Event Details:

Tues, August 3rd, 6:30PM
Waikiki Parc Hotel,
2233 Helumoa Road, Honolulu
free to the public.

Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing after the presentation.

This lavishly illustrated book traces the life and work of Hart Wood (1880-1957), from his beginnings in architectural offices in Denver and San Francisco to his arrival in Hawaii in 1919 as a partner of C. W. Dickey and eventual solo career in the Islands. An outspoken leader in the development of a Hawaiian style of architecture, Wood incorporated local building traditions and materials in many of his projects and was the first in Hawaii to blend Eastern and Western architectural forms in a conscious manner. Enchanted by Hawaii’s vivid beauty and its benevolent climate, exotic flora, and cosmopolitan culture, Wood sought to capture the aura of the Islands in his architectural designs. Hart Wood’s magnificent and graceful buildings remain critical to Hawaii’s architectural legacy more than fifty years after his death: the First Church of Christ Science on Punahou Street, the First Chinese Church on King Street, the S & G Gump Building on Kalakaua Avenue, the Honolulu Board of Water Supply Administration Building on Beretania Street, and the Alexander & Baldwin Building on Bishop Street, as well as numerous Wood residences throughout the city.

Don J. Hibbard administered the State of Hawai’i’s historic preservation program in 1981-2002 and now works as a heritage specialist. He has written several books on Hawaii architecture, including The View from Diamond Head and Designing Paradise. Glenn E. Mason, AIA, heads Mason Architects in Honolulu and has published several articles and essays on Hawaii’s historic architecture. Born and raised in Hawaii, Glenn received an M. Arch. from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1974 and then returned to Honolulu, where he has worked for 34 years in new construction as well as in his specialty, the preservation of historic buildings. Since 1978 he has guided thirteen successive phases of restoration of ‘Iolani Palace. A past president of AIA, Honolulu Chapter, and the Hawaii State Council, AIA, Glenn currently serves on several other not-for-profit boards.

Books being available for purchase signing at the talk

Mr. Tang, who graduated from the University of Kansas with Honors in 1989, is a registered Architect at Ferraro Choi and Associates, Ltd. He has 20 years of experience in a variety of projects in retail, high end residential, public housing, military housing, resorts and restaurants and most recently, healthcare. His skills include design, project management and construction management for both interiors and architecture.

His hobbies include drawing, painting, model building, carving, printmaking, sculpting, and making Halloween costumes.

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Lorena Yamamoto—Second Honorable Mention

After spending 10 years in Los Angeles and the Bay Area, Lorena Yamamoto returned home to Hawaii and joined her father’s practice, Roy K. Yamamoto Architect, AIA, Inc. in late 2009.  Lorena’s work is an assemblage of various influences from her academic and professional career blended with her interests in graphic design, rapid prototyping and sustainability.  Lorena has been involved with LEED certified projects at varying scales as a designer with Los Angeles firms Johnston Marklee & Associates and Graft, Inc. She played an integral role on project teams for the first LEED gas station, Helios House in Los Angeles and the largest LEED certified development in the world, City Center in Las Vegas. Lorena also received a comprehensive perspective on sustainability as a designer for David Baker & Partners in San Francisco, where the firm focused on minimizing environmental impact through transit oriented, mixed-use developments throughout the Bay Area.

Lorena received a B.S. in Architectural Studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Master of Architecture degree from the University of California Los Angeles School of Architecture & Urban Design. During her studies at UCLA, she received the Mimi Perloff Fellowship in 2006 and also graduated with distinction in 2008.

Being a person with a graphic design background and a strong interest in architecture, I was especially excited to see Jennifer Siegal’s lecture. It might have been her portfolio of work or the title of her lecture, but for me, it was her portrait. Symmetrical: her arms fallen comfortably to her sides with her hands meeting in front as she holds a pair of red wings firmly… held high enough as if she is offering it to you, the viewer. The gift of mobility.

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Her work is clean, sophisticated, well thought out, and representative of our times. It has everything you need in a structure… and nothing you don’t need. It is an expression of our values of today combined with our needs of tomorrow. (Tomorrow is the key word.) She said, “When you’re not pushed to perform, there’s a reluctance to see beyond what’s already here.” Siegal has overcome this.

Using reclaimed and high-performance materials, she designs modular pieces, prefabricated, then assembled on site to what will become… a home. “These buildings have no borders,” she said.

