September 9, 2024 • 57 mins
Ever wondered how architecture can be more than just buildings? Join us as we chat with Kevin Hui of Archimarathon, an architecture tour curator, educator, YouTuber and social media savant. Kevin shares his inspiring journey from creating architecture running tours to collaborating with Andrew Maynard on a YouTube channel, especially during the pandemic. Get ready to explore the critical issue of Melbourne's declining studio culture and discover Kevin’s innovative co-working studio space designed to revive camaraderie and bridge the gap between academic learning and real-world practice.
Kevin and our hosts dive into the necessity of making architecture communication accessible to a broader audience. Learn the benefits of fostering open and relatable dialogues about architecture, which help students and enthusiasts alike to appreciate the human side of acclaimed architects. This episode is packed with insights on how to make complex architectural ideas more relatable and engaging for everyone.
From spontaneous, humor-infused architecture tours to the discrepancies between architectural photography and real-life experiences, we cover it all. Kevin takes us behind the scenes on the logistics of running dynamic architecture tours that blend infotainment with education. We also discuss the evolving methods of teaching architecture, the irreplaceable value of experiencing architecture in person, and the importance of genuine interactions in digital content creation. Tune in for an episode brimming with authenticity, education, and a fresh perspective on architecture.
If you are interested in joining one of the acclaimed Archimarathon tours you can find out more at, https://www.archimarathon.com/, or check out their amazing YouTube series at, https://www.youtube.com/c/archimarathon.
Episode Chapters:
0:00 - Reviving Architecture Studio Culture
12:48 - Improving Architecture Communication Accessibility
18:11 - Architectural Tours
28:57 - Exploring Discrepancies in Architecture Perception
40:21 - Modern Education Critique and Collaboration
55:57 - Interviews
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Gerard Dombroski (00:00):
Hello everyone , thanks for tuning in again to
the Design Principles podcastwith myself, gerard, Ben and Sam
.
Today we are talking with a bitof a legend.
He's an architecture tourcurator, an educator, a YouTuber
.
Alongside Andrew Maynard, heoutputs a lot of great content
(00:21):
online which you shoulddefinitely check out.
He is Kevin Hui of aki marathon.
Aki marathon, let's get into it.
Kevin, do you want to give uslike a little intro on who you
(00:44):
are and what aki Marathon is,for those who have no idea?
Kevin Hui (00:47):
Well, aki Marathon originally is about running
tours and traveling to seabuildings, and hence the Aki
Marathon part.
I usually plan these superdense architecture tours and
hence the marathon Lots ofwalking, lots of public
transport.
So that's the starting point.
(01:08):
And then we started that in2018.
And then andrew maynard fromaustin man architects, friend of
mine, decided to um, let's doyoutube in 2020, just in around
february, all right, um, and theidea was oh, yeah, we'll make
(01:28):
more content, we get paid totravel, we're going to make it
big and uh, get sponsors and getsponsored to travel and make
more content.
Uh, and then this little thingcalled uh I don't know you may
heard of it covid got in the waythey managed to make its way
over the Dutch, yeah.
Yeah, so yeah, we ended upmaking videos without being
(01:50):
overseas and just startedtalking about everything
architecture and architectureeducation-related issues and
then we've been travelling againand then 2022, this space
became became available, whichis right next to awesome man
architects office.
So we started a studio space totry to bring back studio
(02:12):
culture for students inmelbourne awesome.
So this is like a co-workingspace studio that, um, that's
trying to bring back what usedto be studio culture which
people from from overseas,especially in America and Europe
, they're just going.
How can you have architectureeducation without a studio space
?
But, yeah, this is the realityin Melbourne and that's what
(02:34):
we're trying to do.
Gerard Dombroski (02:35):
How did you guys identify that sort of need?
Was that interaction withArchie Marathon online?
Kevin Hui (02:44):
No, it's just.
I've been teaching for a longtime so I can see the sort of
the death of the architecturestudio culture or the lack of it
.
So students just go home afteruni and just work by themselves,
rather than the camaraderiethat happens, conversations, a
little soft skill conversationthat happens in studio spaces,
(03:07):
rather than all they think aboutis just their own project.
It's always about aconversation with others yeah
and you know that's superimportant.
When you go out and work.
You need to have that abilityto just ask questions when it's
needed.
You can just this kind of handyjust to look over someone's
shoulder and go hey, you've beenstaring at that screen for
three hours, what exactly areyou doing?
(03:28):
yeah and then everyone justgoing here.
There's a quicker way to dothis.
Let's uh.
Yeah, what are you trying toachieve?
And you know, having thatconversation and just having
removing yourself from that, uh,that single-minded yeah
definitely helps with learningnew software and that sort of
thing as well it's interestingthat you say that, uh, in Europe
and in the States and things,they've got a bit more of a
(03:49):
studio culture and less so inAustralia.
Sam Brown (03:51):
I kind of feel like we had a bit of a studio culture
here, but maybe not to theextent that studio culture used
to be.
Is it worth sort of maybeoutlining the way that education
does run there in Australia, ormaybe particularly in Melbourne
?
Kevin Hui (04:08):
Well, it's a big money-making business, isn't it?
Now just the university.
Just think all the spaces arebookable and they can use for
teaching, rather than a spacejust given to students and go
you work here.
Gerard Dombroski (04:21):
Oh wow, so they have no dedicated space of
their own?
Oh, that's crazy.
Ben Sutherland (04:26):
No, that's wild, yeah that is a shame I mean,
there are some spaces, but thenthere's no culture, there's no,
you know, conversation, that wesee, yeah you know, whereas here
we have got people fromdifferent universities,
different year levels, workingcool oh man, yeah, was going to
ask if it was tied in with anyuniversity, but I guess it's
just more of like a studentbenefit of anything.
Kevin Hui (04:50):
Yeah, yeah, and it's also tied in with practice.
We just literally sorry, I waslike also made architects,
decided to have a design meetingover in our space, so and
invited everyone else to to joinin, just to make the design
better.
So there was a conversationwith practice.
Basically just seeing that youknow, because that's how often
(05:14):
you learn is through osmosis.
Sam Brown (05:15):
Yeah, yeah, yeah cross-pollination is so
important, particularly forstudents.
I mean, like we we're well,we're a very small practice but
we have graduates come throughand sort of teach them up
through that process, but it'squite formalized.
You know, I think having thatlittle drop in ability to a
professional practice,particularly as a student, is so
critical to understanding howarchitecture works in the real
(05:39):
world.
I don't know what it's likethere, but Gerard and Ben all
attest to this.
I mean, architecture schooltaught us a lot of things
critical thinking, design, allthat sort of stuff but it didn't
really prepare you forarchitecture or being an
architect, I should say.
Gerard Dombroski (05:54):
Yeah, there's definitely a leap between the
two.
So I think like imagine that ifarchitects came in and had
design meetings in studio, thatwould be.
I think that would blowstudents' minds.
Unreal projects, yeah.
Ben Sutherland (06:07):
Yeah, I think our university we went to all
three of us went together atVictoria University in
Wellington there, but I thinktheir studio culture was quite
strong, or back in our yearanyway, and I certainly am still
trying to bring some, some ofthe that, the that culture into
(06:27):
my day-to-day practice.
Uh, just, I don't know, and nowit's like come down to if we
can like catch up for morningtea and have a bit of a design
session here and there, or Idon't know.
It's a lot harder, especiallybecause we're, you know, not
exactly most the time we're justworking by ourselves.
So interacting with otherarchitects is a huge bonus
(06:51):
really.
Gerard Dombroski (06:53):
Back to that isolation.
Me and Gordon Young lived andbreathed studio.
It was some epic times that Ilook back on with quite a lot of
fondness.
Kevin Hui (07:07):
Yeah, I think we're sort of older generation.
We went through those thingsand I remember there was a 25
year anniversary from Universityof Tasmania, where Andrew
studied, and they were having agathering here, the reunion, and
then some of the students weresitting here going, oh my god,
can we, can they think of?
Would they ever have likephotos and memories like you
(07:31):
know those guys had back in theday at uni?
So now they just they don't.
There's not much memory beingformed such as the things that
you actually happens in thestudio and it's kind of
tight-knit community.
Now it's just a course, theyjust do stuff.
Yeah, where do they?
Ben Sutherland (07:45):
learn all their model-making skills.
Sam Brown (07:50):
Or get the person with small hands to do the
difficult model-making for you.
Gerard Dombroski (07:55):
The learning of software was a big one I
found in the studio.
Definitely Some of thoselearning those programs are
quite complex.
Ben Sutherland (08:02):
I still miss that for sure.
I'm like, oh, if only there wassomeone to uh, you know, tell
me how to do this crazyscheduling or something like
that.
Gerard Dombroski (08:12):
You know, it's so key how does, how does the
space work um from the uhfinancial?
So?
Kevin Hui (08:21):
it's a bit like a co-working.
Yeah, it's a bit like aco-working model, but we've kind
of dropped it quite a lotpricing-wise.
So, yeah, they just pay forit's about currently $19 a week.
What?
Ben Sutherland (08:36):
Man take my money.
Kevin Hui (08:38):
It used to be a lot more.
Yeah, it used to be a lot more,but it's still like people
paying and they're lucky.
It's like selling an iPad.
I think a lot of students arestill not getting the idea of,
like you need to be here.
If you're doing uni work at uni, you'll be doing uni work at
home.
You're missing the point.
Sam Brown (08:52):
Yeah, yeah, are you noticing?
I mean, are you noticing adifference between the students
that are using studio andstudents that aren't?
In terms of like work outcome,design, direction?
Kevin Hui (09:03):
learning, I think the ones who are actively here.
They involve the criticalthinking and discussing others'
projects.
At first they were going, oh,but I'm spending all this time
on others' projects.
And I said, well, you choose toengage in that conversation
because you are learning from it.
You know you do, and that's whythey get kind of addicted in
that conversation.
And, yes, I think there's a lotmore objectivity to be able to
(09:31):
stand back and look at a taskthat's doing and think, well,
what, what's the outcome, what'sthe end outcome we're trying to
achieve, instead of at themoment, now, everything's so
prescribed you have to.
You know they're just doingthese assessments and constantly
just doing a thing handed in,doing a thing handed in and
doing a thing handed in and notthinking about a big picture
like what is the purpose of that, and so, yeah, they're able to
look at that because they lookat someone else and think, okay,
well, what are we doing?
(09:53):
But what's the end result we'retrying to get to?
What's the quickest way to getthere?
How do you iterate quickly?
Sam Brown (10:00):
As well for students.
I mean, you're learning yourown design voice, you're
learning how to design all thesethings, and I think having that
depth of knowledge around youor that depth of others'
experiences around you is justgoing to ultimately make you a
more well-rounded designerrather than, I imagine, based on
(10:21):
the system that you sort ofdescribed, you have people that
will come in first year with acertain idea of what they want
to be as a designer and leaveafter five years having never
changed, which is quite uhinteresting and also, I think,
uh disappointing.
Really what?
Kevin Hui (10:37):
ultimate goal for design education, I guess, is to
be able to critique yourselfyeah, which is super hard, we
all know how hard that is.
But if they don be able tocritique yourself yeah, which is
super hard, we don't know howhard that is.
But if they don't practicecritiquing others, which is a
lot easier and to see and torationally look at critical
thinking, and how do youactually simplify and understand
(10:57):
that you're not going to makethat step?
It's just easier to practice onothers, eventually be able to
do it to yourself, and also thatthat process is about learning
to step away from your owndesign to your own ego and look
at what someone, when someoneelse, is doing, and trying to
find clarity in that.
And that's what I learned, Iguess you know, as an educator
that's.
I learned a lot of this stuffafter I left uni, really just to
(11:19):
realize how valuable critiqueis as a, as a method of learning
really.
Sam Brown (11:25):
Yeah, and are you having like sole practitioners
or professionals come in and usethis space as well, Because I
can imagine that they'd stillbenefit from it massively.
Kevin Hui (11:34):
Yeah, we have Open Corner.
We have also got Optics andArchitects working there as well
at the moment.
But yeah, mainly it's studiospace and drinks.
Often I invite friends inindustry to come in and have a
conversation with the studentshere.
Ben Sutherland (11:53):
And so what are you?
Are you predominantly doing?
You know, organizingarchi-marathon stuff there as
well, or?
Yeah, that's the main goal.
Kevin Hui (12:04):
Yeah, that's.
Yeah, that's the main, the maingoal.
Yeah, that's what.
Yeah, that's yeah, trying tokeep this place afloat and
spending time with the studentswhen needed and, um, yeah,
making content and, uh, planningtours.
