Collaborative Design

Working collaboratively with other creative minds always leads to better architecture. Louise Fili's new book on her own inspiration and process released last week and highlights one of our favorite experiences. Goodnight Hospitality hired Louise to design the Goodnight Charlie's logo while we were developing the building concept at Content. Early architectural renderings were shared with her team as they worked to define the branding -- and we quickly set aside spaces within the project to highlight the neon signage concept. Louise's logo captures the spirit of the modern honky tonk we all envisioned for Montrose!

Purchase “Louise Fili: Inspiration and Process in Design” here!

AIA Houston: Michael G. Meyers Design Competition

HRDD is proud to support the AIA Houston Michael G. Meyers Design Competition. Each year the competition is open to Houston area high school students and hosted by Architecture Center Houston in partnership with the Houston Chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

This year, the Competition awarded $11,700 in scholarships to 12 Houston-area high school students earlier this month. This year's competition was held entirely online to include as many students as possible. The jury included Carole Brady, Krystyn Haecker, and HRDD’s Heather Rowell.

The MGMC design competition emphasizes creative problem solving and graphic presentation. This year students were challenged to design a mixed-use living community in the heart of Houston's Montrose neighborhood, adjacent to the Menil campus. The design had to include housing units and community spaces. In previous years students have been asked to design an education center with a focus on sustainability, a community center, animal shelter, a soccer stadium, and a high-speed rail station.  The MGMC Committee hosted a competition workshop and a project site tour to help the students learn basic architectural skills and understand the competition requirements.

More about MGMC on the AIA Houston website.

WiA Houston Equity Series: Work/Life - Balance by Design

HR Design Dept is a proud sponsor of this year’s Women In Architecture Houston Equity Series! Work / Life - Balance by Design explores the need for broader implementation of systems that combat and prevent burnout and support the goals of our peers at work and at home.

The WiA Equity Series was started in 2017 through an AIA College of Fellows grant and was one of WiA Houston’s first initiatives as HRDD’s Heather Rowell served as Chair. The Series aims to take on bold, often uncomfortable, topics to create awareness, discussion, and cultural change within the profession. Previous topics have included unconscious bias, workplace collaboration and recognition, and the hidden costs of workplace inequities.

Register for the panel discussion here.

And follow future WiA events on their webpage, facebook, and instagram.

"An Open Invitation"

“At 2500 square feet, the house is not exactly small, but its size feels considered. There’s plenty of room, all in the right places.”

— Jessie Temple for Dwell

The newest issue of Dwell shares the journey that led to the creation of the Crestview Residence — one that began with a friendship between HRDD’s Eric Hughes and owner Anthony Orona. The March/April issue should hit the newstands mid March. Thank you to photographer Leonid Furmansky whose images capture the life and light of the home; and Jessie Temple for so articulately describing how the home was designed to reflect and embrace the spirit of the Birk-Orona family!

Read the article on Dwell.com!

PDF of “An Open Invitation” can be viewed here.

More about the Crestview Residence here.

Who Builds Our City?

Did you miss this year’s Rice Design Alliance virtual gala? You can view the entire event focused around “Who Builds Our City?” online!

RDA’s annual Gala celebrates leaders in the architecture, engineering, design, and construction communities. This year—due to the pandemic—RDA reimagined the event into an online celebration of Houston’s built environment. Who Builds Our City? brings together practitioners and industry leaders to celebrate the collective effort of those who build our cities. Paying tribute to the diverse range of people and professions that shape Houston, RDA shares stories of those who often are out of the spotlight, but who are integral to the making of our built environment. Click here to learn more.

This event was live-streamed on Thursday, January 28, 2021. View or download the event program here.

RDA Young Professionals Studio Tour

Last week, the Rice Design Alliance Young Professionals paid a virtual studio visit to HRDD! We shared some of our current and past projects during an informal conversation and happy hour. Rice Design Alliance’s Young Professionals is a dynamic group of practitioners in the design, architecture, construction, and engineering fields who have an interest in improving and pushing the limits of design culture in Houston.

HRDD Added to the Rebel Architette World Map!

RebelArchitette, founded by Italian Architect Francesca Perani, has developed an online tool that aims to detox architecture from inequalities. The interactive public world map of women-led architecture practices can be used as a guide to women architects and their practices around the world. Following the RebelArchitette e-book, Architette=Women Architects, that profiled 365 female architects, the map propels forward their mission to make female architects around the world more visible – and their exclusion less defensible.

We need to give a better future to younger generations of students and discourage male-dominated literature and conferences resulting in a single-gender role model reference. We are pushing to have a social and cultural impact through a powerful, collaborative approach, which we are already experiencing with incredible international associations.

