Location: Austin . Texas

About:

New single family house overlooking the Colorado River, east of downtown Austin.

Design: 2024-2025

Location: The Yard | Austin . TX

About:

An all-day bath house and wellness concept within a 1940's steel pipe barn located off St.Elmo Road in Austin.

design: 2020

location: Tarrytown Neighborhood | Austin . Texas

brief:

Design a great room addition to a 1930’s 4-square house.

Design: 2022

Phase: Construction

Client: Endeavor

Location: Austin . Texas

Brief:

Transform a windowless 1980’s CMU warehouse into a 2 story creative office in North Central Austin, near the Highland neighborhood.

Concept:

Turn a box into a treehouse.

The existing building was a windowless concrete block box surrounded by several Heritage Live Oak trees in its parking lot. To open the building up, 7 exterior walls were removed.

The owner had tasked us with optimizing all rentable floor areas. To avoid interior maze-like corridors and chopping up spaces, all circulation was moved outside. Two new exterior stairs and a steel framed catwalk help foster communal interaction, shade the new windows and added value to the overall project proforma.

Design: 2020

Location: 1711 E. Oltorf | Austin . TX

Use: Retail

Size: 3,950 SF

About:

Situated on a collector street to Interstate 35, we were asked to design a speculative retail building for 2-3 tenants. Looking beyond the world of stuck-on off white stucco and applied materials, we opted to use the structure of the building as an asset. Working within a pre-determined footprint and designing to the City of Austin’s minimum window area, this building became a study in simple proportions and textures.

One window unit size dances around the Texas Limestone clad exterior, sometimes horizontal, sometimes vertical. Always the same dimensions.

Design: 2021

Location: Azle . Texas

Phase: Planning + Schematic Design

Services: Site Planning, Architecture, Interiors

About:

On an abandoned tree nursery is how this story begins.

Events within
Imagine a wedding or chef’s dinner in an orchard or grove of trees.

Sheltered Events
Having a beautiful event space that was different. Instead of commonly used Texas pole-barn or faux-rustic charm metal barn, this venue is positioned towards the timeless. A calm, modern and poetic space that frames the landscape.

Getaway Cabins
Imagine staying in a cabin, that was a 3 level treehouse…a deck, a bathroom and the bedroom….imagine a cup of coffee up within the tree canopy.

That is this story.

A romantic paradise.

Design: 2021

Location: Austin . Texas

About: Boutique guitar shop within a windowless warehouse space.

Design: 2019

Location: Round Mountain

Status: Documentation

Task:

Design a ranch situated in the Texas Hill Country for a family.

The site is situated in old Comanche Indian territory, a raised natural grass plain that hovers over a valley.

The strategy of this project was to establish an immersive experience that would re-connected the family with the Hill Country Landscape. Learning from the Comanches, we aimed to remove Western ideas of “structure,” taking a typical ranch house and thinking of it as rooms in the landscape.

Each steel fabricated shed lies within a grassy meadow along a raised wooden boardwalk ring linking them together, in a unifying geometry related to various celestial events + views.

Phase: Construction

Location: 119 W. 8th Street, 1st Floor

Task: Interiors + Lighting

Statement:

Built during the Great Depression, this former trade college building is now an understated 2 story office building, surrounded by mid-high rise buildings.

When built in the late 1930’s, the Federalist design elements had unique features - a concrete structure (beams, floors, columns) and a pink terrazzo floor. Those features over time had been covered over, with tile and a previous tenant’s black + red paint scheme.

The approach for this project was to take it all back to the original bones of the building. Walls and ceilings were sandblasted, terrazzo floors were cleaned and restored. The strategy for new spaces was to shape them within the framework of the old, and contrast them in color for understanding of what was original and what was added.

Blackened Stainless Steel and Dark Anodized Bronzes cladding is used throughout the new elements to contrast and establish a richness that most office environments lack. The only white finishes in the project is within the restrooms. Being different is not only good, but essential.

Location: Tarrytown | Austin . Texas

Task:

Reimagine a 1918 Carriage House into an Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU).

Design:

Bounded by a City restriction of being required to keep 50% of existing walls, we opted to preserve this old building which originally housed a carriage for Sunday rides after church.