Gerard Dombroski (12:18):
Basically, yeah there's a nice little and I
should be going out there andgetting sponsors there's a nice
little relationship between allthe parts that I quite like,
like the, and then you kind ofhave this ability with to
communicate your intent behindarchie marathon as well through
your youtube like yeah, it'seducation and social engineering
(12:43):
yeah, it it's brilliant Becausewe do that with our tours as
well.
Kevin Hui (12:48):
We get quite a mix of people practitioners and
students and enthusiasts and wemake sure that there's a
conversation at the end of mostdays and everyone has a voice
and at the end of it, like thestudents really do gain a lot of
confidence in just realizingsome of the award-winning
(13:11):
architects are just other humanbeings and can have a decent
conversation about it andknowing a sort of mechanism, how
to actually have a criticalconversation about architecture
as well.
And enthusiasts sometimesthey're super sharp.
Sam Brown (13:26):
It's amazing what they say and what they see as
well I feel like they'd almostbe less hindered by fears of
like making a critical point.
You know their likes anddislikes, I imagine, be far more
prevalent than ours.
I feel like we quite often area bit cagey to make a true
criticism yeah, um for multiplereasons yeah, is
(13:51):
that because you don't want toget criticized yourself, sam I
think it's more that we have avery strict code of ethics which
sort of limits that,particularly in new zealand,
that like you know that, uh, you, that a true open criticism,
particularly of professionalwork, is sort of frowned upon
here, which?
Kevin Hui (14:09):
makes things a little bit difficult.
At the same time, architectsare usually pretty damn critical
of that, which is part of theproblem, and that's why we have
a no negativity policy in oursocial media.
We're trying to make sure wetalk about and explain to people
what's great about thesebuildings.
We see we're trying to pickgood ones and why design and
(14:35):
architecture matters, as opposedto we can always be critical
about oh, that doesn't work,this, that and there's plenty of
that stuff online.
I don't think that's actuallyvery healthy for the state of
profession.
You know, we really need to beexplaining.
To lay people like what what'sgreat?
Ben Sutherland (14:52):
yeah, yeah, I remember I designed this
building once and it made itinto a magazine and reading some
ladies comment was just likewhat's so great about this?
It's just a box with a window.
Gerard Dombroski (15:07):
It's so funny.
Instagram is awesome for us.
Kevin Hui (15:10):
I mean, yes, the social media.
Obviously, there is a lot ofnegative comments, as usual, and
, yeah, certain platforms TikToktend to be worse.
Instagram is better and it'sinteresting that we are getting
messages of people that they'renot into architecture but they
really appreciate some of thethings that they've been seeing
(15:32):
and learning about.
And, of course, we still getthe negative ones.
But, yeah, it's good that we'reslowly turning people over.
Gerard Dombroski (15:40):
I just think that the communicating
architecture to everyone isawesome and I think so necessary
and something that I don'tthink we do a lot in new zealand
, like we often communicatearchitecture to each other and
we'll buy magazines made forarchitects and yeah, within
their realm of architecture orarchitects yeah, but.
Kevin Hui (16:05):
Yeah, we're very we use very esoteric language as
well.
You know Aki speak, which makesit quite inaccessible to the
public.
Yes, and when you look atscience, you know they have
complex ideas, you know, andthen they have these amazing
(16:25):
science communicators.
We've got Professor Brian Coxand Neil Grassey Tyson and those
people are explaining verycomplex ideas to the public and
making it accessible.
And I think architecture weneed that.
We're actually pretty badcommunicators, yeah.
Sam Brown (16:43):
Yeah, we get very caught up in our own world,
that's for sure.
Kevin Hui (16:46):
So it's great that you guys are doing podcasts and
stuff and trying to reach out.
Sam Brown (16:50):
Well, I mean, yeah, that was one of the ideas behind
us starting the podcast was tomake architecture just more
accessible to everybody really,because exactly the point that
we've all just made is it'selitist within itself in a way.
Like you know, we sort of justtalk about architecture to other
architects and, yeah, it's alittle bit hard for the general
(17:12):
public to grasp what it is we dobeyond the realms of shows like
Grand Designs and things likethat, which don't always, you
know, paint us in the best lighteither.
So I mean, I really what youguys are doing, I mean I
massively appreciate and Iactually really like I was
watching your um episode on newyork the other day.
I was there last year, maybenot the same.
(17:35):
You guys must have been thererecently, were you, or?
yeah, yeah, but there was alsothe one that was actually filmed
last year you're probably therearound the same time that I was
, it was stonking hot and youknow, I think it was just the
reality of visiting a place andinteracting with it you just
portrayed really well, you know,like a.
(17:57):
I mean, you're obviouslyarchitects and you're critical
of work and you know you're sortof interacting in an
architectural way, but it's soeasily relatable to the general
public and how they'd interactwith the space as well.
I thought that was really good.
Kevin Hui (18:10):
Thank you.
Yeah, we actually do mostthings one take.
There's no script, we just gookay, let's go, let's talk.
Sam Brown (18:19):
Nice, I like that.
I like that honesty.
Otherwise, you can tell whenthings are scripted.
Yeah.
Gerard Dombroski (18:27):
I think the use of humor as well is quite
cool and is, I think, a verypowerful tool in communicating,
like getting people to actuallylisten to things.
Kevin Hui (18:38):
Well, yeah, again, we look for things like
infotainment.
You know Top Gear, for exampleGreat show, you don't have to be
into cars to like it.
In fact, at the end of it yougo, oh, it's a great show, but I
learned about cars, so I thinkthat's, that's the model that we
, we look to, um, as a, as a wayto talk about architecture,
(18:59):
just like two idiots walkingaround talking about stuff and
being idiots and then, oh,architecture happened to be in
it.
Gerard Dombroski (19:06):
Yeah, that's brilliant Jeremy Clarkson, sure
he can make TV.
Ben Sutherland (19:11):
Yeah, he's a master, isn't he?
Clarkson's fun, clarkson's fun?
Yeah, it'd be great to hear alittle bit more about some of
your upcoming endeavours, someof the tours.
Kevin Hui (19:25):
Tours.
Ben Sutherland (19:27):
How do you even decide where you're going to go?
Is it kind of just like apassion like oh there's some
amazing architecture here, or apersonal preference Densities.
Kevin Hui (19:40):
Density is usually something that I go for, like
the first tours that I raninternationally was spain and
portugal um, one of them, andthen china was another one,
because you get such amazingdensity, amazing layering, old
and new and great food.
Uh, it's usually the choice.
And then I did finland, becauseI know finland really really,
(20:03):
really well and people likeFinland architecturally yeah,
it's amazing how popular Finlandtour is.
And Japan.
So, yeah, I've got two Japantours planned, the same as this
year's Japan tour next year inJanuary.
So that's sort of Tokyo,osakaaka, kyoto, just seeing
(20:26):
sort of overview.
And then I've got probably foreurope next, uh, june, july, we
have two tours back to back, soit's going to be in netherlands
and then probably about 10 daysand then 14 days Germany, yeah,
and then it's September becauseof the expo next year in Osaka.
(20:49):
So hopefully we'll do that.
It's not too hot in Septemberand it finishes in October, so
let's just do September what Icall the deep cuts and B-sides.
So it's Osaka for the expo, butalso some of the other places
(21:09):
and cities and places that isnot on the classic tour.
So this is like you've been toJapan before, we're just going
to go and look for a bit harderto get to things.
Sam Brown (21:20):
Cool, and how many people do you generally take on
the tours?
Kevin Hui (21:25):
I think we've worked out.
The optimum is probably about14 of us, including Andrew and I
, so about 12.
Yeah, I think it's just theright size.
We pushed it a little bit toobig in Finland to be 17 of us
and the dynamics just isn'tquite right.
But yeah, 12 is, I think is thesweet spot.
Gerard Dombroski (21:46):
So you're filming these at the same time,
or like these are separate?
Kevin Hui (21:52):
Trying.
Yeah, the idea was that we'djust go and tour and then film,
but I'm usually just so busytrying to organise and run the
tour, my brain is not in thatfilming space.
Yeah, and then there's aquestion of do I film it
vertically for the reels or do Igo horizontally instead?
Of cameraman because horizontalis youtube, so that takes a lot
(22:15):
more.
Yeah, well, that's, that is it.
I've done everything with thisthat's so cool.
Yeah, battery pack you don'tneed anything else nowadays.
Ben Sutherland (22:22):
That's it technology yeah, it's crazy,
must be super hard, I canimagine quite stressful to
organize, do you?
Generally?
Just how do you go aboutreaching out to some of these
spaces or some of these people?
Kevin Hui (22:41):
um, some of them are, oh my god, japan, all the
opening hours.
So I know At least how tojigsaw, puzzle all together In
terms of dates and what have you.
Well, a lot of them areliterally Just like what I do
the things you just stumbleacross, you just walk in.
(23:04):
There were a few things thatwere specially booked to get to
because they wouldn't let youjust walk in, that I know, like
the Kate Plaza, a workshop byJunya Ishigami, we were able to
organize Koshino House by TadaoAndo that was open, which is now
(23:24):
a gallery, but otherwiseeverything is.
It's no real booking, only therare ones.
And yeah, you know, sometimesit's a little bit too hard to
try to book everything, and thenit, yeah, yeah, it doesn't
allow for the flexibilitysometimes yeah I was gonna I was
gonna say does it, does it yeah, it would, if I worry it's
(23:47):
pretty well churned, yeah, Imean you look at day one.
This is pretty hectic.
Sam Brown (23:53):
That's crazy.
Kevin Hui (23:54):
That's day one.
That's day two.
Ben Sutherland (23:58):
There must be 50 different spots on day two,
maybe A lot, yeah yeah.
All right.
Kevin Hui (24:05):
But then if you've been to Japan, you know, like
Omotesando, it's like yeah,there, there's another one,
there's another one.
It's right next to each otherand there's not much you can see
like, yeah, it's, it's there,it's a shop, okay.
So it, some of those ones arejust like bang, bang, bang.
Uh, some of the other ones will.
We can go in and enjoy andspend a bit of time.
(24:26):
So really it's playing by ear.
It's really curation, becauseit's not about the list.
It is the list but also justknowing the research and going.
Okay, if we have to skipsomething, what will you skip?
And then which one you need tospend more time in?
And sometimes it's serendipity,so you know, suddenly you walk
up and then they go.
(24:47):
Oh, someone comes out and theygo hey, hey, do you want to
check this bit?
Out, yeah, like that's notusually open to the public it's
like great, please, that'sawesome, cool.
Then it ends up.
You know that's what happens.
So it's designed in a certaincertain looseness to to do that
as well.
But at the same time, you know,I just hate the fact that.
Oh, they come back and say thatthing was just around the
(25:10):
corner.
Ben Sutherland (25:10):
I did, yeah, definitely, I had a little
architecture tour of uh tokyo bymyself, but I wasn't as
organized as as you obviouslyare.
So you'd like open up your mapand you'd be like, oh you know,
I could walk there and then walkthere, and then walk there what
you don't realize is howmassive tokyo actually is and
(25:30):
you spend half the day walkingjust to the first destination
yeah, yeah, and there's so manythings you go to, you go.
Kevin Hui (25:39):
Oh, was it worth it.
Sam Brown (25:41):
Yeah, I guess, like over the years now you'll be
slowly curating a like a prettygood, concise like list, did I
mean?
Like obviously it's new foreverybody on the tours?
What about for yourself andandrew?
Does it get tiresome looking atthe same buildings?
Kevin Hui (25:59):
oh well, andrew, definitely it's his.
Uh, he has very short attentionspan so and uh, yeah, he gets
bored pretty quickly.
So I don't know how it is, interms of repeating things, that
he did do the repeat of finlandthis year, so he was all right,
he survived nice.
Ben Sutherland (26:18):
Do you guys have like themes often, or do you
kind of just, is it, the themeis kind of this, the city.
I always thought it would beawesome to tackle projects.
You know, when you're liketrying to learn something about
a particularly, saysustainability or or concrete or
something like that, and thenyou just all you want to do is
(26:39):
like go and visit 20 buildingsof uh, you know a good um
example?
Um, do you have that sort ofthing or was it?
Kevin Hui (26:49):
whatever you can fit in, uh, well, I think, whatever
you can fit in, I think you knowagain it's the same thing like
but that was just around thecorner, like why would you go
all the way to see that and notsee that?
But yes, often there is aongoing theme.
For example, in finland, mostpeople think it's a timber
buildings and stuff, but thenit's a lot of really, really
good concrete.
We had a builder on the tourand he was just yeah, he was
(27:12):
expecting just timber buildings,but he was surprised the
quality of concrete buildings infinland, which most people
don't know about.
Ben Sutherland (27:19):
Yeah, that's awesome good to hear a builder
getting out there as well, I'vegot to say yeah, yeah, yeah, we
get pretty interesting mix ofpeople, yeah um that ishigami
plaza.
