a rendering here which we're happy to see a sliding door and a line I yes which not all of them have but then we saw the glass guard rare which we're not so much we're not we talked about a couple times but then let's go to the next slide there's a screenshot from the heart use website here introducing not just the building but its designer genie gang and they call her here the relationship builder she's very open and upfront to begin with and set the inspiration of the building is a an indigenous plant sugarcane and particularly its movement in the trade wins then she claims as the inspiration so let's look into how that sort of plays out does it play out how she pulls it off or does she yeah so let's go to the next slide and walk work our way up this is the plinth here this a rendering it has you know cafes and restaurants and all this stuff that makes it urban right that's what everyone has we were hoping you know the Halle no Hanna that we were doing a show about recently went a little step further because they claimed to have an urban farm in the building so rather than like in the middle where gundalaparch who was one of our recent guests and she's a she's an expert in urban farming and she was at the Howard Hughes model and pointing out the staircase parking garage tower of the whole foods they painted green and she found this rather shallow and saying you know she was proposing what the other project basically does actually grow your food and not just sell it and sell it for too expensive which was all right pretty much is about right right right so let's go to the next slide and move more up in the building we're here on the in on its plinth which looks pretty generic we got the pool we got a couple of trees there which is good because the last project there the Howard Hughes affordable only had one tree you get some more but it doesn't look like it wants to compete with up to this point still the most innovative vegetative facade is the TGA max parking right go figure right right right so let's now move up into the dwelling units here next slide so this is that they got they got from studios which this is up to I think three bedroom is like the largest so they got a variety and down there they have a little diagram and and they say basically what's so innovative is they have a wet zone which is the bathroom at the kitchen then transitioning into a dry zone which is basically the unit and how innovative does that sound well it doesn't sound very innovative because isn't that the way every high-rise building is built I guess so right so I'm not an architect but I'm guessing that sounds like a branding a real thing that isn't really biochlametic and innovative and another thing they claim they say they've bent the units to towards the ocean view and next slide is that something really novelty and innovative no because we've already seen in other buildings we saw it in the Outrigger hotel from the 1960s almost all of them have them in other buildings right so let's continue a search next slide here we did a show about one eyes pretty much you see the floor plan here the first time the whole floor plan it's a double loaded corridor which is unfortunate because we are up for a single loaded and so you don't get the cross breeze and then at least this tower has a lanai which is good but then again we were looking up another term that is describing these sort of lanais if there are some even better and that's the term logia yeah and logia by definition says it's a balcony that's open to one side or more but the or more doesn't exist here correct six she only open and that basically traps the heat yeah and doesn't allow the natural ventilation to do its job as much and then on top of that you have the glass guard right which is just keeping eat in exactly and at this point let's be sort of simply me sentimentally romantic about some buildings from the mid-century easy breezy pioneering era and that's the next slide here and which are these well they all want a building we are very fond of that and we're also fond of the 1350 alamuana condo as well the alamuana building obviously had its exterior louvers that moved yeah and the alamuana condo is is open but it's also as we were pointing out it's also got solid walls to help insulate from the danger of too much glass which turned you into a hotbox and insulating through shading today no one would ever do that you want glass glass glass view view but saying that brings too much overheating so maybe we gotta like the indigenous the all-fetched holly was like well we keep the heat out it's hot enough that's right we need to stay cool and sometimes maybe a little less slide isn't that bad yeah we lost that unfortunate yeah so next slide here is the floor plan enlarger so it also has the north air which we credit them for so we didn't have to put it in so the units are pretty much facing east and west and then it has sort of the end the two ends of it but it brings back a good thing as well which is a little luxury in this sort of very commercial profit-oriented typology here which is that what the kahala apartments that we just think to Andrea Gretzsche as a resident yeah had us there saw again and then also the alamuana building that we just mentioned is putting the hallway of that's accessing the elevator and the staircases making that run to the very side and getting lied in from so we want to commend yes it for that much more pleasant experience of both situations than the which we need to call the shining corridor yeah so next slide here so this is a picture of the architectural model in the heart use showroom and something we're very sorry and and sad not to see because hardwag and sacrates but a tacos and guys from the authorities have basically allowed us to do our favorite easy breezy staircases and they haven't done this they interiorized and we were discussing that exactly and it's most likely because they want to maximize their rentable syllables for a footage and staircases are not so let's just dump them on the inside and that's very unfortunate yeah I agree I agree I'm so let's do the next slide so is this really I mean there we see the bottom right is the second hard use tower that has no lanais the very first one has some so this one here has many but at this point we start to question now is it really living up to its sort of idle of the other sugar plant or is it more or less frozen condition yeah it is anyways because it can't move right and maybe it takes the whole inspiration to literal which gets us to the next slide because this is how the architectural gazettes are basically talking about it and at the very bottom there's a San Francisco tower and they basically nail it down and saying it's twisting bay window so how did you put it you said she seems to have that one thing there's one little there's one little iconic thing which is taken for a location and then that becomes the justification or the claim for the building it's supposed to be and that might seem a little shallow and our tropical tutor Bill was actually getting even more to the point when we were you know inviting him to the discussion he said okay sugarcane are we talking indigenous or invasive and it was we already said that was in a day I mean you said yeah you guys brought it right sugarcane to the one that you said you've been around and you know and it's been a while since you saw that absolutely there used to be sugarcane everywhere and everybody who lived here at a certain time in mid-century was surrounded by sugarcane yeah it's all gone now because that's not a crop anymore yeah so how much of an inspiration could it have been for yeah or is more superficial and super imposed right who knows and Bill was bringing up the question maybe it's more about cash crop that is