XO House by LOJO is a contemporary take on the Roman domus

In this circumstance, XO does not stand for hugs and kisses. Fairly, XO House—which Jason Logan and Matt Johnson of LOJO in Houston developed for Logan, his wife, and his wife’s father, who had dementia—references the house’s two designs: The floor floor is an X, the upstairs an O.

“Matt and I like to do the job with typologies,” Logan reported. “The final residence we built for me and my wife was a dogtrot. In this article on this web site, the typology we experienced in intellect was the courtyard of the Roman domus, exclusively the compluvium.”

Located on a restricted corner whole lot in a sliver of Houston involving the Woodland Heights Historic District and the Close to Northside, XO House responds to its context whilst environment a new precedent. The two-tale structure’s corners are carved absent at the floor flooring, opening place for two carports, a pedestrian entrance to the courtyard secured by a perforated metal gate (the perforations are a gradient of Xs and Os), and a smaller again patio. The enclosed spaces on the floor level incorporate the in-law condominium (a generous one-bed room set up), an office with comprehensive-height home windows overlooking the courtyard, and the entryway to the main living area upstairs.

The primary dwelling place features a kitchen area, a dwelling/dining space, a major bed room with an en suite bathroom, a guest place, a powder place, and a utilities closet, all wrapped all-around the courtyard and cantilevered around the vacated corners below. The inside is spare, and the materials are kept to a minimum amount: just drywall, white oak flooring, and yards and yards of white oak millwork cabinetry and shelving. To obviate the have to have for drawer pulls, Logan drew a curving millwork element for the opening and closing of the cabinetry. Logan, who professes to not like doors, kept the bedroom and adjoining

toilet pretty much completely totally free of them. As an alternative, the spaces move one into a further. The exceptions are the utilities closet and powder home, and, extra choicely, the visitor place, which can be enclosed by a magic formula door that swings 180 levels from its concealment in the hallway’s millwork to shut off this place should really it be occupied by a visitor.

All over the house, windows are thoroughly positioned to frame specific sights. By carving absent at the volume, the architects opened a corner window in the bed room, which is on the north of the internet site, looking south throughout the aspect of the dwelling towards downtown. A window on the ground of the dwelling area lets straightforward views into the courtyard beneath. A total-top window in the kitchen looks across the gabled rooftops of the neighboring bungalows to the west. Glass walls on the south face are pulled back from the perimeter, shading the glass, opening house for an exterior balcony and freeing the architect from the job of detailing a window about the cross bracing of the metal cantilever (the framework is a hybrid of steel and wood framing).

Situated near White Oak Bayou in the 500- 12 months floodplain (nevertheless the web page did not flood during Hurricane Harvey), XO Dwelling requires drinking water severely. The compluvium of the roof is practical, however instead than directing drinking water into an impluvium it feeds huge gutters and downspouts that lead to a 2,500-gallon underground cistern to maintain stormwater on-site. The foundation is also lifted two feet higher than grade as an anti-flooding measure. Further sustainability actions include things like seven 300- foot geothermal wells that offset heating and cooling loads, and the roof has room for a 28-panel photo voltaic array that, when set up, could acquire the property fully off the grid.

Clad in dark grey corrugated metal panels and larch boards that accentuate the project’s carved volumetric attributes, the household is at at the time assertively fashionable whilst not hoping to stand out much too a great deal in this neighborhood of early 20th-century bungalows.