Gerard Dombroski (27:34):
Is that the university, one with the holes?
Kevin Hui (27:37):
yep yeah, I'm hoping to have that out as a youtube
episode, hopefully hopefullyawesome.
Gerard Dombroski (27:46):
Um what?
What did you think of it inperson?
Because I'm I love, loveishigami and like very into how
it's pretty amazing, um, butokay, this is being negative.
Kevin Hui (28:01):
Yeah, it is spectacular space, just to see
that being used.
But uh, yeah, it's just likethings in japan sometimes, just
how it sits against other thingsand there's some other details.
It's like, oh, is that it?
Yeah it's not as japan is notas finished as I think most
people see it.
You know some of the stuff yougo, oh, is that?
(28:21):
Is that the door?
Is that it?
Sam Brown (28:23):
yeah I'm sure you've seen that yeah, a bit better
than in real life.
Kevin Hui (28:28):
Yeah.
So you know, there are momentsyou thought it would be like so
perfectly finished, and thenit's like, yeah, the aspects of
it that's perfectly finished,and there's stuff that just
feels like clumsy.
More, something like thejunctions or yeah, I mean the
doors are great and yeah.
Sam Brown (28:51):
Yeah, I remember going making an effort to go out
to the Gertz collection byHerzog and then Muran in Munich.
It was for a long time one ofmy favourite buildings, but I
went there in the depths ofwinter and I hadn't actually
realised until visiting it inperson that the facade was
timber yes, most people thinkit's concrete.
(29:11):
I always thought it was concrete.
But I'm there in the middle ofwinter and it was sort of
looking pretty weathered, prettytired and I was, like quietly
disappointed.
I was just like I built thisthing up to be so big in my head
and then it just sort of lookeda bit drab.
And I was like, like oh, it wasthe early work there is in the
(29:32):
early 90s that this design does,and then there's a huge
extension underneath yeah, Imean, it's still an absolutely
incredible gallery and anamazing piece of architecture,
but it just wasn't quite whatyou'd sort of imagined from all
the photography that you'd seen.
Kevin Hui (29:48):
Yeah, having said that, this, uh, I took andrew
there many years ago in fact,that's when he coined the term
archaea marathon, because it wasin middle winter and you know,
he came on one of my own tours.
Uh and um, yeah, it's like inthe middle of a blizzard he goes
.
This is like a marathon it's anarchaea marathon, uh, but yes,
uh, but yes I time, because Iactually in my itinerary I write
(30:12):
down sunrise, sunset times.
Gerard Dombroski (30:15):
Oh nice.
Kevin Hui (30:17):
So knowing, for example, the sun long, good I
would think, okay, when does thesun set in Germany around that
time?
So, because you know it glowsat night.
So, picking the right time tosee the day and it sort of gets
dark, and see the night, butthat would be something I would
do yeah, there's definitely abenefit there of doing the tour,
(30:38):
because most of us learnarchitecture or photos seeing a
building oh, it's great when yousee things that are better than
the photos, and that's oftenthe case.
Any, any, standouts um, oh,they're too many, too many to
mention.
Um, and the things you justdidn't even know existed and
(30:59):
like, wow, and usually the localones that you kind of never
heard of.
I mean alto, for example.
Everyone goes to finlandbecause of our alto and then you
get so Alto'd out.
It's like, yeah, there's somegood ones, but they're not all
that great and there's somereally amazing stuff you've
never heard of and it's like whydidn't we know about this?
(31:21):
But oftentimes, yeah, there arephotos that look really good
and then in real life it's like,oh, is that it?
It's a lot of art, dailybuilding.
Of the years that we've been to, it was by far the worst
building.
Gerard Dombroski (31:31):
Oh wow, it was crazy Interesting.
Kevin Hui (31:32):
That we saw.
Yeah, and that's not me sayingit.
That's some of the studentsgoing wow, is that it?
Why are we spending time here?
Sam Brown (31:39):
That's fascinating, eh, and interesting that I mean
so often projects, particularlyinternational awards, are judged
off photographs.
I mean judging panels can't flythe globe to see everything,
yeah, but you can't experiencearchitecture like that.
It's such a tactile art form,you know.
Yeah, it's quite interestinghearing that to be the case in
(32:00):
reality.
For you guys is sort of thatsort of level of disappointment.
Kevin Hui (32:05):
Well, it is the social media space as well,
isn't it?
Like a lot of students look tonow, it's just the.
They're even trying to makerenders and things you know for
Instagram.
Sam Brown (32:14):
Yeah.
Gerard Dombroski (32:18):
It's pretty big in the marketing world,
isn't it?
Ben Sutherland (32:21):
Yeah, yeah, I've always wanted to do one of
those tours and they just soundso cool.
I guess the experience pays foritself.
Really, in terms of design,would be, you know, the best,
best form of education, isn't it?
Kevin Hui (32:41):
yeah, yeah, it's also quite a refreshing thing to
just remind yourself like whatyou're in for from an
architect's point of view,because you know when you're
just deep, every day, you'rejust working away.
You know you're not, you don't,you don't have that kind of
luxury.
I keep saying it's like chefs,you know um, you just need to go
out and eat try some differentrestaurants after a while,
(33:05):
rather than just working andworking on it.
Ben Sutherland (33:08):
Do you do any little micro local tours as well
?
Kevin Hui (33:14):
I used to do interstate ones like Sydney and
Brisbane.
I haven't done that for a while.
I kind of retired Sydneybecause I did a few and I got
pretty bored of it.
But, Australia's got some greatarchitecture.
I should be, yeah, bored of it,but Australia's got some great
architecture.
Gerard Dombroski (33:34):
I like those little videos you and Andrew do
on individual houses and stuff,like some of them has been
Andrew's houses.
I think I used to watch hisYouTube videos when I was at
architecture school and Iremember thinking that that was
such like a brilliant distilledlittle micro grand design
(33:56):
episodes and that's why nobodyelse did them.
So I'm glad they've beenreincarnated.
Sam Brown (34:06):
And that was sort of before the power of social media
as well, Gerard.
Gerard Dombroski (34:09):
Yeah, power of social media as well, gerard.
Ben Sutherland (34:10):
Yeah, power of youtube yeah it would be helpful
just critiquing your own, doingyour own kind of walkthroughs
post construction.
I can imagine that would besuper interesting, like oh,
didn't expect that to come outlike that.
Or you know, this is a lotbetter than I thought it would
be, or it would be a lot of fun.
Kevin Hui (34:30):
Yeah.
Well, they're not things youwould say and show, yeah, you
know, quietly just thinking God,you know how you get so fixated
over a thing that just didn'thappen the way you thought it
was going to happen.
Even though it's great, no oneelse cares, yeah, but for you
it's like, oh, that's thebiggest sticking point.
Sam Brown (34:51):
It's, but for you it's like oh, that's the biggest
sticking point.
Yeah, the amount of times thatyou notice a defect or something
that's wrong, that nobody elsedoes, and you mention it to
someone and they're like why didyou tell me that?
I know it's so funny.
Ben Sutherland (35:03):
No one else can even see them, but you just get
addicted and fixated on theselittle things.
Yeah, I don't know if they'remade up or not, it's pretty
funny.
Sam Brown (35:15):
It's like being back at university and I remember
editing renders and you'd be inPhotoshop down to the pixel
changing colors and you're likeno one's going to notice us.
Kevin Hui (35:26):
Well, that's actually something we do in the studio
because we have this amazingprojection wall that's really
big and it's a whiteboard aswell.
It's magnetic.
So they're working on stuff.
We always go what's the scale,what's the drawing, what scale
are you going to be outputting?
So we're forcing students tooutput stuff to scale so they
(35:48):
can look at it and go okay, nowsit back, this is how they're
going to see it.
Do you see any of the stuffyou're drawing?
Gerard Dombroski (35:55):
No, then it's going to waste your time.
Kevin Hui (35:57):
Because, unfortunately, time is something
we waste a lot of as architects, unfortunately and it's kind of
cultivated early on fromuniversity.
Not because we're nothardworking, I think we've just
misguided how we spend the time.
Again, it's not about timemanagement either.
This is actually it's a biggerpicture than time management.
It's actually understandingwhat you actually need to do.
Ben Sutherland (36:20):
Yeah.
Kevin Hui (36:22):
And how much you actually need to do.
Ben Sutherland (36:24):
Yeah, definitely .
Kevin Hui (36:25):
And this is something that's dawned on me and some of
the students have actually beensaying, uh, and some of the
students actually been saying it.
Some of the students who wenthere, um, are telling others,
like it's at the universitylevel, your product is 2d
because that's all you do.
It's really presenting a schemeand most of it is just 2d.
(36:46):
It's a graphics, even as a 3dimage of something.
It's a graphics, even if it's a3D image of something it's a 2D
image and it's hard to wrap yourbrain around it because you
think everything is 3D but it'sactually not.
It's actually a thing on paperor on the screen.
And so what do you need to doto get to that?
It doesn't mean the computerprogram is going to do it.
It could be Photoshop, it couldbe masking out something.
Gerard Dombroski (37:15):
It could be photoshop, it could be masking
out something, could be a bit ofliquid paper, could be anything
.
Yeah, that's cool.
I quite enjoyed doing those24-hour design competitions
during university, kind of liketaught you a little bit to
prioritize certain things yes,yeah, it's amazing what you can
good plan 24 hours yeah, yeah,definitely, yeah, the whole time
and good bonding.
You're living in the studio,you know?
Sam Brown (37:34):
yep, yeah yeah, do you run any competition type
things or studio events such asthat?
Kevin Hui (37:41):
no, we had students from different universities
doing competition together andoh cool in their off time, and
that was great learningexperience for them.
Because instead of universitiesspelling out this is what you
need to do nowadays, they haveto spell everything out every
step, which I think istroublesome.
It's a competition.
It's like here's a competition,here's the brief, this is the
(38:05):
submission requirements.
Here's some of the panels andsizes we need.
Go.
So that forces them tostrategize, to think about what,
who's got what skills and youknow, pulled together that, and
also just thinking, well, what,what time frame?
At what point do you need tohave what?
And uh, and get it, you know,and communicating the idea
(38:29):
that's what's important.
Ben Sutherland (38:29):
These students are getting a lot for 19 a week.
It sounds awesome.
It's so good.
Can I come?
Kevin Hui (38:37):
well, that's yeah, it's the mindset yeah, it's so
good because I think, as aprofession, we need to.
We need to be more efficientwith time, because time is what
we complain about, time is what,what we charge, and yeah, we
just need to have more efficientgraduates.
Who can you know?
Ben Sutherland (38:56):
work effectively .
Sometimes you just need time tothink though to make things
more productive.
I think, as you were sayingbefore, it's just the planning.
Getting the planning right canreally streamline a project.
I'm learning that a lotrecently, that's for sure.
Kevin Hui (39:13):
We're learning and still constantly reviewing what
needs to be done.
But yeah, it's interesting.
A lot of students think, oh,they're going to come to the
studio, they have to do extrastuff.
They think it's an extra thingon top and they don't have time
for it.
And the whole idea is that it'sthe other way around, that if
you're time poor, you need to behere and strategize and think
(39:37):
about what you need to do.
The point is, we're not tryingto make your life difficult.
The whole point is to make yourlife better.
Ben Sutherland (39:45):
Absolutely.
Sam Brown (39:46):
So, kevin, what brought you to creating, you
know, creating this studio thing.
I mean we've sort of talkedabout how it benefits the
students, but I mean it's quitean interesting, you know, from a
professional perspective it'skind of interesting.
It seems and correct me if I'mwrong but you've sort of really
committed yourself to this sortof betterment of the future
(40:07):
generation of architects,whether it be through the studio
environment or whether it bethrough informing people through
the YouTube videos and things.
What's brought you or what'skind of driven you in this
direction?
Kevin Hui (40:20):
Well, I've always taught.
I've taught for a long time,over 20 years, at various
universities and I teach incritical thinking and uh, and
all the stuff, all kind of, someof the stuff I'm trying to
teach here Uh, and even just,you know, critiquing on certain,
uh, character traits andproblems that students have in
(40:42):
terms of how they're dealingwith a problem or whatever.
And of course now you can't saythese things at universities
and of course now you can't saythese things at universities,
and I always said that the firstthing in all my teaching is
always social engineering.
I try to break down thatbarrier very, very early on.
Again, things I can't do atuniversity anymore.
I used to bring out here's thesubject handout and here's a
(41:07):
slab of beer, and then, you knowwhat, just to loosen up the
conversation, we used to getbeer runs in the middle of the
session.
