Musubi House / Craig Steely Architecture
Musubi Property / Craig Steely Architecture
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Text description supplied by the architects. The Musubi Dwelling is found on 100 acres of grassland and Ohia forest along the northeast slope of Mauna Kea on the Massive Island of Hawaii. This solid-in-position concrete household is fully off the grid—powered by photovoltaic panels and catching all domestic and landscape drinking water from rainfall captured off the roof and stored in cisterns.
The web page consists of valleys with seasonal creeks and expansive fields of Wainaku grass. Panoramic views abound, but thanks to their exposure to significant winds and horizontal rain, the website is challenging to develop on. Its spot on the northeast facet of the island is straight in the path of the incoming western trade winds. Its elevation makes a climate dynamic that can swiftly swap from the good, cloudless blue sky without a trace of wind to enveloped with clouds to horizontal windblown rain in just minutes. The wind blows up through the extensive valleys and fields building the grass roll and swell like waves in the ocean.
The entrepreneurs arrived to us with a easy request: make a property that embraces the nature of the windswept grasslands of the Hamakua coastline. We responded with a household that floats in this rolling sea of grass like a ship floats in the ocean. Like a ship’s prow, the sharpest finish of this triangular household deflects the formidable wind.
The house gets its name from its resemblance in approach to the Hawaiian variation of the Japanese wrapped rice snack onigiri. On a number of situations, when viewing the drawings, a carpenter would remark how significantly the strategy looked like a musubi… so the title stuck. The diagram of the residence is simple—an outside triangle within an indoor triangle supporting a diamond-shaped roof. The indoor triangle is composed of a few quick curving concrete partitions. These concrete curves designate the three zones of the home: the bedroom/bathing zone, the kitchen area zone, and the operate/living zone. The triangle-shaped atrium in the heart provides an out of doors home amongst these zones with a ground of minimize Pahoehoe lava. Doorways on two sides of the atrium retract seamlessly into the partitions. A landscape of Hapu’u ferns and Rhapis palms makes a layer of veiled privateness to the out of doors shower and bedrooms of the atrium. This protected area is usable in windblown fog or vivid sun—a true extension of the inside house without the need of a roof.
The clients’ willingness to prioritize permeability more than privateness gave us the flexibility to develop a approach without doorways or difficult boundaries. Spaces stream from zone to zone though normally remaining in visible get hold of with the rolling landscape. Grass flows proper up to the edge of the ground-to-ceiling glass walls. Seeking out the windows on to the rolling grass landscape is like looking at waves on the open up sea.
