Balcones house is perched on the edge of a fractured limestone cliff, which is a part of the echelon of the Balcones fault. Rooms look either downhill into the tops of trees in the ravine below or uphill into the rock gardens behind the house. We rebuilt and reconceived a house originally on the site, designed in 1957 by Jonathan Bowman. We kept the site strategy of the original house, as well as its limestone rubble walls in order to maintain the modest Case-Study era scale. The house was redesigned and rebuilt with a steel structure and larger reconfigured window openings. Most of the windows slide completely away to one side, allowing direct connection to the outside. The airflow up the hill draws air through the house in most months. While keeping the proportion of the original, we added square footage tucked behind the house. The new house on the old footprint has an intimate scale, and is lined in straight-grain pine. The new floor area is built out in plaster and has a higher roof that twists to respond to the cliff and cups to collect rainwater. A continuous clerestory window between the two roofs lets in southern light along the length of the bedrooms and allows views of treetops. 
© Patrick Wong

Architects: Pollen Architecture & Design

Location: Austin, TX, USA

Architects In Charge: Elizabeth Alford, Michael Young

Area: 2700.0 ft2

Project Year: 2011

Photographs: Patrick Wong , Whit Preston, ...