After measuring the building, we fell in love with its memory and how it was made. Each true 2” x 4” wood stud used was spaced at 26” on center, every window was the same size and fit precisely between the studs. Diagonal bracing was used in the corners to stiffen this early stick-built building. If asked to do this now, the Codes wouldn’t allow it.

It was not perfect for changing into an apartment. It suffered from a cracking slab, severe water issues and low 7-foot ceilings. It had no running water, heating/cooling or electricity. To help preserve the structure and give it another 50+ years, we proposed the following:

• Pour a new slab-on-grade and stem wall beneath the building, which added 1 foot in height to the first floor

• Preserve all of the existing exterior walls of the old structure. By adding insulation and new sheathing to the exterior, all of the studs and framing will be left exposed.

• Replicate the old window proportion with new insulated windows units

• Make a new roof that add’s 2 feet in height to the 2nd floor and matches the main house’s Dutch roofline.

Design: 2018

Location: Austin . Texas 78704

Phase: Partially Built

Brief:

This renovation was to transform two former daycare buildings into a creative office headquarters. To save months of permitting time and fees, the project utilized the City of Austin’s Site Plan Exemption process.

To minimize site disturbances and work within Site Plan Exemption regulations, we opted to link the buildings through a series of raised wooden boardwalks. This effort was easier to construct and allowed water to flow more easily through the site.

The back building is used for entertaining and meetings, features a mural inspired by the companies brand and casual sunsets over Lake Travis.

Project was abandoned at 75% completion and sold.

Design: 2019

Phase: Construction

Location: 7501 North Lamar Blvd.

About:

This abandoned Title Loan building located in a North Austin food desert will be re-imaged into an all day veggie-forward restaurant.

To save our client 2 years of permitting time and several hundred thousand dollars, we recommended to remodel this existing 1-story tilt-wall and steel framed building. To make that work and comply with City of Austin codes, nearly 1/3 of the existing building had to be converted into a parking lot to be accepted by the City.

The parking and high traffic location led to the concept of creating a secret garden restaurant behind a screen block facade.

The screen block enclosure acts as a veil, blocking harsh afternoon sun, traffic and creating a memorable experience to discover what’s behind the wall.

The project features a site specific floor installation by Austin-based digital artist Tyler Hobbs. The pattern and colors will be generated by a custom computer algorithm.

c. 2020

Location: Manor Road | Austin . Texas

Task:

Design an inspired and quirky office next to Batch Brewery.

About:

Designed during the spring quarantine of 2020. Designing an office for the future raised many questions about office environments.

What would an office be without a home?

What if you had a little home at your office?

So to add to the Batch Brewery compound in central east Austin we chose to design an interior village.

The architecture is a series of small house-like forms within a larger warehouse space. Each programmatic element is given its own roof, like a house. A chimney conceals the undesirable (ducts, vents, conduit), while giving staff an “attic” loft area to escape to during the work day.

A village under a roof. Architecture as a community not a hierarchy.

Design . 2020

Phase .Concept

Location: 3115 Manor Road | Austin . Texas

Use: Live Work | Office | Cafe

Task:

Smarter, smaller + more fun development on a scrappy property near the Mueller Development.

Proposition:

Power is in numbers.

Design a community of small scaled [1,000-2,500 SF] creative spaces, made for creative firms, artists and small businesses that had been priced out of the market by larger corporations and co-working companies.

Each unit has the same footprint with a slightly different roof. Some have a mezzanines + roof decks to take advantage of created views to downtown Austin. As if to make a roofscape when viewed across the street.

Architecturally we wanted to poke fun of corporate architecture, which commonly has a decorated box with few details applied thousands of times. In this application, we chose to develop a kit of details that could accommodate playfulness through variation and different roof directions. The buildings are based on a 15 foot module and simple braced steel framed structures.

Design: 2019

Location: 2707 Rogge Lane | Austin . Texas

Project Type: New Office / Retail Building

Size: 11,000 GSF

Task:

Located in an opportunity zone 15 minutes east of Downtown, this office + retail project is an exploration of making a community scaled commercial building.

As a commentary on corporate commercial office buildings in Austin, they are often squeezed into small properties leading to bulky and architecturally awkward solutions. Tenants struggle for limited signage and ownership within someone else’s building.

As a reaction to the market condition, we chose a different path. We wanted to make a building where the tenants branded their owns spaces and making made a village of smaller suites.

