Residential architect '04 Design Awards

Residential Architect, May, 2004 by Meghan Drueding, Cheryl Weber, Nigel F. Maynard, Shelley D. Hutchins

This isn't our design awards program, it's yours. You enter your best work and your peers judge which shall rise above the rest. We editors stand back and watch, always fascinated to see what gets entered and what gets chosen. As flies on the wall, we can tell you this was an especially tough year. Our winners are always admirable but this year what ended up on the cutting room floor was stronger than ever. Gone were projects we've already happily published as well as those we'd like to get to know better. Ouch.

The fifth annual residential architect Design Awards received more than 780 entries in 10 categories: custom / 3,500 square feet or less; custom / more than 3,500 square feet; renovation; multifamily; single-family production / detached; single-family production / attached; affordable; kitchen; bath; architectural detail. All were eligible for selection as Project of the Year. We always give the judges discretion to eliminate, add, or combine categories, and to dispense as many or as few awards as they wish. This year, they made no awards in the architectural detail category, yet they created a judges' award for two projects they admired but thought didn't fit the categories entered. In all, they selected 24 projects for awards, including one Project of the Year, eight grand awards, 13 merit awards, and two judges' awards.

Your judges' panel comprised six accomplished residential architects: Adele Chang, AIA, Lim Chang Rohling & Associates, Pasadena, Calif.; David Hacin, AIA, Hacin Associates, Boston; Frank Harmon, FAIA, Frank Harmon Architect, Raleigh, N.C.; Margaret I. McCurry, FAIA, Tigerman McCurry Architects, Chicago; Dale Mulfinger, FAIA, SALA Architects, Inc., Minneapolis; and Rebecca Swanston, AIA, Swanston Associates, Architects, Baltimore. Turn the pages and enjoy your awards.

project of the year

lake austin residence, austin, texas

lake/flato architects

san antonio, texas

lake/Flato Architects knows something about making an entrance. At residential architect's Project of the Year, a custom house by the firm in Austin, Texas, the sequence of steps leading to the front door rivals any Broadway choreography. Guests first pass through an opening in a fortress-like limestone wall, then proceed between a studio and a guest house. They follow a stone path down to a 30-foot-wide canal that's part of Lake Austin. Lake/Flato lined the canal with a boardwalk, which serves as the project's organizing spine. "It's like a zipper, with a series of little buildings unfolding along it," says principal Ted Flato, FAIA.

The boardwalk guides visitors past another guest cottage and the bedroom wing of the main house. It crosses over a pair of man-made water courts divided by a landscaped peninsula and runs smack into the last building in the series, a double-height screened-in porch jutting out above the water. Known within Lake/Flato as "the boathouse," the room serves as the home's main entry point. Its visibility gives the boardwalk a destination, and at the same time its transparency allows views of Lake Austin to flow right through it. Practically speaking, the boathouse's covered landing provides a protected waterside spot for the owners to store their kayaks.

By stringing the 6,000-square-foot home along its narrow site, Flato and project architect Bill Aylor, AIA, were able to weave water and land into the house's fabric. "Breaking the building into parts brings the scale down," Aylor says. "It helps the house embrace the land better. It's the same concept as the fishing camps you see on Texas lakes." Because of the canal's location between two dams, its water level stays constant, so the architects were free to place each little building as close to it as they wanted.

The project's carefully wrought relationship with its site didn't escape the judges' notice. "You can see the people who live here really want to participate with their environment," said one. "There are warm, interesting events that happen with regard to the landscape."

The judges also admired Lake/Flato's choice of siding material: Hardipanel, a fiber-cement board product. Selected for its ability to weather well with minimal maintenance, the siding was custom stained and sealed by a Dallas artist. Together with a healthy dose of metal and battens of sinker cypress, it provides a fresh variation on Lake/Flato's unpretentious, industrial style. "To break a big house into units and let the man-made parts and nature interact is just so relaxed," a judge added. "It has this informality about it that makes you want to live there."--m.d.

principal in charge: Ted Flato, FAIA, Lake/Flato Architects; project architect: Bill Aylor, AIA, Lake/Flato Architects; general contractor: Lance Thompson, Thompson Hanson, Houston, Texas; interior designer: Dawn Thompson, Denison & Denison Interiors, Houston; project size: 6,000 square feet; site size: 1.7 acres; construction cost: Withheld; photographer: Hester Hardaway Photographers. See page 128 for product information.