— Elena Fabrizi RebelArchitette Co-curator

HR Design Department’s Heather Rowell is honored to be included on the map and named a RebelArchitette! The ever expanding resource is made possible through an international network of partners and advisors. Houston architect, author, and professor, Donna Kacmar, FAIA, is one of three RebelAdvisors from the United States. In addition to the map, the RebelArchitette Resource page lists communities around the world working towards equality in the building and design fields (including Houston’s dynamic Women in Architecture committee).

HRDD Receives AIA Houston Design Awards

This week, AIA Houston held the 2020 Virtual Awards Gala. The event celebrated the work of Architecture Center Houston, AIA Houston members, and awarded some of the best architectural work by local architects. The Design Awards program recognizes design excellence in architecture, residential architecture, interior architecture, restoration/renovation, and urban design. Criteria to be used by the jury include quality of design, resolution of the program idea, sustainable responsibility, innovation, thoughtfulness, and technique. This year’s jurors were Annie Chu, FAIA, IIDA; Ned Cramer, Assoc. AIA; and Elaine Molinar, AIA.

HR Design Department was honored with a Residential Design Award for the Crestview Residence and an On the Boards Design Award for the Montrose Hotel! You can view a complete listing of the Design Award winners here. AND - view the entire Awards gala on YouTube here!

In addition to the Design Award announcements, Luis Ayala was awarded the Ben Brewer Young Architect Award and Stantec received Firm of the Year.

Rice Design Alliance NEWS

This week, the Rice Design Alliance announced their 2020-2021 Officers. HRDD’s Heather Rowell is honored to serve. The RDA was founded in 1972 and has developed into a strong community dedicated to the critical exploration of the urban condition in Houston and beyond. Through their lecture series, design competitions, exhibitions, publications, and curated trips, the RDA raises awareness and inspires solutions to the challenges that citizens and cities worldwide are facing today. This year’s officers include:

Doug Childers, President; Andrew Albers, President-Elect; Sheryl Kolasinski, Vice-President; Mark Lund, Treasurer; Heather Rowell, Secretary; and Steve Mechler, Past President. New to the Board of Directors this year are Rice Architecture student representatives Elina Chen (B.A. ’22) and Alec Burran (M.Arch. ’23).

For more information on the Rice Design Alliance and to become a member - visit: https://www.ricedesignalliance.org/

Rice School of Architecture Adjusts to Distant Learning

The closure of the Rice University campus mid-semester forced educators to creatively adapt their planned curriculum to a challenging virtual classroom setting. This semester, HRDD’s Heather Rowell assisted Wonne Ickx with a graduate architecture studio - “Pyramid Schemes”. The class drastically pivoted after an early semester field trip to Mexico City and intensive physical model investigations. In an attempt to save the original goals of the studio, Wonne asked the students to create simulated physical models of their final projects. ArchDaily recently published the students’ hard work:

"Students were asked to simulate, to feign a physical model: to create an image that would look as much as possible as if a physical model had been produced, but the whole image had to be engineered in virtual space. A playful exercise in simulation. Students invented specific backgrounds, accidental spots of shade, disregarded tools, studio-lighting or leftover masking tapes... to make their images look as realistic as possible. Lots of effort was spent in avoiding the pristine quality of the digital assembly: walls were places slightly off-grid, handrails were bent or received a minor fold, glue remnants were digitally applied and uneven joints were carefully crafted into the virtual realm.”

The Rice Architecture students were resilient and results were fantastic!

The Women of Rice

HRDD’s Heather Rowell, AIA was selected as one of the Rice School of Architecture Alumna to be included in the The Center for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality’s newest exhibition: The Women of Rice: Alumnae, Here and Beyond.

“Just as Rice faculty and staff have demonstrated, our alumnae also seek to “be the change.” Since 1912 these enterprising Women of Rice have continually made their own way: occupying high-profile positions of leadership; developing patents; becoming Poets Laureate; trailblazing a path for women to the highest education possible; winning prestigious prizes in their fields, including Pulitzers, Emmys, Grammys and Peabodys; founding groundbreaking companies; playing in the WNBA; contending in the Olympics; and even venturing into space.

Organized by school, this third Women of Rice exhibit celebrates a handful of alumnae whose talents, courage, savvy, and determination ratcheted the standards of Rice yet higher – and these women maintained or surpassed those standards “beyond the hedges.”

We recognize that many women and men, inside and outside of Rice, laid a path for these outstanding alumnae to follow, shaping conditions decade by decade to ease access to varied career opportunities.”

The exhibit is on view through Friday, February 14th in Rice University’s Fondren Library. An online catalog of the exhibit is available here.

Bellmeade Residence Interview

Designers Andrew and Gretchen McFarland collaborated with HR Design Dept architect Eric Hughes to create a modern, respectful addition to their River Oaks Home. Together they created a solution that aimed to adapt the older home to the growing family while preserving the landscape and scale of the original home - which was completed in 1926 and renovated by William F Stern and Associates in 1986.

Check out the Rice Design Alliance interview with Andrew and Eric.

