Michael Bell ¦ Design
Duration House ι Houston ι Texas ι The topology of holes in midtown, however, instigated the design of a
house that was largely vacant: three courtyards became its predominant
features . . .
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Michael Bell ¦ Design
Duration House ι Houston ι Texas ι The topology of holes in midtown, however, instigated the design of a
house that was largely vacant: three courtyards became its predominant
features . . .
In the post-1980s oil bust, Houston’s economy, inextricably linked to world oil production, collapsed, and block after block of buildings in what is known as midtown—an area that stretches from the city’s apparent downtown to the museum district, Rice University, and Hermann Park—were left empty. By the mid-1990s, midtown began to flourish again as it was redeveloped with housing, although today it still has a large number of vacant lots. These three buildings and courtyards—comprising a house, an office, and a greenhouse—collect a series of those empty spaces to form a compound on a corner site in this area.
The structure was designed for a Houston police officer who initially wanted to replicate a modern house in the city’s River Oaks residential section. The topology of holes in midtown, however, instigated the design of a house that was largely vacant: three courtyards became its predominant features. The construction is simple tilt-up concrete and steel-frame window walls. The house is modest in size and materials, but the spaces recall the urbanism of Houston’s boom and bust; they seek a tempered sense of the city’s emptiness. The Duration House won a Progressive Architecture design award in 1996. It was one of fourteen projects awarded out of 444 international entries. It was also the central work in the 1996 exhibition “Endspace: Michael Bell and Hans Hofmann” at the Berkeley Art Museum, organized by Lawrence Rinder.
“The visible is only the final step of an historic form. Its true fulfillment. Then it breaks off and a new world arises.”
Mies van der Rohe
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