Project Details
Project Description
The Shoal Creek house design is intended to redefine what our ideas of beauty can be. By deriving its main forms, spaces and materiality from functional needs on the site, climatic responses in our area, and local tradition, this house seeks to demonstrate that simple problem-solving can be a successful path to achieving new architecture. By stacking the two-story part of the house along the heavily-trafficked west edge of the site, the house shades itself in the hottest parts of our diurnal cycle and its roof slopes advantageously to collect solar. The two-story volume also helps protect the inner courtyard from traffic noise. The horseshoe shape of the house encloses an existing mature Pecan while also giving the house more advantageous southern and northern glazing exposure, which was another technique in developing the house's massing. Two continuous roof slopes enable a large rainwater collection system. A large covered terrace above the carport enabled a circular driveway required by the owners, while also providing a neighborly-minded 'front porch' that also helps buffer the direct west sun. The exterior's light colored regionally familiar metal roof and siding, has a high albedo to reduce solar heat gain and uses a pattern evoking the neighborhood's typical 2-5-7 stone pattern. The exterior stained Cypress uses another regional resource in a similar pattern and in a rain-screen application. The interiors use a combination of reconstituted wood products and regional materials to incorporate a regional and sustainable palette. Low-voc finishes, a full LED lighting package and a multi-phase high EER HVAC system incorporate some the highest technologies which combine to make this house one of the firm's most energy-efficient ever. The strategies in all create a house that reflects the firm's values: regionalism, minimalism, functionalism, and expressionism. In addition, we hope this design will demonstrate that new and exciting forms and spaces can come as a result of simple problem-solving.
