Studio RMA

Robert Mechielsen designed a carbon neutral home for us in Hawaii, created for 2 couples. He was enjoyable, even fascinating to work with, and designed a home that fit our circumstances in a way that far exceeded our expectations. He worked with the elements, wind direction, sun, the land, the views, the people and our budget to come up with an innovative design that is both environmentally sensitive and strikingly beautiful. He also designed interior elements, such as built in furniture (some of them reusing our scaffolding wood from the building process) and lighting fixtures. He is adept at using SCIP (structural concrete insulated panel) technology, which is perfect for this tropical environment as it doesn’t succumb to rot, termites, earthquakes or high winds. After living in the house together with our co-owners for over a year, I am even more impressed with how well it was designed to fit the dynamics of the relationships between the people living together in the house.

Robert Mechielsen of Studio RMA recently finished the design for our new TridiPanel SCIP home in Hawaii. We have the building permit and are now starting construction. Being an environmental engineer my first concern was to find a building system that creates a very strong and resilient home for our local conditions. The building site is on a ridge top and is exposed to potentially very high winds and sheets of horizontally-driven rain if a hurricane hits Hawaii. Also, this part of the island is subject to earthquakes, and wildfires have occurred in the area. The SCIP system (structural concrete insulated panels) handles all these issues. And two bonus points: the insulating value of the panels means we won’t need heating or air conditioning, and the panels make the house acoustically very quiet (in case the coqui frogs -- an invasive species with a loud mouth -- expand into our neighborhood). It’s also an eco-friendly house (“carbon-neutral”) with a long life-span, which appeals to our environmental ethic. The design was a real challenge: our ridge top is long and skinny, the subsurface is a mix of hard and crumbly rock, and we wanted maximum exposure to three beautiful views. From the northwest to the east is the blue Pacific, to the south is 13,000-ft Mauna Kea (with snow on top in the winter), and on a clear day we can see the neighbor island of Maui. Robert developed a beautiful open floor plan which maximized these views. He also conducted a site investigation with a local civil engineer to find the proper bedrock to build on, and created cantilevered SCIP decks as an economic alternative to expensive site geologic modifications. This kept the project within our financial means. We are very pleased with the house design, and with Robert’s deep knowledge of what’s possible with a SCIP building system.

I have developed projects in Hawaii for at least 20 yrs and used Studio RMA to develop my design ideas. I found Robert Mechielsen easy to work with, and after listening to my ideas and needs he always came up with inventive and surprising ideas. He is an expert in solving design problems, understanding the need to stay within a budget and at the same time he ads bonus features, often not anticipated, but always innovative and after all quite enjoyable.