perhaps sells it right so the next slide here is another reminder of a building that was probably more biochromatic if you do the whole analysis and that's the good tower as part of the Hilton Hawaiian village by Edwin Bauer and we talked about it you know it it has these solid parts as well here on the south side you know yeah and and actually the level of exotic erotic curviness is actually way more sexy than I think the other one will be so again maybe revisit these things and try to be better than them and next one to pour a little bit more water into this wine here this is the largest unit and it's facing the very Mackay end of it and so and up there you see the panoramic of the hard-use models and it's put in there in the middle and while again the north era north is up so while this sort of Lenai is facing south so that shades but then there is this huge window on the side it's facing south and southeast so let's go to the next slide which the renderer here was was honest about and he rendered the Sun that basically comes in so this from its biochromatic performance it's pretty much the glass box yeah that's as you always so spot-on call it gets ornated mm-hmm as something Hawaiian mm-hmm but it's basically a dress right and it's not inherent it's not substantial and we were sort of joking because we looked like how does actually the sort of inhabited environment of people and plants engage and these are two they call them the red bugs and they they have fun they make love and on one leave so maybe you could have investigated a little bit more in the actual thing to stay true to your and a promise even more and from which capacity are we talking let's go to the next slide what is that the solo well this is your project in Germany and it's the treetops apartments these apartments are not dissimilar from what we just saw but you did point out that and the windows on the right in this picture there are shades so they obviously do have to keep the sun out to some degree yeah but this is this is a building built to take advantage of the trees which were already in place correct yeah obviously this tower that we're talking about in Honolulu is far far far taller than that so it won't ever ever be exactly the same as what you did and this situation is almost reverse or flip mirror to the hard use situation so we have the lanai on the left and he has it on the right and vice versa this unit is the top unit so it doesn't get the privilege of the trees the floors below basically are shaded better next slide shows the project here in plan with a north arrow and this was by the way built one and a half decades ago so we got sliding doors we got the glass car rails which we're happy because when it got that brisk wind you want nice to be you want a windbreak exactly in a cold wind if Martin has been built like that some one and a half decades ago and a totally opposite climate then don't do it here right because then it doesn't fit correct and that's where we're seeing but how could we build here that's the point so we're gonna close out the show right polemic propositions right next slide so what do we see here well we see one of the primitiva towers and this is one of the towers that your classes have just have designed and we've got an exterior sort of a netting which can be used to collect water from when there's rainfall and the rainfall water can be used not only for growing plants but also people can actually bathe in it if they want yeah and this is sort of like you know the same theme of that they just you know made up intellectually of the zones but this is only logically right because at the most peripheral that's where the water is that's where it rains and you can catch that as you perfectly analyze that correct and then you can capture it and it also can overflow and basically feed the next zone which is the vegetated zone and past that there is no rain coming in anymore because the layering kind of helps so I think that's something we would suggest if you come up with a theme then be serious and then live up to that but you got to then go out of your way I guess get to get out of the conventional oh yeah and in another way too and this is really exciting get up the next slide because you told me a story just before the show yeah that fascinated me so yeah one of the things that you've been saying is can people live more communally can people live more openly in some of these in some of these theoretical buildings that your classes have designed and I told you that one of my co-workers at Bishop Museum when he was a child he lived in Waimanalo and he and his family every summer would camp for the whole summer on the beach at Waimanalo they lived right near there were no as we kindly call them suburban nomads or workforce people and they just choose to live out exactly and because they would then get there and spend the whole summer there the city and county began to say well wait you can't stay here the whole time you have to have a permit and you got to leave so that makes the sort of proposition less weird because you know why do we have to carve out our why have to own and possess and and be obsessive with possessing why can't we share more you know and this is what Primitiva is suggesting it but next slide second to last if you want to live more compartmentalized there's Primitiva one and again it's taking nature as an inspiration in a less sort of literal way but more figuratively but it looks it the the form of the tower is cylindrical and that has a very pragmatic reason because you want to build in the most economical in the most efficient and effective way and a hollow tube is the most structurally sturdy it's actually more sturdy than a solid rod and that's as one of the reasons why bamboo chooses that form so again nature can be an inspiration but then nothing looks I mean architecture is architecture nature is nature but this is in is is employing and basically applying means and methods of nature correct for architecture but not trying to mimic not trying to make it look like it is literally so phasing out the last slide thanks to our founding father and uncle Jay Fidel here who sent us an announcement last night what was that about well it's that the Alamoana Center is asking for a variance in its height limitation so they can build up to 400 feet which the surrounding properties are now being constructed that way as we have talked about particularly because the transit station is going to be there and so this could mean some very dramatic changes for that particular area of town yeah and they were pointing out a particular site which is next to the Macy's right on the ocean side and this is exactly where we had proposed this one here a while ago this is one of the potential locations for primitive one and we basically proposed that as to be the proletarian people power right tower primitive right and it's housing the workforce that works on the mall that do all the dirty jobs and the low paid we have to drive far out to the ever plains and get up two in the morning to make it here keep these people where they work they will be more productive they will be way more happy and then you infuse it according to exotic escapism expert Suzanne is a new sort of future of tourism yeah where you're more a visitor a short-term visitor you may inclusive so you want to mingle and live with these people and work together so that's what we would propose if one would ask us and we probably have to turn to this developer I heard it's a Canadian guy well maybe need to knock on their door and say hey how about that yeah anyway so more about that in the next shows we see you next week for another episode of human human architecture and until then please stay substantially versus so facially green all right all right