这座房子位于休斯顿最后一个完整的十九世纪工人阶级社区之一–近北区，距市中心约一英里。虽然可能没有传统意义上的吸引力，但近北区的安妮女王和民间维多利亚式工人别墅的集合提供了关于旧建筑如何适应新用途和增加密度的经验，而不是简单地被取代。我们在设计一块一直空置的土地上的新房子时，考虑到了这种经济精神，并把它作为这个快速绅士化的城市地区未来填充房屋的原型。

This house is located in one of Houston’s last intact, nineteenth-century, working-class neighborhoods—the Near Northside—about one mile north of downtown. While perhaps not conventionally attractive, the Near Northside’s collection of well-used Queen Anne and Folk Victorian worker’s cottages offers lessons on how old buildings can be adapted to new uses and increased density instead of simply being replaced. We took this ethos of economy into consideration for the design of a new house on a lot that had always been vacant and approached it as a prototype for future infill houses in this rapidly gentrifying urban area.

在房子的前面是一个500平方米的独立建筑，作为我们的建筑办公室。我们的计划是，它既可以并入房子的其他部分，也可以改造成一个附属的住宅单元，供未来的业主租用。与工作室相邻，同样面向街道的是一个带储藏室的车棚。房屋的实际居住面积为1500平方米，在面向街道的工作室后面，以一条线延伸到后面的地产线。

At the front of the house is a detached 500 sf building that serves as our architectural office. We planned so that it could either be incorporated into the rest of the house or converted into an accessory dwelling unit for rental by future owners. Adjacent to the studio, also facing the street, is a carport with a storage closet. The actual living area of the house of 1500 sf extends in a line to the back property line behind the street-facing studio.

工作室和房子由一个遛狗门廊连接。由于房子又长又窄，朝东的侧院成为主要的花园空间。房子面向花园的墙壁是由一排宽3英尺6英寸、高8英尺0英寸的廉价乙烯基窗组成。可操作的铝制平开窗，3′-6 “见方，与主门在轴线上对齐（都装有防虫网），以便在好天气时提供交叉通风。从街道到花园的直接视野被车棚所调节。房子和屋顶是深绿色的，它同时与植被融合在一起，并在白色和粉色的房子的街道上脱颖而出。

The studio and the house are joined by a dog trot porch. Because the house is long and narrow, the east-facing side yard becomes the primary garden space. The walls of the house facing the garden are composed of rows of inexpensive 3’-6” wide by 8’-0” tall vinyl windows. Operable, aluminum casement windows, 3’-6” square, are aligned on axis with the main door (all equipped with bug screens) to provide for cross ventilation in good weather. Direct views from the street to the garden are modulated by the carport. The house and roof are dark green, which simultaneously blends with the vegetation and stands out in a street of white and pastel-colored houses.

我们希望新房子能尊重周围城市结构的温和尺度，但又能用自己的现代声音说话。我们的想法是让它安静地坐着，但也要与它的老邻居们进行相互尊重的对话。德州湾沿岸的乡土建筑的类型、材料和空间模式为其设计提供了具体的参考。这包括狭长的枪房平面图；用木格子屏风遮挡西边的阳光的狗步连接门廊，4英尺高的墩柱和横梁基础，陡峭的山坡屋顶；以及用东德克萨斯黄松制成的斜面外墙。在一个更基本的层面上，休斯顿的亚热带气候在其规划中发挥了作用。

We wanted the new house to respect the gentle scale of the modest surrounding urban fabric but to speak in its own contemporary voice. The idea was for it to sit quietly but also engage in a respectful dialogue with its older neighbors. The typologies, materials, and spatial patterns of vernacular building on the Texas gulf coast inform its design in specific ways. These include the long, narrow shot gun house floor plan; dog trot connecting porch shielded from the west sun by a screen of wood lattice, 4’ tall, pier and beam foundation, steep-pitched, gable roofs; and beveled exterior siding made of East Texas yellow pine. At a more basic level, Houston’s subtropical climate played a role in its planning.

穿插在空调区之间的各种有顶和开放的室外空间可以全年使用，无论是晴天还是雨天。我们混合了农村和城市，以及传统和现代的参考资料。它的外观有一种有意的模糊性，因为它的体量和许多材料，有时与附近的其他房屋几乎相同，但被部署在这种非常规的组合中。

The variety of covered and open outdoor spaces interspersed between the air-conditioned areas can be used year-round, in sunny weather and in rain. We mixed references, both rural and urban, and traditional and modern. There is an intentional ambiguity in its appearance because the massing and many of the materials, which are sometimes all-but-identical to the other houses in the neighborhood, are deployed in such unconventional combinations.

我们的这种辩证法的模式是20世纪最重要的文化赞助人–法美艺术收藏家多米尼克和约翰-德-梅尼尔采取的模式，这种模式寻求现代性与历史的调和。在他们的主要建筑委托中，他们综合了高级和低级文化的最佳方面来创造一个独特的身份。他们最著名的项目，由伦佐-皮亚诺设计的梅尼尔收藏馆（1987年），就是一个很好的例子。它是一个大型博物馆，坐落在一个20世纪20年代的平房区。因为它从邻居那里得到了线索–前面的草坪、大门廊和简单的体量–它在其小得多的邻居中显得很自在。通过遵循这种响应模式，我们相信我们已经提供了另一个例子，即适应其独特地点和时间的有同情心的建筑。

Our model for this dialectical approach, which seeks to reconcile modernity with history, was that taken by ’s most significant cultural patrons of the twentieth century, the French- American art collectors Dominique and John de Menil. In their major architectural commissions, they synthesized the best aspects of high and low culture to create a distinctive identity. Their best-known project, the Menil Collection building (1987), designed by Renzo Piano, is a good example. It is a large museum situated in a neighborhood of 1920s bungalows. Because it takes cues from its neighbors—a lawn in front, big porch, and simple massing—it appears at ease among its much smaller neighbors. By following this responsive model, we believe we have provided another example of sympathetic building attuned to its unique place and time.

Architects: Ben Koush Associates
Area: 2000 ft²
Year: 2018
Photographs: Ben Koush, Paul Hester
Manufacturers: GRAPHISOFT, Hansgrohe, VELUX Commercial, Western Window Systems, Artemide, Daltile, Flos, Kohler, MODULIGHTOR, Mitsubishi Electric, Progress Lighting, RAM Windows, Rheem, Sierra Pacific Windows, Signature Hardware, TechLighting, Toto, Vent-a-Hood, Whitehaus, AS Hanging Systems, +10
Lead Architects: Ben Koush
Clients:Ben Koush, Luis de las Cuevas
Engineering:Insight Structures
Landscape:Ben Koush
Collaborators:Luis de las Cuevas
City:Houston
Country:United States