Art on the way of fire - Lavaflow 7.

Lavaflow 7 / Hawaii - realization Craig Steely Architecture - photo JD Peterson

Lavaflow 7 is the house designed by architect Craig Steely on a land located in Pahoa , east of  Big Island / Hawaii .

This modern building was built on the slopes of the lava flow cooled now , and issued by the fissure eruption of Kilauea in 1955 in the east rift area.

Located on a few acres of dense forest of Ohia , endemic trees in Hawaii, and the first to settle on new lava flows, these trees have red flowers called Lehua , contrasting with the black lava ... mimicking these trees, the concrete house bursts this mineral landscape, to cut a background of tree and forming an oasis in an a'a lava field.

Lavaflow 7 - the lava flow in full frame - realization Craig Steely Architecture - photo JD Peterson

Ohia - photo geog.ucsb.edu

The challenge was great : building on lava and in self-sufficiency !

A huge concrete beam supported only by three small concrete walls, supporting a suspended roof made of laminated beams and planks , and allow a full vision of nature through fully glazed façades.

The fineness of the house offers passive cooling through cross ventilation, eliminating the  mechanical cooling . A system of rainwater collection provides all the water, filtered for drinking,  with a solar heating system for domestic hot water.

Lava enters the house of Cesar Manrique in Lanzarote - ph.Chalo84 Flickr

This achievement on Hawaii recalls another realizationof the painter and sculptor Cesar Manrique on Lanzarote . He turned five "bubbles" in a lava flow in rooms / or interconnected living rooms , some of which have a direct view of the lava eruptions of Timanfaya .

House of Cesar Manrique in Lanzarote - in a bubble of lava - photo ATLC

Sources :

- ARCH Daily - Lavaflow 7 / Craig Steely Architecture - link

- César Manrique - le site - link

- HVO / USGS - The 1955 eruption: the first in lower Puna since 1840 - link