White House    |    Houston, Texas

This house was sited on land above Houston’s Buffalo Bayou to preserve the mature trees and open out toward the expanse of undisturbed forest. Designed in two sections, it comprises a main house and a detached garage with a second story apartment. The main stucco-clad house is designed as a series of one-room deep spaces that frame views, provide abundant daylight, and enable cross ventilation. The structure’s steel platform, supported on a foundation of stone clad piers, cantilevers over the flood plain with a suspended deck creating the sense of floating in the trees. The centerpiece living space is a two-story volume, opening to a library on the floor above, anchored by a stone fireplace on one end and a dining area on the other. A bridge connects the second floor master suite to the three children’s rooms. Salvaged woods were milled for the long-leaf floor planks and the living space’s cypress clad ceiling.

• Buffalo Bayou Site
• Reclaimed Materials