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.