Hang on, here's the subjecthandout and here's a slab of
beer, and then you know what,nice, just to loosen up the
conversation.
And we used to like get beerruns in the middle of the
session and go right, we needmore, and it's just, let's go,
and it's just this greatconversation and everyone just
gets involved in learning how tocritique each other and having
this great sort of camaraderiethat helping each other was an
(41:27):
important thing in the education, the camaraderie that helping
each other was an importantthing in the education.
And since I left university andalso leaving practice, I just
need to find something to do andI thought, okay, well, I love
traveling, I love architectureand I love teaching.
So the tours were the startingpoint.
And then YouTube, and then thisspace came up because we were
(41:51):
already talking about mindsetsand teaching students about how
to think about dealing with theuniversity, because you can't
change university.
University is obscene.
Colleagues trying to do it, itjust doesn't happen.
So I thought we can changestudents' mindsets.
That would help them but alsohelp people teaching it as well.
So that became that.
(42:14):
And then this space came up andit was like, well, let's put
things to practice like whatwe've been talking about.
Let's run the space and seewhat happens.
I used to back before COVID, Iwas using WeWork, the co-working
spaces to work at, because Ijust need people around me as
well, and that kind of gave mepart of the idea of how this
(42:38):
could work.
It's a sort of one-day sort ofco-working space, slash studio.
Sam Brown (42:46):
It's amazing the influence that you've been in
education for 20 years and it'salmost like you through archie,
marathon and the variousventures, you're able to touch
or influence so many more peoplein such a shorter amount of
time.
It's like I don't know, it'sjust it's quite incredible, like
the influence that this formathas, um, and I think that's
(43:10):
internationally as well.
I think that's quite powerful.
Kevin Hui (43:13):
It is amazing to get emails from students and
graduates from Africa and Indiaand saying, yeah, this is great,
they really appreciate the helpthat they had.
Yes, so instead of teaching 16students at one time, now you
know we've got access tothousands of people.
Sam Brown (43:33):
Hundreds of thousands .
Yeah, it's a powerful thing.
Kevin Hui (43:36):
Well, yeah, millions millions.
Sam Brown (43:38):
It's a plan right.
Gerard Dombroski (43:40):
It's a very sparsely populated earth.
Yeah, I think it's awesome Likeyou've got like your little
course criteria, little studies.
I guess you could liken it tolike the design fundamentals
videos, like your mindsetsvideos.
I think those are prettyawesome assets for students
(44:02):
everywhere to sort of plug into.
Kevin Hui (44:03):
Yeah, it's just the old lectures that I had that I
used to give every now and then.
And, yeah, it's great to put itinto a format that students are
comfortable with these days.
I've seen students seen a packof lectures watching students
watching a lecture, and thenthere'll be like laptops are up
and then there'll be a YouTubevideo playing at the same time
(44:24):
the lecture is going.
Then I realized, oh, maybeYouTube is and social media is
probably the way to go.
Just how can you communicatequicker?
Because lectures are long anddrawn out, it's a performance
and it really depends on theperson performing.
(44:45):
And sometimes they're just thesame old lecture you've been
giving for years and years andthe same, with that emotion.
And, yeah, I think this puts,you know, the dissemination of
information and knowledge usinga much more innocent medium.
(45:07):
And it could be very what's theword I'm looking for condensed.
But at the same time, you knowpeople if they're interested,
they will rewatch it, but thenyou know they're doing that with
lectures.
Anyway, they're recordinglectures but we know that
students don't really watch thembecause you can see who's
actually watched it and thereare students I know that that
(45:29):
apparently said yeah, they can'twait till the lecture to be
finished, because it's recordedso they can watch it again at
double speed.
Gerard Dombroski (45:35):
Yeah fascinating love the speed up
short attention spans yeah yeah,that short attention span must
be.
Ben Sutherland (45:44):
I mean, it's getting shorter and shorter, so
it's good.
We need better ways to dealwith it, somehow, if we're going
to continue to educate.
Not sure if these hour-longpodcasts help in that realm.
Gerard Dombroski (45:57):
Yeah, we've got two times speed.
Kevin Hui (46:00):
Well, it's conversational, it's unscripted,
so that works.
Ben Sutherland (46:04):
And audio is easy because you can just turn
it on in the background, tune inand out as you see fit and take
snippets of the mostinteresting parts, I guess.
Gerard Dombroski (46:14):
So I guess this is like a revolt against
university.
Do we dare delve into thatdiscussion?
Kevin Hui (46:26):
Well, yeah, I guess university are we, do we dare
delve into that discussion of?
Well, yeah, I guess you knowthat there are a lot of people
doing other things.
Now that's, that's great andthe supporting I I would say
supporting university just whatthey're not doing, that they
can't do, their amount of redtape and things.
So you know it's, it's a result.
We kind of see it as a certainbroken aspect to the system.
But you know there are peopleout there doing other things.
Gerard Dombroski (46:47):
The university .
Kevin Hui (46:48):
I think it's a support.
Gerard Dombroski (46:49):
Yeah, the university we went to in the
last few years has taken away ormade critique optional.
Like you, don't have to do thecritique anymore.
Kevin Hui (46:59):
Oh.
Gerard Dombroski (46:59):
Which I fear for those students trying to
like present a design to aprospective client, like if
you've never been told no, ornever been told to explain your
idea, it's.
It's kind of scary.
Ben Sutherland (47:14):
Yeah, it's a big part, isn't it?
Sam Brown (47:17):
huge.
I feel like tears and tearspost a critique is the right
passage as well.
Gerard Dombroski (47:27):
And doing it all nighter and then just
standing up and doing thecritique We've all been there
Not being able to find yourwords because your brain's
switched off.
Sam Brown (47:37):
Yeah present your idea to a client and then you
cry as a result.
Gerard, do you know what thatjustification for making
critique optional is?
Is it so people don't getabsolutely reamed out?
Gerard Dombroski (47:50):
I think it's just hurt feelings if we boil it
down People don't want to havetheir feelings hurt.
Ben Sutherland (47:55):
It hurts my feelings that they've cut the
critiques.
Sam Brown (48:00):
I think it's optional , so, like my understanding and
you're right about it's being,you know, dangerous for
professional practice, thoughlike we, you know, as architects
, in particularly at the momentbecause we are operating in such
a difficult uh, constructionclimate, we're having our
feelings hurt multiple timesdaily.
At the moment, it feels likeyou're becoming very
(48:23):
thick-skinned.
Kevin Hui (48:25):
That's why they need to watch my episode on how to
survive.
Critique Exactly.
Ben Sutherland (48:29):
There you go.
Kevin Hui (48:30):
Perfect, this is not a personal attack.
Yeah, it should never be apersonal attack.
Gerard Dombroski (48:34):
No, yeah, you learn a lot more than the person
critiquing you, and it's likethe person's offering you
critique, it's like a you know,it's a nice gesture, even if it
feels confrontational, because,yeah, you've associated your
feelings to your design.
Ben Sutherland (48:53):
Your ego gets bruised.
It is like that, though I kindof remember every single person
that critiqued me at university,so it is a kind of feels like a
big thing at the time, that'sfor sure what about when I
critique your projects, man?
I just rip, I throw them awayand start again after that no, I
(49:19):
think it's, I don't know.
Gerard Dombroski (49:21):
I see it as a sign of generosity, like
somebody's investing in you andyour design skills.
I think it's a very generousthing to do to somebody.
Yeah, providing you.
Kevin Hui (49:34):
And back in the day you would have that absolute,
terrible sort of critique.
You know with your project, andthen you know with the tutor or
guests, and then afterwards youcan all get it up together and
have a drink, have a chat, andthen you realise it's all okay.
Ben Sutherland (49:53):
I would actually love to you know, just speaking
of you critiquing me, gerard, Iwould love more critiques.
If anything in my life, I thinkI could.
I think just like the level ofspeed of learning that you know,
you, the progression, um, andthe design outcome.
Just going through thatcritique, getting various
(50:13):
people's opinion, it eitherconfirms what you already knew
or it just shows anotherperspective on other ways or
other considerations.
So I'm extremely pro-critiquing.
Kevin Hui (50:30):
And it also forces you to explain it.
Gerard Dombroski (50:34):
Yes, it draws it out of your mind, like when
you read your essay out loud toyourself Puts reality to it.
Sam Brown (50:43):
It's something that you definitely lose, I found,
particularly when starting myown practice.
It's something you lose as asmall practice is that ability
to critique or be critiqued, andoften when I started out, I
went to other architecture firmsand friends and peers and asked
them to basically give mefeedback and critique my work
and I found that really helpful.
(51:04):
Probably do less so these days,maybe just because I've got less
work on, but you know, I thinkthat's one benefit of being in a
large firm is that you know youhave that body of people around
and, like you've been saying,Kevin, with the studio kind of
format and having Austin Maynardnext door, you know you've kind
of got that larger body ofpeople around to be able to
(51:26):
critique as well, which is quitecritical.
Ben Sutherland (51:30):
Do some of the other professional designers do
some pinups every now and thenfor the students?
I can imagine they'll benefitsignificantly from it as well.
It'd be awesome.
Kevin Hui (51:42):
Not so much, but, yeah, mainly from us and ArtTix
and ArtTix and ArtTix whenthey're working they can
overhear the presentations toclients or to consultants.
Yeah, all the in-housediscussions.
That happens because they justproject that on the board, the
big board.
Gerard Dombroski (52:00):
They control over it and everyone can see and
poke at it that's awesome, thatthe studio style things
something that I find missingfrom my my practice specifically
, but like I'm a solepractitioner for the most part.
I used to co-work, uh, with afriend, like we went halves on
(52:22):
the rent and what have you, andthat was an awesome time.
But he's buggered off overseasto more exciting events and
sometimes me and Ben hang out.
But I'm quite a social personso it's weird that I every day
drive out to the hut and sit ina shed by myself.
Definitely could implement somemore studio culture in my own
(52:48):
life.
Ben Sutherland (52:49):
Yeah, I definitely could too.
Sam Brown (52:51):
We should tee up a studio session.
Yeah, get some students inthere Sounds good, just like all
of us smaller people.
Ben Sutherland (53:01):
people, we should just get together some
beers, like Kevin said,generously pick each other apart
, start a podcast, yeah we'llstart start a podcast where we
just go around talking to designprofessionals getting rid of
the past maybe we start doingpinups on our podcast and
(53:26):
getting these professionals togive us some feedback.
Sam Brown (53:32):
So, kevin, I mean you've been, you've been, you've
been around the world.
You've seen a lot of buildings,I think, being touched on it.
Do you have any?
Do you have any standouts?
Kevin Hui (53:43):
That's too many really.
I think, yeah, it reallydepends on the situation as well
.
Sam Brown (53:52):
Oh my god that is a lot of photos.
Ben Sutherland (53:56):
No way that's insane.
Gerard Dombroski (53:58):
What storage are we talking with on that?
That's a 100% on Apple Cloudsame what's.
What storage are we talking towith all that?
That's?
Sam Brown (54:02):
that's at least that's quite a lot yeah it's
impressive and any, any plansfor a new zealand tour um, I've
been asked that.
Kevin Hui (54:18):
Well, the problem is that I think all the good stuff
are tend to be houses and it'shard to get to places yeah, I
think your condensed programprobably doesn't work so well
here no, it's not about you'rewalking around and it becomes
like being bussed around and youknow, I've heard that this
generosity in new zealand peoplejust go yeah, let's check out
(54:38):
my house.
They're pretty generous.
But again, I don't think themodel it's about.
You know, part of part of it isthe in between.
It's getting to a place whenyou sort of only do is really
kind of being driven on bussomewhere else.
Sam Brown (54:53):
You kind of don't have that same experience as you
know public transport andseeing how people live and I
guess it's as much as well asmuch guess it's as much as as
much as experiencing the contextas it is in the culture as well
and the food and beer yes it'simportant.
Gerard Dombroski (55:18):
Is there anything else you wanted to sort
of highlight, kevin, before wewrap?
Kevin Hui (55:22):
things up.
Yeah, watch our, watch ourYouTube.
Gerard Dombroski (55:28):
Instagram, it's blowing up on our yeah,
your Instagram's huge.
It's wild.
I thought you were a.
Kevin Hui (55:33):
Kardashian or something it's but Instagram is
actually the the biggest channeland it's actually a lot easier
to manage as well.
Because of the short form, Ican churn it out a lot quicker.
And it's a better formatbecause I think the idea of
serving it up to anyone who'snot interested in architecture,
(55:53):
but somehow the algorithm put infront of them they go.
I didn't know.
I liked this.
This is great.
That's much better than theYouTube model, which is like a
thumbnail.
There's a title you could clickbait it.
It's like do I want to clickand watch this?
