Musubi Property / Craig Steely Architecture

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Textual content description delivered 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 Major Island of Hawaii. This solid-in-position concrete property is fully off the grid—powered by photovoltaic panels and catching all domestic and landscape water from rainfall captured off the roof and stored in cisterns.



The internet site is made up of valleys with seasonal creeks and expansive fields of Wainaku grass. Panoramic views abound, but thanks to their exposure to higher winds and horizontal rain, the internet site is difficult to build on. Its place on the northeast aspect of the island is straight in the path of the incoming western trade winds. Its elevation results in a climate dynamic that can swiftly switch from the amazing, cloudless blue sky without the need of a trace of wind to enveloped with clouds to horizontal windblown rain within just minutes. The wind blows up by means of the lengthy valleys and fields producing the grass roll and swell like waves in the ocean.


The homeowners came to us with a straightforward request: make a dwelling that embraces the character of the windswept grasslands of the Hamakua coast. We responded with a property 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 residence deflects the formidable wind.


The home gets its identify from its resemblance in plan to the Hawaiian version of the Japanese wrapped rice snack onigiri. On various instances, when viewing the drawings, a carpenter would remark how considerably the strategy looked like a musubi… so the title caught. The diagram of the property is simple—an out of doors triangle in an indoor triangle supporting a diamond-shaped roof. The indoor triangle is composed of three brief curving concrete walls. These concrete curves designate the 3 zones of the house: the bed room/bathing zone, the kitchen zone, and the operate/living zone. The triangle-shaped atrium in the centre provides an outdoor area involving these zones with a ground of minimize Pahoehoe lava. Doors on two sides of the atrium retract seamlessly into the walls. 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 guarded area is usable in windblown fog or bright sun—a real extension of the inside space without having a roof.

The clients’ willingness to prioritize permeability above privateness gave us the flexibility to develop a prepare without having doors or hard boundaries. Areas move from zone to zone although normally remaining in visual get hold of with the rolling landscape. Grass flows right up to the edge of the flooring-to-ceiling glass walls. Searching out the home windows on to the rolling grass landscape is like looking at waves on the open sea.

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