This house for a family of 7 explores the integration of indoor and outdoor living in response to the high temperatures and rainfall of Austin, TX. Our design arranged the client’s accommodations around a central pool, providing shade, flexible space and privacy.

The 5,000 sq. ft. house opens towards a pool court encircled by permeable rooms, gathering spaces for the family and their frequent guests. Large windows and sliding doors provide cross ventilation and connect the double-height living room to outdoor rooms, the front courtyard and backyard. Custom-made moveable shutters, their moon-shaped cut-outs letting dappled light in to animate the interiors, allow the owners to control sunlight and ventilation. Fabricated by a local metalworker, the perforated water-jet cut aluminum panels reappear in the carport screen, courtyard gates, entry gate (in weathering steel) and custom exterior light fixtures.

Balancing solidity and weight with lightness and transparency, the extended roof planes, calibrated using sun-tracking computer modeling, minimize solar heat gain in the summer and allow passive heating in winter. The roofs direct rainwater to a 3,000-gallon underground cistern to irrigate planted area, while terraced rain gardens collect run-off for desert plantings. The constrained site is 8 feet above the street, affording the house privacy and views over the neighboring houses to downtown Austin. Mature ash and live oak trees provide vital shading.

Sensuous materials - the red-brown of mesquite and cool smoothness of ground concrete floors, exposed steel columns and cantilevered steel beams, sanded aluminum, board-form concrete and weathering steel - create a palette that will patina over time and endure in a subtropical climate.

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