Ben Sutherland (56:08):
big smiling mugshot where can our listeners
find you on on Insta and YouTube.
Kevin Hui (56:14):
Hockey Marathon, just google Hockey Marathon.
It'll be on Insta TikTok if youhave to but be nice, be nice,
be nice yeah.
Sam Brown (56:25):
Be the change.
Be nice with your critics.
Ben Sutherland (56:28):
Awesome.
Thank you so much for jumpingon.
Kevin Hui (56:33):
Thanks for having me.
Gerard Dombroski (56:34):
Yeah, very appreciative and love what
you're doing.
I think we'll see some copycatsin the time.
Ben Sutherland (56:42):
Hopefully the podcast can come on tour with
you one day.
That'd be quite the privilege,that'd be awesome.
Kevin Hui (56:48):
Sounds good.
Do a live version.
Ben Sutherland (56:50):
Absolutely, that'd be so cool.
Hello everyone , thanks for tuning in again to
the Design Principles podcastwith myself, gerard, Ben and Sam
.
Today we are talking with a bitof a legend.
He's an architecture tourcurator, an educator, a YouTuber
.
Alongside Andrew Maynard, heoutputs a lot of great content
(00:21):
online which you shoulddefinitely check out.
He is Kevin Hui of aki marathon.
Aki marathon, let's get into it.
Kevin, do you want to give uslike a little intro on who you
(00:44):
are and what aki Marathon is,for those who have no idea?
Kevin Hui (00:47):
Well, aki Marathon originally is about running
tours and traveling to seabuildings, and hence the Aki
Marathon part.
I usually plan these superdense architecture tours and
hence the marathon Lots ofwalking, lots of public
transport.
So that's the starting point.
(01:08):
And then we started that in2018.
And then andrew maynard fromaustin man architects, friend of
mine, decided to um, let's doyoutube in 2020, just in around
february, all right, um, and theidea was oh, yeah, we'll make
(01:28):
more content, we get paid totravel, we're going to make it
big and uh, get sponsors and getsponsored to travel and make
more content.
Uh, and then this little thingcalled uh I don't know you may
heard of it covid got in the waythey managed to make its way
over the Dutch, yeah.
Yeah, so yeah, we ended upmaking videos without being
(01:50):
overseas and just startedtalking about everything
architecture and architectureeducation-related issues and
then we've been travelling againand then 2022, this space
became became available, whichis right next to awesome man
architects office.
So we started a studio space totry to bring back studio
(02:12):
culture for students inmelbourne awesome.
So this is like a co-workingspace studio that, um, that's
trying to bring back what usedto be studio culture which
people from from overseas,especially in America and Europe
, they're just going.
How can you have architectureeducation without a studio space
?
But, yeah, this is the realityin Melbourne and that's what
(02:34):
we're trying to do.
Gerard Dombroski (02:35):
How did you guys identify that sort of need?
Was that interaction withArchie Marathon online?
Kevin Hui (02:44):
No, it's just.
I've been teaching for a longtime so I can see the sort of
the death of the architecturestudio culture or the lack of it
.
So students just go home afteruni and just work by themselves,
rather than the camaraderiethat happens, conversations, a
little soft skill conversationthat happens in studio spaces,
(03:07):
rather than all they think aboutis just their own project.
It's always about aconversation with others yeah
and you know that's superimportant.
When you go out and work.
You need to have that abilityto just ask questions when it's
needed.
You can just this kind of handyjust to look over someone's
shoulder and go hey, you've beenstaring at that screen for
three hours, what exactly areyou doing?
(03:28):
yeah and then everyone justgoing here.
There's a quicker way to dothis.
Let's uh.
Yeah, what are you trying toachieve?
And you know, having thatconversation and just having
removing yourself from that, uh,that single-minded yeah
definitely helps with learningnew software and that sort of
thing as well it's interestingthat you say that, uh, in Europe
and in the States and things,they've got a bit more of a
(03:49):
studio culture and less so inAustralia.
Sam Brown (03:51):
I kind of feel like we had a bit of a studio culture
here, but maybe not to theextent that studio culture used
to be.
Is it worth sort of maybeoutlining the way that education
does run there in Australia, ormaybe particularly in Melbourne
?
Kevin Hui (04:08):
Well, it's a big money-making business, isn't it?
Now just the university.
Just think all the spaces arebookable and they can use for
teaching, rather than a spacejust given to students and go
you work here.
Gerard Dombroski (04:21):
Oh wow, so they have no dedicated space of
their own?
Oh, that's crazy.
Ben Sutherland (04:26):
No, that's wild, yeah that is a shame I mean,
there are some spaces, but thenthere's no culture, there's no,
you know, conversation, that wesee, yeah you know, whereas here
we have got people fromdifferent universities,
different year levels, workingcool oh man, yeah, was going to
ask if it was tied in with anyuniversity, but I guess it's
just more of like a studentbenefit of anything.
Kevin Hui (04:50):
Yeah, yeah, and it's also tied in with practice.
We just literally sorry, I waslike also made architects,
decided to have a design meetingover in our space, so and
invited everyone else to to joinin, just to make the design
better.
So there was a conversationwith practice.
Basically just seeing that youknow, because that's how often
(05:14):
you learn is through osmosis.
Sam Brown (05:15):
Yeah, yeah, yeah cross-pollination is so
important, particularly forstudents.
I mean, like we we're well,we're a very small practice but
we have graduates come throughand sort of teach them up
through that process, but it'squite formalized.
You know, I think having thatlittle drop in ability to a
professional practice,particularly as a student, is so
critical to understanding howarchitecture works in the real
(05:39):
world.
I don't know what it's likethere, but Gerard and Ben all
attest to this.
I mean, architecture schooltaught us a lot of things
critical thinking, design, allthat sort of stuff but it didn't
really prepare you forarchitecture or being an
architect, I should say.
Gerard Dombroski (05:54):
Yeah, there's definitely a leap between the
two.
So I think like imagine that ifarchitects came in and had
design meetings in studio, thatwould be.
I think that would blowstudents' minds.
Unreal projects, yeah.
Ben Sutherland (06:07):
Yeah, I think our university we went to all
three of us went together atVictoria University in
Wellington there, but I thinktheir studio culture was quite
strong, or back in our yearanyway, and I certainly am still
trying to bring some, some ofthe that, the that culture into
(06:27):
my day-to-day practice.
Uh, just, I don't know, and nowit's like come down to if we
can like catch up for morningtea and have a bit of a design
session here and there, or Idon't know.
It's a lot harder, especiallybecause we're, you know, not
exactly most the time we're justworking by ourselves.
So interacting with otherarchitects is a huge bonus
(06:51):
really.
Gerard Dombroski (06:53):
Back to that isolation.
Me and Gordon Young lived andbreathed studio.
It was some epic times that Ilook back on with quite a lot of
fondness.
Kevin Hui (07:07):
Yeah, I think we're sort of older generation.
We went through those thingsand I remember there was a 25
year anniversary from Universityof Tasmania, where Andrew
studied, and they were having agathering here, the reunion, and
then some of the students weresitting here going, oh my god,
can we, can they think of?
Would they ever have likephotos and memories like you
(07:31):
know those guys had back in theday at uni?
So now they just they don't.
There's not much memory beingformed such as the things that
you actually happens in thestudio and it's kind of
tight-knit community.
Now it's just a course, theyjust do stuff.
Yeah, where do they?
Ben Sutherland (07:45):
learn all their model-making skills.
Sam Brown (07:50):
Or get the person with small hands to do the
difficult model-making for you.
Gerard Dombroski (07:55):
The learning of software was a big one I
found in the studio.
Definitely Some of thoselearning those programs are
quite complex.
Ben Sutherland (08:02):
I still miss that for sure.
I'm like, oh, if only there wassomeone to uh, you know, tell
me how to do this crazyscheduling or something like
that.
Gerard Dombroski (08:12):
You know, it's so key how does, how does the
space work um from the uhfinancial?
So?
Kevin Hui (08:21):
it's a bit like a co-working.
Yeah, it's a bit like aco-working model, but we've kind
of dropped it quite a lotpricing-wise.
So, yeah, they just pay forit's about currently $19 a week.
What?
Ben Sutherland (08:36):
Man take my money.
Kevin Hui (08:38):
It used to be a lot more.
Yeah, it used to be a lot more,but it's still like people
paying and they're lucky.
It's like selling an iPad.
I think a lot of students arestill not getting the idea of,
like you need to be here.
If you're doing uni work at uni, you'll be doing uni work at
home.
You're missing the point.
Sam Brown (08:52):
Yeah, yeah, are you noticing?
I mean, are you noticing adifference between the students
that are using studio andstudents that aren't?
In terms of like work outcome,design, direction?
Kevin Hui (09:03):
learning, I think the ones who are actively here.
They involve the criticalthinking and discussing others'
projects.
At first they were going, oh,but I'm spending all this time
on others' projects.
And I said, well, you choose toengage in that conversation
because you are learning from it.
You know you do, and that's whythey get kind of addicted in
that conversation.
And, yes, I think there's a lotmore objectivity to be able to
(09:31):
stand back and look at a taskthat's doing and think, well,
what, what's the outcome, what'sthe end outcome we're trying to
achieve, instead of at themoment, now, everything's so
prescribed you have to.
You know they're just doingthese assessments and constantly
just doing a thing handed in,doing a thing handed in and
doing a thing handed in and notthinking about a big picture
like what is the purpose of that, and so, yeah, they're able to
look at that because they lookat someone else and think, okay,
well, what are we doing?
(09:53):
But what's the end result we'retrying to get to?
What's the quickest way to getthere?
How do you iterate quickly?
Sam Brown (10:00):
As well for students.
I mean, you're learning yourown design voice, you're
learning how to design all thesethings, and I think having that
depth of knowledge around youor that depth of others'
experiences around you is justgoing to ultimately make you a
more well-rounded designerrather than, I imagine, based on
(10:21):
the system that you sort ofdescribed, you have people that
will come in first year with acertain idea of what they want
to be as a designer and leaveafter five years having never
changed, which is quite uhinteresting and also, I think,
uh disappointing.
Really what?
Kevin Hui (10:37):
ultimate goal for design education, I guess, is to
be able to critique yourselfyeah, which is super hard, we
all know how hard that is.
But if they don be able tocritique yourself yeah, which is
super hard, we don't know howhard that is.
But if they don't practicecritiquing others, which is a
lot easier and to see and torationally look at critical
thinking, and how do youactually simplify and understand
(10:57):
that you're not going to makethat step?
It's just easier to practice onothers, eventually be able to
do it to yourself, and also thatthat process is about learning
to step away from your owndesign to your own ego and look
at what someone, when someoneelse, is doing, and trying to
find clarity in that.
And that's what I learned, Iguess you know, as an educator
that's.
I learned a lot of this stuffafter I left uni, really just to
(11:19):
realize how valuable critiqueis as a, as a method of learning
really.
Sam Brown (11:25):
Yeah, and are you having like sole practitioners
or professionals come in and usethis space as well, Because I
can imagine that they'd stillbenefit from it massively.
Kevin Hui (11:34):
Yeah, we have Open Corner.
We have also got Optics andArchitects working there as well
at the moment.
But yeah, mainly it's studiospace and drinks.
Often I invite friends inindustry to come in and have a
conversation with the studentshere.
Ben Sutherland (11:53):
And so what are you?
Are you predominantly doing?
You know, organizingarchi-marathon stuff there as
well, or?
Yeah, that's the main goal.
Kevin Hui (12:04):
Yeah, that's.
Yeah, that's the main, the maingoal.
Yeah, that's what.
Yeah, that's yeah, trying tokeep this place afloat and
spending time with the studentswhen needed and, um, yeah,
making content and, uh, planningtours.
Gerard Dombroski (12:18):
Basically, yeah there's a nice little and I
should be going out there andgetting sponsors there's a nice
little relationship between allthe parts that I quite like,
like the, and then you kind ofhave this ability with to
communicate your intent behindarchie marathon as well through
your youtube like yeah, it'seducation and social engineering
(12:43):
yeah, it it's brilliant Becausewe do that with our tours as
well.
Kevin Hui (12:48):
We get quite a mix of people practitioners and
students and enthusiasts and wemake sure that there's a
conversation at the end of mostdays and everyone has a voice
and at the end of it, like thestudents really do gain a lot of
confidence in just realizingsome of the award-winning
(13:11):
architects are just other humanbeings and can have a decent
conversation about it andknowing a sort of mechanism, how
to actually have a criticalconversation about architecture
as well.
And enthusiasts sometimesthey're super sharp.
Sam Brown (13:26):
It's amazing what they say and what they see as
well I feel like they'd almostbe less hindered by fears of
like making a critical point.
