The Fall issue of Cite (83) is now in the mail and at the Brazos Bookstore, CAMH, MFAH, Issues, Domy, River Oaks Bookstore, and other stores. Below guest editor Ben Koush shares a letter about this special issue and its Table of Contents.
As the title of an article announced in the February 1937 issue of Houston, the old Chamber of Commerce magazine, “Houston is essentially a home city.” The spreading field of individual houses observed 73 years ago continues unabated today as one of the few constants in Houston’s development history. It would be rare, I assume, for the typical Cite reader not to have gone on at least a few house tours and coveted a particular arrangement of kitchen cabinetry, closet shelving, or clever poolside landscaping.
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This doubleheader post presents a complete video (above) of a lecture by Sou Fujimoto and an interview (below) with Fujimoto by Neeraj Bhatia.
The Japanese architect came to Houston to accept the second annual Spotlight: The Rice Design Alliance Prize. The award recognizes an exceptionally gifted architect in the early phase of their professional career.
Neeraj Bhatia is a Wortham Fellow and Professor at the Rice School of Architecture. He interviewed Sou Fujimoto before his lecture on September 7th. (If you cannot view the video, try watching it on YouTube here.)
Neeraj Bhatia: What are your impressions of Houston?
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Don Lessem, aka "Dino Don," explains the park's development. All images courtesy of Patricia Hernandez.
During an information session at Kirksey Architects on Wednesday, September 8, a team including former Disney “imagineer” Chris Brown, developer Don Lessem (aka Dino Don), and scientist Dr. Matt Gardner presented plans for EarthQuest.
The 1,600-acre resort and learning institute is set to break ground at an undisclosed date in New Caney, Texas. The facility would teach “green living” and “re-engage the public with what’s real,” according to Brown, who is president of Contour Entertainment. Houston was a strategic choice. As the fourth largest metropolitan area in the country, Brown said that an estimated 18 million people live within a few hours drive of the potential park. This, along with Houston’s position as an energy capital, and the city’s lack of a theme park since the demise of Astroworld, make its location prime real estate.
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Cave of New Being, made using digital modeling and fabrication technologies, and recently installed near the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture
A new Texas-based design research alliance called TEX-FAB, co-founded by Houstonian Andrew Vrana, is holding an international competition called REPEAT. Here’s the description:
REPEAT is a competition established to foster the creative spirit in the burgeoning field of digital fabrication. We encourage the generation of cutting edge design proposals for an outdoor structure of your design with the only caveats being it must serve a purpose, be generated and conceived digitally, incorporate repetitive elements, and be produced through fabrication technologies available within Houston, Texas.
Why call a design competition REPEAT? Isn’t design about originality?
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Sylvan Beach Pavilion, designed by Greacen & Brogniez, 1953. Photo by Hank Hancock.
The citizens of La Porte may be forgiven if they just can’t figure out what their elected officials have in store for the Sylvan Beach Pavilion, a significant work of civic architecture located at Harris County’s only public beach. For twenty years, the city of La Porte rented the structure for cheap from Harris County and operated the venue—a dancehall, a performance space, a banquet room, a conference hall—in just the way that a municipal government will do when it finds itself in the hospitality business, which is to say, reluctantly, negligently, and sporadically. Interested renters were turned away without explanation. The space often sat empty on weekend evenings, when one might expect it to turn some business. Once recognized across the region as one of the foremost entertainment venues, the pride of La Porte, the Sylvan Beach Pavilion withdrew into obscurity, a generational bookmark. The city put off making regular repairs, as required by its lease, so the place just got shabby.
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Architects Filo Castore and Catherine Callaway. All photographs by Eric Hester
The launch of Cite 82 was celebrated in style at Canopy on July 20. The Montrose restaurant, designed by architect Dillon Kyle with Eames-style chairs, earthy tones, and a natural, but contemporary ceiling sculpture that mimics a bird’s nest, provided the perfect backdrop to ponder the theme of Cite’s latest installment: 60s and 70s sites of counterculture. Writers, activists, university professors, architects, designers, and artists came to lift their glasses, indulge in delectable hors d’oeuvres, and revel in one of Cite’s most memorable issues to date.
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On July 6th, Buffalo Bayou Partnership‘s pontoon boat, The Osprey, was destroyed in a fire, leaving all boat tours on the bayou suspended. Just as city business leaders announce ambitious plans to transform the bayous, an arsonist attacked a boat that opened the eyes of hundreds of Houstonians to the potential of our waterways. Will you stand idly by?
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Morris Architects
If you thought that stylish living for pets began and ended with couture rain coats, high-design pet carriers, and organic day spas, you can now add innovative, state-of-the-art doghouses to the list. For years, creative individuals have been using their talents to design and build functional (and stylish) doghouses for their four-legged friends. Last year, Houston Pavilions hosted its first Barkitecture design competition, bringing together designers, architects, builders and artists who constructed dozens of unique homes for man’s best friend. Here are a few of the houses from last year’s competition:
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1904 Decatur house, MC2 Architects, photograph by Hester + Hardaway from Cite 51
Recently Mayor Annise Parker has brought forth the possibility of new development restrictions in Houston’s historic districts. On a June 9 kuhf public radio broadcast, Parker commented on the potential changes to ordinance, saying, “If you’re building in a historic district, the expectation is that you will build something that in mass and scale and general appearance fits into the district. If you want to come and put a big metal ultra-modern townhome in the middle of the district you will not receive a certificate of appropriateness.”
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Rendering by Peter Muessig showing a mixed oceanside population of vacationers and residents on the East End Flats of Galveston, land created with dredge material from the ship channel.
Over half of the United States population lives on or near the coast. Almost forty-percent of the world’s population lives within one-hundred kilometers of the water’s edge, and more are arriving at these shores each day. This situates the global littoral—the area closest to the water’s edge—at a critical location where environmental forces meet the tides of globalization making these locations compelling sites to witness the effects of 21st century political ecologies.
The graduate studio, “Last Resorts,” at the Rice School of Architecture taught by myself and Michael Robinson, and in collaboration with John Anderson, Maurice Ewing Professor of Oceanography, has completed a five-year program of design research on the global littoral, or coastline, and its political ecologies.
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