Starting with a standard two-story office block, we chopped it into 3 wings, connected by an exterior hallway and elevator. Between each wing is an outdoor courtyard. The courtyards become shared spaces and a common path into the project. One courtyard houses a patio for a cafe, the other an elevator.

Each 900 SF suite was designed to be adaptable over time. Units could operate independently, be leased together or be subdivided into (2) smaller spaces if needed.

To give our client more selling points, every suite is given branding panel, operable windows and independent HVAC control.

The buildings are framed of exposed structural steel, with primary beams having (2) holes for HVAC ductwork to fit neatly within. The slight added cost allowed for more-gallery like spaces and taller ceilings. Floors are made of locally made hollow-core concrete planks, in an effort to construct the building more quickly.

To offset costs and take advantage of a loophole in the City code, all hallways, stairs and elevator are excluded from gross floor area and parking requirements, allowing our client to build a larger building, with more rentable area.

Design: 2014 - 2016

Completed: 2017

Location: 2301 W. Anderson Lane | Austin . TX

Tenant: Link Co-Working

Services: Programming, Architecture, Interior Design

Task:

Convert an abandoned office building into a cafe + co-working building.

Ideas:
This project was seen as a light intervention, bringing in light and fun to an existing dark 1980’s building. The solution was to use what was there when possible and bring interest into the interior.

Through (2) overhead skylight monitor, introducing climbing rope guardrails and using existing steel and concrete block walls, this project exposed what was there. To save costs and not try to fight something that was already there.

Design: 2018

Location: East Austin | Austin, Texas

Budget: $120,000

Task:

We were asked to design the expansion of the Outdoor Voices Austin Headquarters into a former medical clinic. Taking queues from Will Fox’s open concept of the 1st building, this project was a study in making a fluid space around a curved volume (that contained conference rooms and bathrooms). All existing walls and ceilings were removed to expose wood wood trusses and metal ductwork. Skylights help to provide light throughout the day with concealed track lighting tucked within the trusses.

Services: Interior Design, Lighting

Design: 2018

Location: W. 29th Street, Austin . Texas

Brief:

Renovate an existing 1960’s ‘Brady - Bunch Style’ Fraternity Great Room and Commercial Kitchen.

Door Artwork Collaborators: Hemlock + Heather

Phase: Concept

Location: Hill Country, Texas

Design:

Situated in the Texas Hill Country, we were tasked to design a new Distillery for the the Sotol spirit company, Desert Door. Inspired by the history of the Sotol spirit and the West Texas terrain in which the Sotol plant thrives, we envisioned an architecture that was pre-Colonial and without a style. Taking queues from vernacular architecture, the buildings will be rendered in mud and assembled like an ancient village of shapes, where gardens are discovered and the experience is forever new.

c: 2017

Location: Cinema Building | Mueller | Austin. Texas

Task:

Design the first brick and mortar restaurant for an Austin based grilled cheese food truck. The tenant space was situated under a the Cinema Building in the Mueller neighborhood. Due to limited space, the shotgun layout was the only way to squeeze a commercial kitchen into a 17-foot wide space.

The goal was to tie the interiors to the Burro brand using blackened steel, pink accents and yellow shipping container metal siding. Overhead is a checkered black overhang that references cheese graters and conceals ductwork/plants.

Services: Architecture, Interiors, Lighting

Design: 2016.09

Location: Heights Mercantile

City: Houston, Texas

Task:
The City of Houston had condemned this a 4-unit apartment building located across from Heights Mercantile. Steve Radom asked us to concept what could be done with a 100 year old building and transform it into a retail destination.

The proposal, designed while on vacation, was for a modest double height box with an exposed heavy timber wood skeleton. Two Vertical Vessels were created within the larger space to enclose private rooms: a restroom, dressing room, an office and storage space. All else was open for exploration and discovery.

Design: 2016 . 11

Location: Austin . Texas

About:

Working on a modest budget in a generic strip mall space, we were asked to help a small business owner start their first chocolate shop.

Looking to create a simple, inexpensive and food handling safe design, we pitched a strange idea: make the space look like someone took a bite through a layered candy, exposing the different nougats and cremes.

Functionally, the back of house production areas are separated by “enfilade” wall. Each wall is painted in the client’s brand colors, so when window shopping or paying for purchases, it becomes a colorful focal point in the space.