You know their likes anddislikes, I imagine, be far more
prevalent than ours.
I feel like we quite often area bit cagey to make a true
criticism yeah, um for multiplereasons yeah, is
(13:51):
that because you don't want toget criticized yourself, sam I
think it's more that we have avery strict code of ethics which
sort of limits that,particularly in new zealand,
that like you know that, uh, you, that a true open criticism,
particularly of professionalwork, is sort of frowned upon
here, which?
Kevin Hui (14:09):
makes things a little bit difficult.
At the same time, architectsare usually pretty damn critical
of that, which is part of theproblem, and that's why we have
a no negativity policy in oursocial media.
We're trying to make sure wetalk about and explain to people
what's great about thesebuildings.
We see we're trying to pickgood ones and why design and
(14:35):
architecture matters, as opposedto we can always be critical
about oh, that doesn't work,this, that and there's plenty of
that stuff online.
I don't think that's actuallyvery healthy for the state of
profession.
You know, we really need to beexplaining.
To lay people like what what'sgreat?
Ben Sutherland (14:52):
yeah, yeah, I remember I designed this
building once and it made itinto a magazine and reading some
ladies comment was just likewhat's so great about this?
It's just a box with a window.
Gerard Dombroski (15:07):
It's so funny.
Instagram is awesome for us.
Kevin Hui (15:10):
I mean, yes, the social media.
Obviously, there is a lot ofnegative comments, as usual, and
, yeah, certain platforms TikToktend to be worse.
Instagram is better and it'sinteresting that we are getting
messages of people that they'renot into architecture but they
really appreciate some of thethings that they've been seeing
(15:32):
and learning about.
And, of course, we still getthe negative ones.
But, yeah, it's good that we'reslowly turning people over.
Gerard Dombroski (15:40):
I just think that the communicating
architecture to everyone isawesome and I think so necessary
and something that I don'tthink we do a lot in new zealand
, like we often communicatearchitecture to each other and
we'll buy magazines made forarchitects and yeah, within
their realm of architecture orarchitects yeah, but.
Kevin Hui (16:05):
Yeah, we're very we use very esoteric language as
well.
You know Aki speak, which makesit quite inaccessible to the
public.
Yes, and when you look atscience, you know they have
complex ideas, you know, andthen they have these amazing
(16:25):
science communicators.
We've got Professor Brian Coxand Neil Grassey Tyson and those
people are explaining verycomplex ideas to the public and
making it accessible.
And I think architecture weneed that.
We're actually pretty badcommunicators, yeah.
Sam Brown (16:43):
Yeah, we get very caught up in our own world,
that's for sure.
Kevin Hui (16:46):
So it's great that you guys are doing podcasts and
stuff and trying to reach out.
Sam Brown (16:50):
Well, I mean, yeah, that was one of the ideas behind
us starting the podcast was tomake architecture just more
accessible to everybody really,because exactly the point that
we've all just made is it'selitist within itself in a way.
Like you know, we sort of justtalk about architecture to other
architects and, yeah, it's alittle bit hard for the general
(17:12):
public to grasp what it is we dobeyond the realms of shows like
Grand Designs and things likethat, which don't always, you
know, paint us in the best lighteither.
So I mean, I really what youguys are doing, I mean I
massively appreciate and Iactually really like I was
watching your um episode on newyork the other day.
I was there last year, maybenot the same.
(17:35):
You guys must have been thererecently, were you, or?
yeah, yeah, but there was alsothe one that was actually filmed
last year you're probably therearound the same time that I was
, it was stonking hot and youknow, I think it was just the
reality of visiting a place andinteracting with it you just
portrayed really well, you know,like a.
(17:57):
I mean, you're obviouslyarchitects and you're critical
of work and you know you're sortof interacting in an
architectural way, but it's soeasily relatable to the general
public and how they'd interactwith the space as well.
I thought that was really good.
Kevin Hui (18:10):
Thank you.
Yeah, we actually do mostthings one take.
There's no script, we just gookay, let's go, let's talk.
Sam Brown (18:19):
Nice, I like that.
I like that honesty.
Otherwise, you can tell whenthings are scripted.
Yeah.
Gerard Dombroski (18:27):
I think the use of humor as well is quite
cool and is, I think, a verypowerful tool in communicating,
like getting people to actuallylisten to things.
Kevin Hui (18:38):
Well, yeah, again, we look for things like
infotainment.
You know Top Gear, for exampleGreat show, you don't have to be
into cars to like it.
In fact, at the end of it yougo, oh, it's a great show, but I
learned about cars, so I thinkthat's, that's the model that we
, we look to, um, as a, as a wayto talk about architecture,
(18:59):
just like two idiots walkingaround talking about stuff and
being idiots and then, oh,architecture happened to be in
it.
Gerard Dombroski (19:06):
Yeah, that's brilliant Jeremy Clarkson, sure
he can make TV.
Ben Sutherland (19:11):
Yeah, he's a master, isn't he?
Clarkson's fun, clarkson's fun?
Yeah, it'd be great to hear alittle bit more about some of
your upcoming endeavours, someof the tours.
Kevin Hui (19:25):
Tours.
Ben Sutherland (19:27):
How do you even decide where you're going to go?
Is it kind of just like apassion like oh there's some
amazing architecture here, or apersonal preference Densities.
Kevin Hui (19:40):
Density is usually something that I go for, like
the first tours that I raninternationally was spain and
portugal um, one of them, andthen china was another one,
because you get such amazingdensity, amazing layering, old
and new and great food.
Uh, it's usually the choice.
And then I did finland, becauseI know finland really really,
(20:03):
really well and people likeFinland architecturally yeah,
it's amazing how popular Finlandtour is.
And Japan.
So, yeah, I've got two Japantours planned, the same as this
year's Japan tour next year inJanuary.
So that's sort of Tokyo,osakaaka, kyoto, just seeing
(20:26):
sort of overview.
And then I've got probably foreurope next, uh, june, july, we
have two tours back to back, soit's going to be in netherlands
and then probably about 10 daysand then 14 days Germany, yeah,
and then it's September becauseof the expo next year in Osaka.
(20:49):
So hopefully we'll do that.
It's not too hot in Septemberand it finishes in October, so
let's just do September what Icall the deep cuts and B-sides.
So it's Osaka for the expo, butalso some of the other places
(21:09):
and cities and places that isnot on the classic tour.
So this is like you've been toJapan before, we're just going
to go and look for a bit harderto get to things.
Sam Brown (21:20):
Cool, and how many people do you generally take on
the tours?
Kevin Hui (21:25):
I think we've worked out.
The optimum is probably about14 of us, including Andrew and I
, so about 12.
Yeah, I think it's just theright size.
We pushed it a little bit toobig in Finland to be 17 of us
and the dynamics just isn'tquite right.
But yeah, 12 is, I think is thesweet spot.
Gerard Dombroski (21:46):
So you're filming these at the same time,
or like these are separate?
Kevin Hui (21:52):
Trying.
Yeah, the idea was that we'djust go and tour and then film,
but I'm usually just so busytrying to organise and run the
tour, my brain is not in thatfilming space.
Yeah, and then there's aquestion of do I film it
vertically for the reels or do Igo horizontally instead?
Of cameraman because horizontalis youtube, so that takes a lot
(22:15):
more.
Yeah, well, that's, that is it.
I've done everything with thisthat's so cool.
Yeah, battery pack you don'tneed anything else nowadays.
Ben Sutherland (22:22):
That's it technology yeah, it's crazy,
must be super hard, I canimagine quite stressful to
organize, do you?
Generally?
Just how do you go aboutreaching out to some of these
spaces or some of these people?
Kevin Hui (22:41):
um, some of them are, oh my god, japan, all the
opening hours.
So I know At least how tojigsaw, puzzle all together In
terms of dates and what have you.
Well, a lot of them areliterally Just like what I do
the things you just stumbleacross, you just walk in.
(23:04):
There were a few things thatwere specially booked to get to
because they wouldn't let youjust walk in, that I know, like
the Kate Plaza, a workshop byJunya Ishigami, we were able to
organize Koshino House by TadaoAndo that was open, which is now
(23:24):
a gallery, but otherwiseeverything is.
It's no real booking, only therare ones.
And yeah, you know, sometimesit's a little bit too hard to
try to book everything, and thenit, yeah, yeah, it doesn't
allow for the flexibilitysometimes yeah I was gonna I was
gonna say does it, does it yeah, it would, if I worry it's
(23:47):
pretty well churned, yeah, Imean you look at day one.
This is pretty hectic.
Sam Brown (23:53):
That's crazy.
Kevin Hui (23:54):
That's day one.
That's day two.
Ben Sutherland (23:58):
There must be 50 different spots on day two,
maybe A lot, yeah yeah.
All right.
Kevin Hui (24:05):
But then if you've been to Japan, you know, like
Omotesando, it's like yeah,there, there's another one,
there's another one.
It's right next to each otherand there's not much you can see
like, yeah, it's, it's there,it's a shop, okay.
So it, some of those ones arejust like bang, bang, bang.
Uh, some of the other ones will.
We can go in and enjoy andspend a bit of time.
(24:26):
So really it's playing by ear.
It's really curation, becauseit's not about the list.
It is the list but also justknowing the research and going.
Okay, if we have to skipsomething, what will you skip?
And then which one you need tospend more time in?
And sometimes it's serendipity,so you know, suddenly you walk
up and then they go.
(24:47):
Oh, someone comes out and theygo hey, hey, do you want to
check this bit?
Out, yeah, like that's notusually open to the public it's
like great, please, that'sawesome, cool.
Then it ends up.
You know that's what happens.
So it's designed in a certaincertain looseness to to do that
as well.
But at the same time, you know,I just hate the fact that.
Oh, they come back and say thatthing was just around the
(25:10):
corner.
Ben Sutherland (25:10):
I did, yeah, definitely, I had a little
architecture tour of uh tokyo bymyself, but I wasn't as
organized as as you obviouslyare.
So you'd like open up your mapand you'd be like, oh you know,
I could walk there and then walkthere, and then walk there what
you don't realize is howmassive tokyo actually is and
(25:30):
you spend half the day walkingjust to the first destination
yeah, yeah, and there's so manythings you go to, you go.
Kevin Hui (25:39):
Oh, was it worth it.
Sam Brown (25:41):
Yeah, I guess, like over the years now you'll be
slowly curating a like a prettygood, concise like list, did I
mean?
Like obviously it's new foreverybody on the tours?
What about for yourself andandrew?
Does it get tiresome looking atthe same buildings?
Kevin Hui (25:59):
oh well, andrew, definitely it's his.
Uh, he has very short attentionspan so and uh, yeah, he gets
bored pretty quickly.
So I don't know how it is, interms of repeating things, that
he did do the repeat of finlandthis year, so he was all right,
he survived nice.
Ben Sutherland (26:18):
Do you guys have like themes often, or do you
kind of just, is it, the themeis kind of this, the city.
I always thought it would beawesome to tackle projects.
You know, when you're liketrying to learn something about
a particularly, saysustainability or or concrete or
something like that, and thenyou just all you want to do is
(26:39):
like go and visit 20 buildingsof uh, you know a good um
example?
Um, do you have that sort ofthing or was it?
Kevin Hui (26:49):
whatever you can fit in, uh, well, I think, whatever
you can fit in, I think you knowagain it's the same thing like
but that was just around thecorner, like why would you go
all the way to see that and notsee that?
But yes, often there is aongoing theme.
For example, in finland, mostpeople think it's a timber
buildings and stuff, but thenit's a lot of really, really
good concrete.
We had a builder on the tourand he was just yeah, he was
(27:12):
expecting just timber buildings,but he was surprised the
quality of concrete buildings infinland, which most people
don't know about.
Ben Sutherland (27:19):
Yeah, that's awesome good to hear a builder
getting out there as well, I'vegot to say yeah, yeah, yeah, we
get pretty interesting mix ofpeople, yeah um that ishigami
plaza.
Gerard Dombroski (27:34):
Is that the university, one with the holes?
Kevin Hui (27:37):
yep yeah, I'm hoping to have that out as a youtube
episode, hopefully hopefullyawesome.
Gerard Dombroski (27:46):
Um what?
What did you think of it inperson?
Because I'm I love, loveishigami and like very into how
it's pretty amazing, um, butokay, this is being negative.
Kevin Hui (28:01):
Yeah, it is spectacular space, just to see
that being used.
But uh, yeah, it's just likethings in japan sometimes, just
how it sits against other thingsand there's some other details.
It's like, oh, is that it?
Yeah it's not as japan is notas finished as I think most
people see it.
You know some of the stuff yougo, oh, is that?
(28:21):
Is that the door?
Is that it?
