Shade House, Houston Texas

A bird flying over Houston, Texas, sees a vast canopy of trees. It seems the ideal place for nesting creatures both human and avian as, unfortunately, ends green line of trees. All these branches shade a city, the concern for sustainable design with small cars that chug gas mileage per gallon small and large houses, seem to dominate the city more and more persistent.

Houston is the strange bird sometimes them a little more interested in trends raise as Broncos. Matt and Tina Ford, for example, has been building its business, Esplanade House. Recently, they decided a number of townhouses affordable to buyers who can not afford, building on the ground, but might still want earth-friendly elements will be created. Under the aegis of their new company, Shade House Development, Ford has bought, developed and built on land in a historic neighborhood called the Heights. “There is an eclectic side to it,” says Matt. “In other parts of the city are all seeing McMansions. Here are restoring old houses.” Only five minutes from the city, there is a field mark Matt modernist design is welcome. “It would give people a hard time when a piece of the Mediterranean, but built in the style of old and very new work together,” he said.

To integrate the house into darkness around him, outside, there is a combination of raw concrete and exposed wood (waste wood), to complete the concrete buildings in the neighborhood. Under the siding and the roof is a smart solution for saving energy: radiant barrier to surround the house. The packaging, which looks like aluminum foil meetings, radiant heat and sends it straight into the atmosphere, a breath
fresh air during hot summers Houston.

Since much of life in this city is all about beating the heat, stay cool and Ford have made it their top priority green. “Can happen to earn as much as 37 percent of heat in the attic air ducts,” says Matt. He fired the air ducts in the attic of the house inside and attached to an energy efficient furnace that reduce the cost and necessary evils of air conditioning under a polluter.

In addition to control the temperature of the clever roof, the houses are simply with shingles coldly more light (and heat) than their traditional counterparts reflect cutting. The five units are measured from 1600-2200 square diminutive standards Lone Star State, but as Matt said: “The greenest thing to do is make a strong design.”

Although the shadow of the House has serious heavy lifting on the environment, the interiors were made for cleaning, soothing spaces. Some units of the river rocks on their inputs, while others have a scale in an attic, the revolving rooftop terraces, where people lounge on deck chairs and tend to lay the bamboo. Tina chose shades of gray and brown-green, which soften the otherwise solid walls and Matt created a smooth curved wall in the living room, the bathroom is against the widest point of the arc, all lines .

If the wood floor next wave of the basketball in high school, with different colors within the grains interspersed with maple because they are recycled inside all the surfaces of nearby schools . Work surfaces and stairs are made of wood, a man who runs a program of commercial trees purchased Matt gives old trees, which, if it allows a lot to be cut, then they buy the wood for construction .