TxA Conference in Galveston

Last week, hundreds of architects gathered in Galveston for the Texas Society of Architect’s Annual Conference + Design Expo - the 80th of its kind. This year’s theme, “IMMERSION: Knowledge. Resilience. Inclusion” included discussions aimed at acknowledging and tackling the issues facing architects and our built environment today.

HRDD was honored to participate by leading two roundtable discussions we’re passionate about. On Friday, Heather - with Dianne Kett AIA - led a discussion on how bias impacts the professional development of women as part of the Women in Architecture Roundtable. During Saturday’s Emerging Leader Roundtable - Eric, Heather, and kinneymorrow’s Michael Morrow led a candid discussion on owning a small practice called “Small. Firm. Round Table.”

We’re already looking forward to next year’s conversations in Dallas!

AND - we encourage fellow architects and designers to consider attending the 2020 TxA Design Conference in February. “PASSAGE” will take place in El Paso:

Looking north, two mountain ranges loom with a chasm between them. El Paso’s literal translation is “The Pass.” Applied to people, time, literature, and geography “passage” is an open word that prompts questions. It can be used to apportion meaning, to define limits, or present a way through. El Paso/Juarez, as the world’s largest borderplex, is an excellent place to investigate how overlapping, interchanging, complex social and geographic factors can impact design.

Eric has been working with a great team on the TxA Design Conference Committee to help make the event a success!

AIA Austin Summer Conference

If you’re in Austin tomorrow for the AIA Austin Summer Conference, we encourage you to check out ”Digital, Analog, and Hybrid - Contemporary Means of Architectural Representation” at 3p. HRDD collaborator, Alex Warr will be part of a panel of architects who were featured in Texas Architect magazine’s Digital/Analog Drawing feature (May/June issue). Together, they will discuss their rendering processes and the relative values of contemporary drawing media. Joining Alex are Dustin Wheat, Erin Augustine, John Redington, and Murray Legge.

HRDD OPEN HOUSE!

HRDD just turned ONE! Please celebrate with us by stopping by our new office Thursday, June 20th. Pop in anytime Thursday, June 20th from 4p-8p to see our new office, have a drink and snack, find out what we're up to.

Thursday is also World Refugee Day, so we’ll be using our celebration as a time to raise awareness of the great work done by our new office mates, Every Shelter.

Our new office is located at 1429 Oleander Street, Ste A (behind Kaboom Books on Houston Ave) . Parking is limited, so please carpool if you can and park on adjoining streets (not in front of Kaboom books, please). 

The Montrose Hotel Granted Variance

Last week the City of Houston Planning Commission granted a variance allowing Goodnight Hospitality to move forward with its plans to open a new luxury, boutique hotel, The Montrose Hotel, near the intersection of Westheimer and Dunlavy. The hotel, designed by HRDD, is slated to open late next year!

Read more about Goodnight Hospitality and The Montrose Hotel: CultureMap, Houston Business Journal, Houston Chronicle

Bellmeade Addition in Houston House & Home

Houston House and Home featured the Beallmeade Addition in their April issue. Charles W. Oliver, staff architect for the River Oaks Corporation, designed this compact but extravagantly picturesque Spanish style house for advertising man Pierre L. Michael. It was completed in 1926 and renovated by William F Stern and Associates in 1986. Designers Andrew McFarland and Gretchen McFarland, the current owners, worked with HR Design Dept architect Eric Hughes to create a modern, respectful addition. In collaboration with the owners, Eric worked to adapt the older home to the growing family while preserving the landscape and scale of the original home. The 1400 SF addition and 600 SF garage were completed in 2014.

Read the article here - or online at Houson House and Home.

Rice Design Alliance Home Tour

Please join HRDD for the Rice Design Alliance 2019 Architecture Tour: ADAPT on Saturday-Sunday, April 27-28 from 1:00-6:00 p.m. This year's tour theme "ADAPT" refers to the different ways in which architects and owners of Houston homes have modified their living spaces to adapt to changing conditions. The six Houston houses featured on the tour have adapted to generational succession, family change, climate crisis, neighborhood expectations, rising waters, and preserving in place. HR Design Dept is honored to have 1903 Bellmeade on the tour!

1903 Bellmeade Road, originally designed by Charles W. Oliver in 1926, was updated in 1987 by William F. Stern & Associates. In 2014,  d>mcf projects, Eric Hughes of HR Design Department, and Gretchen McFarland Design+Interiors teamed up for a modern, respectful addition.

Homes by McIntyre + Robinowitz, Adams Architects, Guthrie Strasser, Janusz Design, Arkitektura Development Inc. will also be on the tour!

Current RDA members may purchase discounted tickets for $25. RDA membership is open to all! Tickets for non-members are $35. Student tickets are $15 with a valid ID. Tickets are non-refundable. 

Each ticket provides access to all six locations. 

Purchase Tickets Here.

Click here for more information.