Structural Engineer: Santee Engineering
This house, located in Houston Heights, blurs the lines between indoor and outdoor living spaces. Deep overhangs, carved away from the building’s volume, create shaded pockets of space that wrap the perimeter of the house. Those shaded pockets, wrapped in a warm wood cladding, mitigate between the interior of the home and the surrounding outdoor spaces.
An indirect entry offers the house a sense of privacy from the street. Visitors step up onto the front porch before turning toward the adjacent door. As guests enter, they circulate around a planted atrium before advancing to the main living space. That atrium, coupled with a double height skylit space, bring a generous amount of natural light into the living space and the adjacent kitchen.
From that living space, floor to ceiling glass doors create a seamless visual connection to the outdoor space that lies at the heart of the house. The house wraps that outdoor space on three sides, creating diverse relationships between the rooms and the exterior. Within this space a pool, small yard, and back patio offer a variety of ways to be comfortable throughout the year, even during Houston’s hot humid summers.