Linny Morris and Malia Mattoch MacManus (with Jeanjean Bower) have produced a beautiful new book, "The Hawaiian House Now" (Harry N. Abrams), which is destined to grace many a coffee table in the Islands. Morris' lavish photography and MacManus' flowing text combine to offer an inside look into the lifestyles of those who can afford to build and buy the very best in home design. It leaves no doubt that high-end residential architecture is flourishing.

The book pays homage to Vladimir Ossipoff's beautiful house on Tantalus, designed for the Liljestrand family, and to lovely beach houses, country homes and urban retreats scattered throughout the Islands. It features stunning new construction, such as the Rafael house designed by Edward Tuttle, and older treasures such as the Baldwin "cottage" on the slopes of Haleakala and the Twigg-Smiths' shingle and lava rock home in Kona.

We are treated to spectacular views of the ocean, mountain and landscape, and to images of the furnishings, floorings, artwork, landscaping, lighting and architectural details that come together in these designs.

The work of Hawai'i's best-known architects, including John Hara, Peter Vincent and Jim Niess, as well as interior designers such as Jon Staub and horticulturist Heidi Bornhorst, are on display. The book also shows off some of the finest paintings, sculpture and artwork done by artists of Hawai'i.

It demonstrates the diversity of materials and building techniques available in the Islands, including stained concrete floors, copper roofs, brushed stainless steel and concrete tubs, LED-illuminated ledges, and even a luscious curved mahogany staircase shaped like DNA. It's easy to become absorbed by the details, the hardware, the tongue-and-groove paneling, the evocative use of color and the impressive attention to design.

The pictures of lanai and living rooms, master bedrooms and bathrooms, kitchens and guesthouses, sitting rooms and studio spaces portray a rather pleasing picture of life in Hawai'i. The diverse elements of the Islands manage to easily come together in this book — New England missionary influences, plantation style, Tahitian, Asian and Southeast Asian cultures and the casual surfer look of the 1950s and 1960s, intermingled with strong flavors of modernism, infused with global capitalism.

There are faint references to the Native Hawaiian culture, strands of mana and fragments of lava, koa, ohi'a, and native plantings that evoke a wistful sense of loss amid the pages of House Beautiful.

PICTURE OF PARADISE?

If aesthetics were the sole criteria for defining and judging contemporary residential architecture in Hawai'i, the homes featured here would surely rise to the top. While beautiful design is worthy of attention, however, there are other elements that deserve a place in our conversation about local architecture. A richer discussion might have been enabled by placing these homes in context, both physically and within the socioeconomic history of Hawai'i.

The struggle for identity referenced here seems less about the thorny issues of class, race, ethnicity and society, and more about materials, plantings, family histories and the creature comforts of living in in the Islands. But with such a provocative title, one has to ask, "where is the Hawaiian home?"

Indeed, the pictures portray the homes largely in isolation. The community context seems strangely left out. While some of these homes are in more remote or isolated places, what is there to say about the neighborhood?

"The Hawaiian Home Now" ignores the Islands' vast tracts of new housing, as well as the architecture and lifestyles of those living on Hawaiian Home Lands, to say nothing of the squatter camps and temporary shelters that increasingly complicate the views of the landscape and Hawai'i's "sense of place." It is as if traffic congestion, suburban sprawl and the clutter of urban development didn't exist.

One has to ponder why no apartments and not a one of the new gross, glassy, giant condos of Kaka'ako were featured in this pretty book. Perhaps these buildings aren't pretty enough. Perhaps there is little to say about them. Perhaps Morris and MacManus, for good reason, don't even want to go there.

The book also gives short shrift to green building techniques, omitting discussion of siting, electricity and water use, drainage, ventilation and landscaping, which play a critical role in defining residential places. One of the homes features extensive quarried coral, "harvested in the Philippines due to current ocean conservation laws" in Hawai'i.

HAWAIIAN STYLE

One of the real challenges is to make sense of these pictures and patterns. Do they constitute an architectural style, or simply an eclectic adaptation of elements and culture from here and there? More effort could have gone to the identification of architectural elements as well as other distinctive features of these beautiful homes.

The authors go beyond simplistic observations of the Dickey roof, and include interior furnishings such as the "beloved pune'e (daybed)" alongside timeless ideas of incorporating light and air in designs that are modern, yet still evoke a sense of "being in Hawai'i."

Morris also provides us with a real lesson in terms of impeccable yet artistic architectural photography, but we are still far away from having a coherent appreciation for a Hawaiian architectural style.

It is hard to understand where the Hawaiian home is headed in terms of design. How will our cities and landscape look in the future? In the book, architect John Hara nicely sums up the challenge today: "We need to respect Hawaii design without freezing it in time."

All of that may be too much to lay at the doorstep of these authors. In fairness, they have worked hard to assemble a beautiful collection of private homes in Hawai'i. My take, however, is that when writing about housing in Hawai'i, we need to go further than matters of taste and style. Affordability, sustainability and even resiliency to hurricanes and other natural disasters are equally important considerations.

Morris' and McManus' book, along with Dean Sakamoto's recent book, "Hawaiian Modern: The Architecture of Vladimir Ossipoff" (Yale University Press) both contribute to this discussion. They are even packaged together as a set on Amazon. They make great Christmas presents for anyone interested in architecture and design in Hawai'i. They can also be used as conversation starters for those who care about the built environment and where we should go from here.

Karl Kim is professor and chairman of urban and regional planning at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa.

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