Bias Residence

Surrounded by an 1801 lava flow along the South Kohala coast, traces of the Big Island's volcanic past make up the first encounters at Bias House. One arrives at a stone pathway bordered by shallow pools with half-submerged fragments of volcanic rock. The Hualālai eruption that shaped these over two hundred years ago was of a craggy, basaltic lava called a'a, from the Hawaiian word meaning "burn" or "blaze."

Architectural wood screens — some sliding — make artistic mediums out of light and shadow, forming veiled impressions of the interior rooms. In the main gathering area, a small inlet of the pool makes its way into the space — a reminder that, on the island, water is always near. Continuing toward the adjacent open-air living pavilion, walls dissolve altogether as architecture and nature collapse into a single view: pool, palm trees, lava rock, and finally, the vast sweep of the Pacific.