Sam Brown (28:23):
yeah I'm sure you've seen that yeah, a bit better
than in real life.
Kevin Hui (28:28):
Yeah.
So you know, there are momentsyou thought it would be like so
perfectly finished, and thenit's like, yeah, the aspects of
it that's perfectly finished,and there's stuff that just
feels like clumsy.
More, something like thejunctions or yeah, I mean the
doors are great and yeah.
Sam Brown (28:51):
Yeah, I remember going making an effort to go out
to the Gertz collection byHerzog and then Muran in Munich.
It was for a long time one ofmy favourite buildings, but I
went there in the depths ofwinter and I hadn't actually
realised until visiting it inperson that the facade was
timber yes, most people thinkit's concrete.
(29:11):
I always thought it was concrete.
But I'm there in the middle ofwinter and it was sort of
looking pretty weathered, prettytired and I was, like quietly
disappointed.
I was just like I built thisthing up to be so big in my head
and then it just sort of lookeda bit drab.
And I was like, like oh, it wasthe early work there is in the
(29:32):
early 90s that this design does,and then there's a huge
extension underneath yeah, Imean, it's still an absolutely
incredible gallery and anamazing piece of architecture,
but it just wasn't quite whatyou'd sort of imagined from all
the photography that you'd seen.
Kevin Hui (29:48):
Yeah, having said that, this, uh, I took andrew
there many years ago in fact,that's when he coined the term
archaea marathon, because it wasin middle winter and you know,
he came on one of my own tours.
Uh and um, yeah, it's like inthe middle of a blizzard he goes
.
This is like a marathon it's anarchaea marathon, uh, but yes,
uh, but yes I time, because Iactually in my itinerary I write
(30:12):
down sunrise, sunset times.
Gerard Dombroski (30:15):
Oh nice.
Kevin Hui (30:17):
So knowing, for example, the sun long, good I
would think, okay, when does thesun set in Germany around that
time?
So, because you know it glowsat night.
So, picking the right time tosee the day and it sort of gets
dark, and see the night, butthat would be something I would
do yeah, there's definitely abenefit there of doing the tour,
(30:38):
because most of us learnarchitecture or photos seeing a
building oh, it's great when yousee things that are better than
the photos, and that's oftenthe case.
Any, any, standouts um, oh,they're too many, too many to
mention.
Um, and the things you justdidn't even know existed and
(30:59):
like, wow, and usually the localones that you kind of never
heard of.
I mean alto, for example.
Everyone goes to finlandbecause of our alto and then you
get so Alto'd out.
It's like, yeah, there's somegood ones, but they're not all
that great and there's somereally amazing stuff you've
never heard of and it's like whydidn't we know about this?
(31:21):
But oftentimes, yeah, there arephotos that look really good
and then in real life it's like,oh, is that it?
It's a lot of art, dailybuilding.
Of the years that we've been to, it was by far the worst
building.
Gerard Dombroski (31:31):
Oh wow, it was crazy Interesting.
Kevin Hui (31:32):
That we saw.
Yeah, and that's not me sayingit.
That's some of the studentsgoing wow, is that it?
Why are we spending time here?
Sam Brown (31:39):
That's fascinating, eh, and interesting that I mean
so often projects, particularlyinternational awards, are judged
off photographs.
I mean judging panels can't flythe globe to see everything,
yeah, but you can't experiencearchitecture like that.
It's such a tactile art form,you know.
Yeah, it's quite interestinghearing that to be the case in
(32:00):
reality.
For you guys is sort of thatsort of level of disappointment.
Kevin Hui (32:05):
Well, it is the social media space as well,
isn't it?
Like a lot of students look tonow, it's just the.
They're even trying to makerenders and things you know for
Instagram.
Sam Brown (32:14):
Yeah.
Gerard Dombroski (32:18):
It's pretty big in the marketing world,
isn't it?
Ben Sutherland (32:21):
Yeah, yeah, I've always wanted to do one of
those tours and they just soundso cool.
I guess the experience pays foritself.
Really, in terms of design,would be, you know, the best,
best form of education, isn't it?
Kevin Hui (32:41):
yeah, yeah, it's also quite a refreshing thing to
just remind yourself like whatyou're in for from an
architect's point of view,because you know when you're
just deep, every day, you'rejust working away.
You know you're not, you don't,you don't have that kind of
luxury.
I keep saying it's like chefs,you know um, you just need to go
out and eat try some differentrestaurants after a while,
(33:05):
rather than just working andworking on it.
Ben Sutherland (33:08):
Do you do any little micro local tours as well
?
Kevin Hui (33:14):
I used to do interstate ones like Sydney and
Brisbane.
I haven't done that for a while.
I kind of retired Sydneybecause I did a few and I got
pretty bored of it.
But, Australia's got some greatarchitecture.
I should be, yeah, bored of it,but Australia's got some great
architecture.
Gerard Dombroski (33:34):
I like those little videos you and Andrew do
on individual houses and stuff,like some of them has been
Andrew's houses.
I think I used to watch hisYouTube videos when I was at
architecture school and Iremember thinking that that was
such like a brilliant distilledlittle micro grand design
(33:56):
episodes and that's why nobodyelse did them.
So I'm glad they've beenreincarnated.
Sam Brown (34:06):
And that was sort of before the power of social media
as well, Gerard.
Gerard Dombroski (34:09):
Yeah, power of social media as well, gerard.
Ben Sutherland (34:10):
Yeah, power of youtube yeah it would be helpful
just critiquing your own, doingyour own kind of walkthroughs
post construction.
I can imagine that would besuper interesting, like oh,
didn't expect that to come outlike that.
Or you know, this is a lotbetter than I thought it would
be, or it would be a lot of fun.
Kevin Hui (34:30):
Yeah.
Well, they're not things youwould say and show, yeah, you
know, quietly just thinking God,you know how you get so fixated
over a thing that just didn'thappen the way you thought it
was going to happen.
Even though it's great, no oneelse cares, yeah, but for you
it's like, oh, that's thebiggest sticking point.
Sam Brown (34:51):
It's, but for you it's like oh, that's the biggest
sticking point.
Yeah, the amount of times thatyou notice a defect or something
that's wrong, that nobody elsedoes, and you mention it to
someone and they're like why didyou tell me that?
I know it's so funny.
Ben Sutherland (35:03):
No one else can even see them, but you just get
addicted and fixated on theselittle things.
Yeah, I don't know if they'remade up or not, it's pretty
funny.
Sam Brown (35:15):
It's like being back at university and I remember
editing renders and you'd be inPhotoshop down to the pixel
changing colors and you're likeno one's going to notice us.
Kevin Hui (35:26):
Well, that's actually something we do in the studio
because we have this amazingprojection wall that's really
big and it's a whiteboard aswell.
It's magnetic.
So they're working on stuff.
We always go what's the scale,what's the drawing, what scale
are you going to be outputting?
So we're forcing students tooutput stuff to scale so they
(35:48):
can look at it and go okay, nowsit back, this is how they're
going to see it.
Do you see any of the stuffyou're drawing?
Gerard Dombroski (35:55):
No, then it's going to waste your time.
Kevin Hui (35:57):
Because, unfortunately, time is something
we waste a lot of as architects, unfortunately and it's kind of
cultivated early on fromuniversity.
Not because we're nothardworking, I think we've just
misguided how we spend the time.
Again, it's not about timemanagement either.
This is actually it's a biggerpicture than time management.
It's actually understandingwhat you actually need to do.
Ben Sutherland (36:20):
Yeah.
Kevin Hui (36:22):
And how much you actually need to do.
Ben Sutherland (36:24):
Yeah, definitely .
Kevin Hui (36:25):
And this is something that's dawned on me and some of
the students have actually beensaying, uh, and some of the
students actually been saying it.
Some of the students who wenthere, um, are telling others,
like it's at the universitylevel, your product is 2d
because that's all you do.
It's really presenting a schemeand most of it is just 2d.
(36:46):
It's a graphics, even as a 3dimage of something.
It's a graphics, even if it's a3D image of something it's a 2D
image and it's hard to wrap yourbrain around it because you
think everything is 3D but it'sactually not.
It's actually a thing on paperor on the screen.
And so what do you need to doto get to that?
It doesn't mean the computerprogram is going to do it.
It could be Photoshop, it couldbe masking out something.
Gerard Dombroski (37:15):
It could be photoshop, it could be masking
out something, could be a bit ofliquid paper, could be anything
.
Yeah, that's cool.
I quite enjoyed doing those24-hour design competitions
during university, kind of liketaught you a little bit to
prioritize certain things yes,yeah, it's amazing what you can
good plan 24 hours yeah, yeah,definitely, yeah, the whole time
and good bonding.
You're living in the studio,you know?
Sam Brown (37:34):
yep, yeah yeah, do you run any competition type
things or studio events such asthat?
Kevin Hui (37:41):
no, we had students from different universities
doing competition together andoh cool in their off time, and
that was great learningexperience for them.
Because instead of universitiesspelling out this is what you
need to do nowadays, they haveto spell everything out every
step, which I think istroublesome.
It's a competition.
It's like here's a competition,here's the brief, this is the
(38:05):
submission requirements.
Here's some of the panels andsizes we need.
Go.
So that forces them tostrategize, to think about what,
who's got what skills and youknow, pulled together that, and
also just thinking, well, what,what time frame?
At what point do you need tohave what?
And uh, and get it, you know,and communicating the idea
(38:29):
that's what's important.
Ben Sutherland (38:29):
These students are getting a lot for 19 a week.
It sounds awesome.
It's so good.
Can I come?
Kevin Hui (38:37):
well, that's yeah, it's the mindset yeah, it's so
good because I think, as aprofession, we need to.
We need to be more efficientwith time, because time is what
we complain about, time is what,what we charge, and yeah, we
just need to have more efficientgraduates.
Who can you know?
Ben Sutherland (38:56):
work effectively .
Sometimes you just need time tothink though to make things
more productive.
I think, as you were sayingbefore, it's just the planning.
Getting the planning right canreally streamline a project.
I'm learning that a lotrecently, that's for sure.
Kevin Hui (39:13):
We're learning and still constantly reviewing what
needs to be done.
But yeah, it's interesting.
A lot of students think, oh,they're going to come to the
studio, they have to do extrastuff.
They think it's an extra thingon top and they don't have time
for it.
And the whole idea is that it'sthe other way around, that if
you're time poor, you need to behere and strategize and think
(39:37):
about what you need to do.
The point is, we're not tryingto make your life difficult.
The whole point is to make yourlife better.
Ben Sutherland (39:45):
Absolutely.
Sam Brown (39:46):
So, kevin, what brought you to creating, you
know, creating this studio thing.
I mean we've sort of talkedabout how it benefits the
students, but I mean it's quitean interesting, you know, from a
professional perspective it'skind of interesting.
It seems and correct me if I'mwrong but you've sort of really
committed yourself to this sortof betterment of the future
(40:07):
generation of architects,whether it be through the studio
environment or whether it bethrough informing people through
the YouTube videos and things.
What's brought you or what'skind of driven you in this
direction?
Kevin Hui (40:20):
Well, I've always taught.
I've taught for a long time,over 20 years, at various
universities and I teach incritical thinking and uh, and
all the stuff, all kind of, someof the stuff I'm trying to
teach here Uh, and even just,you know, critiquing on certain,
uh, character traits andproblems that students have in
(40:42):
terms of how they're dealingwith a problem or whatever.
And of course now you can't saythese things at universities
and of course now you can't saythese things at universities,
and I always said that the firstthing in all my teaching is
always social engineering.
I try to break down thatbarrier very, very early on.
Again, things I can't do atuniversity anymore.
I used to bring out here's thesubject handout and here's a
(41:07):
slab of beer, and then, you knowwhat, just to loosen up the
conversation, we used to getbeer runs in the middle of the
session.
Hang on, here's the subjecthandout and here's a slab of
beer, and then you know what,nice, just to loosen up the
conversation.
And we used to like get beerruns in the middle of the
session and go right, we needmore, and it's just, let's go,
and it's just this greatconversation and everyone just
gets involved in learning how tocritique each other and having
this great sort of camaraderiethat helping each other was an
(41:27):
important thing in the education, the camaraderie that helping
each other was an importantthing in the education.
And since I left university andalso leaving practice, I just
need to find something to do andI thought, okay, well, I love
traveling, I love architectureand I love teaching.
So the tours were the startingpoint.
And then YouTube, and then thisspace came up because we were
(41:51):
already talking about mindsetsand teaching students about how
to think about dealing with theuniversity, because you can't
change university.
University is obscene.
Colleagues trying to do it, itjust doesn't happen.
So I thought we can changestudents' mindsets.
That would help them but alsohelp people teaching it as well.