After the lecture, the young aspiring architect beside me said, “She’s everything I thought she would be: strong, intelligent, and confident.” He forgot to add “brilliant.”

http://www.hawaiipublicradio.org/hpr/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4505&Itemid=70

“I’ve always loved the idea of a trailer park”, says Jennifer Siegal roughly 3 minutes, 30 seconds into her interview with Noe Tanigawa on Hawaii Public Radio.

For Siegal, the concept of a “third space” for shared activities that fit between the things you do in the privacy of your home and those you do in public) is an important one in her work. And perhaps it should be an important one in our own home, where space is limited and the forces driving development don’t seem to be letting up.

In what was perhaps a reference to our own ongoing Architecture competition, Takigawa asks if Siegal is suggesting the framework of a “New Community Architecture”. No doubt she is.

But Siegal has some interesting things to say about Hawaii as well. 22 minutes in, she touches on the interesting history of the ownership of land and how it might cue us moving forward. A few minutes later she touches on the impact that more responsive, potentially bio-engineered materials, might enable ocean dwellings clad in sharkskin! (ok that’s stretching what she said a little…)

Towards the end she mentioned how creativity can often come out of a lack of resources. That’s something that Interisland Terminal couldn’t agree with more.

If you’re free at 6:00PM today, join us at the UH School of Architecture auditorium to hear Siegal’s lecture: Generation Mobile – The Death of Distance. If you’re not, listen to the long version of the interview between now and then, and it might convince you to make the time.

Interisland Terminal presents Competition for New Community Architecture

Emerging-career architects in Hawaii have relatively few prospects to see their own work complete the process of design-to-build.  The current economic downturn further exasperates this lack of opportunity, creating even more uncertainty around the question, “How will Hawaii’s next generation of architects shape our community’s built environment and contribute to creating a robust, local civic life?”

Today, 50 years since Statehood, Interisland Terminal endeavors to (re)build an architecture and design vernacular in Hawaii that is truly civic and that will draw renewed attention to emerging local talent working in architecture and design.  We will do so by launching an annual Competition for New Community Architecture to create new opportunities for the community to determine its own architectural landscape, and support the skilled, local architectural talent who will shape our built-environment through the next 50 years.

The Competition’s purpose is three-fold:

• Support and highlight the work of emerging-career architects in Hawaii
• Create challenging opportunities to design and build new work from start-to-finish
• Raise awareness of contemporary architecture and its potential to uplift our civic landscape and improve our day-to-day lives

The Competition will launch in January 2010 and be open to early- to mid-career architects (including students) practicing in Hawaii to submit designs according to the Competition Briefing, which addresses an organizational challenge faced by the Competition “Client,” Ballet Hawaii.  Registration for the Competition can be found here.  Specifically, the Competition challenges Hawaii architects to design and build a transportable merchandising and information kiosk that Ballet Hawaii can use at its various performance venues to help promote its unique programs and facilitate merchandise sales that support the organization.

A jury of local and national leaders in architecture will select a winner in April 2010:

• Amy Anderson, Associate Professor, University of Hawaii School of Architecture
• A. Kam Napier, Editor, Honolulu Magazine
• Marion Philpotts, Board Member, Ballet Hawaii, Senior Designer, Philpotts and Associates
• Jennifer Siegal, Founder and Principal, Office of Mobile Design (OMD) (Los Angeles)

Guest Juror Jennifer Siegal, will also be giving a talk at the University of Hawaii School of Architecture on April 8, 2010. Siegal is known for her work in creating the mobile home of the twentieth century. She is founder and principal of the Los Angeles’ based firm Office of Mobile Design, which is dedicated to the design and construction of modern, sustainable and precision-built structures.

The winning design will be refined, built and put into use in August 2010 to coincide with the opening of Ballet Hawaii’s fall season.

The expected short-term impacts of the Competition are:

• Renewed confidence and vigor from emerging-career local architects
• Growth in ticket sales and a diversified audience at Ballet Hawaii
• Heightened public awareness and participation in partner organizations

Sponsoring Organizations

• Atherton Family Foundation
• Colliers Monroe Friedlander
• Hawaii Architectural Foundation
• HonBlue
• Hotel Renew
• LEF Foundation
• Pacific Development Group
• University of Hawaii at Manoa School of Architecture