Design: 2017

Location: Yale Street | Houston Heights | Houston . TX

Concept:

As retailers down-scale to pop up stores and online delivery systems, a developer client asked us to explore what the future of retail real estate might be.

Our idea was to mash two things together and offer a new shopping experience around finding intimate small-scaled spaces within a park-like setting. Imagine a mall without a parking garage or rows and rows of asphalt.

Within a grove of native Black Tupelo trees spaced at 25 feet on center, 12 structures punctuate the ground forming spaces to discover shops and share coffee in-between.

The buildings range from 600 - 1200 square feet and act like little towers within a tree grove. The architecture of each tower is made of common materials to manage costs. Each is wood framed, built on a slab and clad in uniquely patterned brick with simple openings.

design: 2017

location: Clarksville Neighborhood, Austin . TX

task:

Design 3 rowhomes between a Historic House and 1970’s apartment building.

about:

Like people, houses should not be same. Imagine seeing versions of yourself along a street, mirrored, with different hair and eye color perhaps. Still terrifying.

With an interest in developing a rich language, this project is for 3 rowhomes made of the same materials, with the same basic dimensions yet configured uniquely. In a goal of making siblings, not developer driven clones.

Using load-bearing exposed creme block, exposed pine glulam beams and simple details, the project attempts to be modest, straightforward and not overly out-do the neighborhood’s chill vibe.

Design: 2011

Location: Hamilton Avenue | Austin . Texas

About:

A young couple asked us to make a creative space to compliment their small 800 square foot home.

The detached building was designed to house a 900 lb. steel letterpress and function as a short-term rental / chill space.

The architecture became a simple L-shaped plan of two interlocked rectangles.

The letterpress studio opens to the sky for daylight and the other opens to a courtyard for a happy hours and get togethers.

design: 2011

location: New Orleans . Louisana

competition: 2011 Passive House Competition

about:

A simple 2 bed home with some appendages + cross ventilation opportunities.

Built: 2011

Location: San Diego . California

Task:

Design a meditative massage spa in a generic strip center space

About:

In a world of growing noise and anxiety, we were asked to design an escape and place for people to detach from their everyday lives.

This modest, low budget project transformed a rather generic 6th generation space into a meditative interior landscape. Taking inspiration from Balboa Park’s Cabrillo Bridge, each treatment room offers a different sense of intimacy through 5 different vaults.

Materials:

Drywall, Paint and Pre-Fabricated Plywood Arches

Design: 2010.05

Location: San Marcos, California

Type: Single Family Residence

Size: 4,000 SF

Task: Design a hillside Spanish Colonial influenced house

About:

Taking cues from Irving Gill, Spanish Colonial architecture and the Sunset Bowl, we were asked to design a hillside home is a particular style.

Learning from those before us, we looked at design moves that transcended style and were more elemental. Looking to make the house an experience over an applied theme, we imagined the house as one long barrel vault, rendered in Santa Barbara troweled stucco, surrounded by several terraced gardens. Windows recall a light sage green used by Irving Gill and the desert landscape of Southern California.

Rooms are separated by wood clad elements for privacy and function. The main living areas are on one-level to encourage indoor-outdoor interaction as the clients age into retirement. The lower floor is concealed by a reflecting pool, cover guest rooms and family area below.

Design: 2011.10

Location: Crestview, Austin | Texas

2010 Cavin Fellowship Competition

Finalist

Brief:

Design and present an architectural concept for a Backcountry Ski Operations Center high in the Mountains of Utah, utilizing passive and sustainable building strategies. Total time duration: 5 days from receiving brief to submitting presentation.

The Cavin Fellowship is travel-based $10,000 award for University of Oregon and Cal Poly Pomona graduates under the age of 35.

Design: 2009.10

Location: South Park | San Diego . California

Brief:

Design a detached accessory dwelling for a Mother-In-Law

About:

Built after a significant wildfire, this secondary home was designed to resemble a burnt fence, strong, weathered and aged. The house is a modest L - Shaped plan focused around a courtyard. The roof and walls have share the same slope to obscure the idea of what is fence and what is house.