So that became that.
(42:14):
And then this space came up andit was like, well, let's put
things to practice like whatwe've been talking about.
Let's run the space and seewhat happens.
I used to back before COVID, Iwas using WeWork, the co-working
spaces to work at, because Ijust need people around me as
well, and that kind of gave mepart of the idea of how this
(42:38):
could work.
It's a sort of one-day sort ofco-working space, slash studio.
Sam Brown (42:46):
It's amazing the influence that you've been in
education for 20 years and it'salmost like you through archie,
marathon and the variousventures, you're able to touch
or influence so many more peoplein such a shorter amount of
time.
It's like I don't know, it'sjust it's quite incredible, like
the influence that this formathas, um, and I think that's
(43:10):
internationally as well.
I think that's quite powerful.
Kevin Hui (43:13):
It is amazing to get emails from students and
graduates from Africa and Indiaand saying, yeah, this is great,
they really appreciate the helpthat they had.
Yes, so instead of teaching 16students at one time, now you
know we've got access tothousands of people.
Sam Brown (43:33):
Hundreds of thousands .
Yeah, it's a powerful thing.
Kevin Hui (43:36):
Well, yeah, millions millions.
Sam Brown (43:38):
It's a plan right.
Gerard Dombroski (43:40):
It's a very sparsely populated earth.
Yeah, I think it's awesome Likeyou've got like your little
course criteria, little studies.
I guess you could liken it tolike the design fundamentals
videos, like your mindsetsvideos.
I think those are prettyawesome assets for students
(44:02):
everywhere to sort of plug into.
Kevin Hui (44:03):
Yeah, it's just the old lectures that I had that I
used to give every now and then.
And, yeah, it's great to put itinto a format that students are
comfortable with these days.
I've seen students seen a packof lectures watching students
watching a lecture, and thenthere'll be like laptops are up
and then there'll be a YouTubevideo playing at the same time
(44:24):
the lecture is going.
Then I realized, oh, maybeYouTube is and social media is
probably the way to go.
Just how can you communicatequicker?
Because lectures are long anddrawn out, it's a performance
and it really depends on theperson performing.
(44:45):
And sometimes they're just thesame old lecture you've been
giving for years and years andthe same, with that emotion.
And, yeah, I think this puts,you know, the dissemination of
information and knowledge usinga much more innocent medium.
(45:07):
And it could be very what's theword I'm looking for condensed.
But at the same time, you knowpeople if they're interested,
they will rewatch it, but thenyou know they're doing that with
lectures.
Anyway, they're recordinglectures but we know that
students don't really watch thembecause you can see who's
actually watched it and thereare students I know that that
(45:29):
apparently said yeah, they can'twait till the lecture to be
finished, because it's recordedso they can watch it again at
double speed.
Gerard Dombroski (45:35):
Yeah fascinating love the speed up
short attention spans yeah yeah,that short attention span must
be.
Ben Sutherland (45:44):
I mean, it's getting shorter and shorter, so
it's good.
We need better ways to dealwith it, somehow, if we're going
to continue to educate.
Not sure if these hour-longpodcasts help in that realm.
Gerard Dombroski (45:57):
Yeah, we've got two times speed.
Kevin Hui (46:00):
Well, it's conversational, it's unscripted,
so that works.
Ben Sutherland (46:04):
And audio is easy because you can just turn
it on in the background, tune inand out as you see fit and take
snippets of the mostinteresting parts, I guess.
Gerard Dombroski (46:14):
So I guess this is like a revolt against
university.
Do we dare delve into thatdiscussion?
Kevin Hui (46:26):
Well, yeah, I guess university are we, do we dare
delve into that discussion of?
Well, yeah, I guess you knowthat there are a lot of people
doing other things.
Now that's, that's great andthe supporting I I would say
supporting university just whatthey're not doing, that they
can't do, their amount of redtape and things.
So you know it's, it's a result.
We kind of see it as a certainbroken aspect to the system.
But you know there are peopleout there doing other things.
Gerard Dombroski (46:47):
The university .
Kevin Hui (46:48):
I think it's a support.
Gerard Dombroski (46:49):
Yeah, the university we went to in the
last few years has taken away ormade critique optional.
Like you, don't have to do thecritique anymore.
Kevin Hui (46:59):
Oh.
Gerard Dombroski (46:59):
Which I fear for those students trying to
like present a design to aprospective client, like if
you've never been told no, ornever been told to explain your
idea, it's.
It's kind of scary.
Ben Sutherland (47:14):
Yeah, it's a big part, isn't it?
Sam Brown (47:17):
huge.
I feel like tears and tearspost a critique is the right
passage as well.
Gerard Dombroski (47:27):
And doing it all nighter and then just
standing up and doing thecritique We've all been there
Not being able to find yourwords because your brain's
switched off.
Sam Brown (47:37):
Yeah present your idea to a client and then you
cry as a result.
Gerard, do you know what thatjustification for making
critique optional is?
Is it so people don't getabsolutely reamed out?
Gerard Dombroski (47:50):
I think it's just hurt feelings if we boil it
down People don't want to havetheir feelings hurt.
Ben Sutherland (47:55):
It hurts my feelings that they've cut the
critiques.
Sam Brown (48:00):
I think it's optional , so, like my understanding and
you're right about it's being,you know, dangerous for
professional practice, thoughlike we, you know, as architects
, in particularly at the momentbecause we are operating in such
a difficult uh, constructionclimate, we're having our
feelings hurt multiple timesdaily.
At the moment, it feels likeyou're becoming very
(48:23):
thick-skinned.
Kevin Hui (48:25):
That's why they need to watch my episode on how to
survive.
Critique Exactly.
Ben Sutherland (48:29):
There you go.
Kevin Hui (48:30):
Perfect, this is not a personal attack.
Yeah, it should never be apersonal attack.
Gerard Dombroski (48:34):
No, yeah, you learn a lot more than the person
critiquing you, and it's likethe person's offering you
critique, it's like a you know,it's a nice gesture, even if it
feels confrontational, because,yeah, you've associated your
feelings to your design.
Ben Sutherland (48:53):
Your ego gets bruised.
It is like that, though I kindof remember every single person
that critiqued me at university,so it is a kind of feels like a
big thing at the time, that'sfor sure what about when I
critique your projects, man?
I just rip, I throw them awayand start again after that no, I
(49:19):
think it's, I don't know.
Gerard Dombroski (49:21):
I see it as a sign of generosity, like
somebody's investing in you andyour design skills.
I think it's a very generousthing to do to somebody.
Yeah, providing you.
Kevin Hui (49:34):
And back in the day you would have that absolute,
terrible sort of critique.
You know with your project, andthen you know with the tutor or
guests, and then afterwards youcan all get it up together and
have a drink, have a chat, andthen you realise it's all okay.
Ben Sutherland (49:53):
I would actually love to you know, just speaking
of you critiquing me, gerard, Iwould love more critiques.
If anything in my life, I thinkI could.
I think just like the level ofspeed of learning that you know,
you, the progression, um, andthe design outcome.
Just going through thatcritique, getting various
(50:13):
people's opinion, it eitherconfirms what you already knew
or it just shows anotherperspective on other ways or
other considerations.
So I'm extremely pro-critiquing.
Kevin Hui (50:30):
And it also forces you to explain it.
Gerard Dombroski (50:34):
Yes, it draws it out of your mind, like when
you read your essay out loud toyourself Puts reality to it.
Sam Brown (50:43):
It's something that you definitely lose, I found,
particularly when starting myown practice.
It's something you lose as asmall practice is that ability
to critique or be critiqued, andoften when I started out, I
went to other architecture firmsand friends and peers and asked
them to basically give mefeedback and critique my work
and I found that really helpful.
(51:04):
Probably do less so these days,maybe just because I've got less
work on, but you know, I thinkthat's one benefit of being in a
large firm is that you know youhave that body of people around
and, like you've been saying,Kevin, with the studio kind of
format and having Austin Maynardnext door, you know you've kind
of got that larger body ofpeople around to be able to
(51:26):
critique as well, which is quitecritical.
Ben Sutherland (51:30):
Do some of the other professional designers do
some pinups every now and thenfor the students?
I can imagine they'll benefitsignificantly from it as well.
It'd be awesome.
Kevin Hui (51:42):
Not so much, but, yeah, mainly from us and ArtTix
and ArtTix and ArtTix whenthey're working they can
overhear the presentations toclients or to consultants.
Yeah, all the in-housediscussions.
That happens because they justproject that on the board, the
big board.
Gerard Dombroski (52:00):
They control over it and everyone can see and
poke at it that's awesome, thatthe studio style things
something that I find missingfrom my my practice specifically
, but like I'm a solepractitioner for the most part.
I used to co-work, uh, with afriend, like we went halves on
(52:22):
the rent and what have you, andthat was an awesome time.
But he's buggered off overseasto more exciting events and
sometimes me and Ben hang out.
But I'm quite a social personso it's weird that I every day
drive out to the hut and sit ina shed by myself.
Definitely could implement somemore studio culture in my own
(52:48):
life.
Ben Sutherland (52:49):
Yeah, I definitely could too.
Sam Brown (52:51):
We should tee up a studio session.
Yeah, get some students inthere Sounds good, just like all
of us smaller people.
Ben Sutherland (53:01):
people, we should just get together some
beers, like Kevin said,generously pick each other apart
, start a podcast, yeah we'llstart start a podcast where we
just go around talking to designprofessionals getting rid of
the past maybe we start doingpinups on our podcast and
(53:26):
getting these professionals togive us some feedback.
Sam Brown (53:32):
So, kevin, I mean you've been, you've been, you've
been around the world.
You've seen a lot of buildings,I think, being touched on it.
Do you have any?
Do you have any standouts?
Kevin Hui (53:43):
That's too many really.
I think, yeah, it reallydepends on the situation as well
.
Sam Brown (53:52):
Oh my god that is a lot of photos.
Ben Sutherland (53:56):
No way that's insane.
Gerard Dombroski (53:58):
What storage are we talking with on that?
That's a 100% on Apple Cloudsame what's.
What storage are we talking towith all that?
That's?
Sam Brown (54:02):
that's at least that's quite a lot yeah it's
impressive and any, any plansfor a new zealand tour um, I've
been asked that.
Kevin Hui (54:18):
Well, the problem is that I think all the good stuff
are tend to be houses and it'shard to get to places yeah, I
think your condensed programprobably doesn't work so well
here no, it's not about you'rewalking around and it becomes
like being bussed around and youknow, I've heard that this
generosity in new zealand peoplejust go yeah, let's check out
(54:38):
my house.
They're pretty generous.
But again, I don't think themodel it's about.
You know, part of part of it isthe in between.
It's getting to a place whenyou sort of only do is really
kind of being driven on bussomewhere else.
Sam Brown (54:53):
You kind of don't have that same experience as you
know public transport andseeing how people live and I
guess it's as much as well asmuch guess it's as much as as
much as experiencing the contextas it is in the culture as well
and the food and beer yes it'simportant.
Gerard Dombroski (55:18):
Is there anything else you wanted to sort
of highlight, kevin, before wewrap?
Kevin Hui (55:22):
things up.
Yeah, watch our, watch ourYouTube.
Gerard Dombroski (55:28):
Instagram, it's blowing up on our yeah,
your Instagram's huge.
It's wild.
I thought you were a.
Kevin Hui (55:33):
Kardashian or something it's but Instagram is
actually the the biggest channeland it's actually a lot easier
to manage as well.
Because of the short form, Ican churn it out a lot quicker.
And it's a better formatbecause I think the idea of
serving it up to anyone who'snot interested in architecture,
(55:53):
but somehow the algorithm put infront of them they go.
I didn't know.
I liked this.
This is great.
That's much better than theYouTube model, which is like a
thumbnail.
There's a title you could clickbait it.
It's like do I want to clickand watch this?
Ben Sutherland (56:08):
big smiling mugshot where can our listeners
find you on on Insta and YouTube.
Kevin Hui (56:14):
Hockey Marathon, just google Hockey Marathon.
It'll be on Insta TikTok if youhave to but be nice, be nice,
be nice yeah.
Sam Brown (56:25):
Be the change.
Be nice with your critics.
Ben Sutherland (56:28):
Awesome.
Thank you so much for jumpingon.
Kevin Hui (56:33):
Thanks for having me.
Gerard Dombroski (56:34):
Yeah, very appreciative and love what
you're doing.
I think we'll see some copycatsin the time.
Ben Sutherland (56:42):
Hopefully the podcast can come on tour with
you one day.
That'd be quite the privilege,that'd be awesome.
Kevin Hui (56:48):
Sounds good.
Do a live version.
Ben Sutherland (56:50):
Absolutely, that'd be so cool.
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