Clad in burnt (shou-shugi-ban) cypress siding from the 2004 San Diego Cedar Fire forest fire, it offers a dark background to celebrate the changing flora + fauna of the Southern California. Punctuating the center of the courtyard is a purple Jacaranda tree and a bench for reflective moments.

Design: 2010.01

Location: Mission Hills, San Diego, CA

Brief: Design a group row homes facing the Pacific Ocean between a hillside and major freeway. Each similar in appearance, but slightly unique. Like a pack of animals roaming amongst the wild.

Design: 2008

Location: South Park . San Diego, California

Idea:

Like a campsite, this house concept was designed as a series of tents around a firepit. Rooms are defined and enclosed by their own colored forms (bedrooms, living, master suite) and connected with a covered walkway, raised slightly above the earth and covered for those moments of ill-weather.

In this format, what would have been an underused backyard, is now an activated garden, used for eating, parties and chilling.

Design: 2002.06

Location: Eugene, Oregon

About:

Situated on a long south-facing long lot, this house was for a young couple. Inspired by Mies’ Farnsworth House, it’s a blend of high architecture and low. A love letter to Mies, but with HVAC, plywood and a gabled roof to make things more regionally feasible.

One roof is the bedrooms, the other the social spaces (kitchen - living dining). Taking cues from Mies, we opted to put a gabled roof and gutters on a steel skeleton, raised above the earth. To save money, wall cladding (inside and out) are clad in locally made Douglas Fir plywood.

Design: 2001 . 10

Collaboration with Eric Wiley

Location: Coburg Corridor | Eugene . Oregon

Professor: Michael Fifield

About:

Designed during the fall of 2001, we chose to exhibit our feelings.

This housing study was for the middle landscape, the parts of cities that aren’t urban and don’t have cul-de-sacs.

This exploration was about creating standardized houses that could be reconfigured on different properties between the urban and sub-urban areas. The studio goal was to increase the density of a site to 20 units per acre, where each house had its own private outdoor space, garage and was interconnected by two common shared driveways.

One, two and three bedroom house types were developed based on a 20 foot module. In lieu of common architectural massing strategies, like false facades and “breaking down the mass” we chose to celebrate the monolithic nature of the design by veiling it behind a louvered wooden slat screen. Allowing occupants to chose their level of engagement with the world. Block it out or allow it in.

A mirror of our fall 2001 feelings.

A big thank you to Eric Wiley for the friendship and passion brought to the project and models.

Designed: Summer 2001

Location: Lowell . Oregon

Presentation:
1” scale model + Pencil on Vellum Triptych

Task:

This was an undergraduate studio project. After severe struggles with a Catholic structured professor about how spaces should be, this offering was for everyone and not about any god. It’s a space about you. And how to manifest that light.

A space that all could feel, using the five elements.
A universal feeling, not literary based interpretation or judgement.

About:

Along the Willamette River situated between Lowell Dam and Oakridge, a small structure exists.

A small path between ferns and groundcover lead way to a man-made concrete un-assuming structure.

2 concrete walls and a floor float above the seasonal energy of the river. A roof, framed in steel hovering above the walls, with a simple gap. Light comes in through a small gap of sandblasted low-iron glass. Shadows appear on the glass, but not actual view.

The architecture is designed to remove the visual and transport one to other senses. And allow nature to communicate in new, non-visual ways.

Design: 02 . 2000

Location: 19th + Agate Street | Eugene . OR

Type: Mixed Use Hotel

About:

There’s a regional joke about the architecture of the Pacific Northwest. Some say, architecture doesn’t matter. As architecture, is impossible to see behind all of the trees.

Task:

Design a 50 key boutique hotel near the University of Oregon’s famous Hayward Field. The site is located on a gateway to Campus, where apartment buildings give way to well cared for single family homes.

Proposition:

Taking inspiration from the Oregon landscape and its trussed bridges, this hotel is a series heavy timber wooden trusses that span over basalt meandering walls. The walls weave in and out, as an extension of the earth, to create stairwells, site features and provide a sense of weight.

The guest rooms and ballroom, float over the walls in a syncopated rhythm, allowing light to fall between gaps to the first floor.

Each room, like a music note, is expressed on the facade, clad in satin textured aluminum panels. A regional + subtle material used to capture the nuanced gray light of the Pacific Northwest. Openings are screened behind deciduous Maple trees and separated by private patios.