A reader calls attention to this Chronicle letter to the editor from Pamela R. Zuteck of Clear Lake Shores:
Regarding “Texans can pay extra to rebuild the eco-friendly way if their home is hit by disaster” (Page A1, Sunday), trying to “go green” using Houston’s contractors will make you throw up your hands. They are clueless or resistant to even simple things like low-VOC paint. Product suppliers are hard to find or too far away to be practical. We saw Ike as a real opportunity to step it up but have met frustration at every turn. There’s no help out there. It was a victory just to get a few items, like Hardiplank removable interior wallboard. We had to do all the research and coordination, then design and supervise every step of installation. We sorted the waste for recycling. No wonder more people don’t go green. It’s just too hard.
Writes our reader:
I have no reason to doubt the contentions, but am stumped at the writer’s mention of “Hardiplank removable interior wallboard.” Since your reader/participants are so very knowledgeable, could you ask them to weigh in? My search of the internets provided nada.
Here’s a little video sent to Swamplot from this morning, showing what appeared to a reader to be the beginning of the end for the Wilshire Village apartments. But in a comment to that post, Lynn Edmundson from Historic Houston reports this demo work isn’t really all it’s been cracked up to be:
I just returned from the site…and it looks like they are just breaking up the surface concrete. The contractors on the site are installing plumbing/water lines…and are not with the demolition company.
With the permission of the contractors on the site, someone with me was able to look into one of the apartments and there is beautiful oak flooring still inside the apartments waiting to be reclaimed!
Okay, Discovery TV engineers, we’re all on board with your idea of building a ginormous, 1-mile-diameter, 1500-foot high dome over Houston. Dibs on the thermostat!
Too bad, though: It looks like all that lightweight geodesic Buckminster Fullery goodness only gets you coverage over . . . Downtown. Isn’t that all air-conditioned already?
We’re especially looking forward to the next episode of Mega Engineering, where you describe that giant ring-moat bayou drainage bypass carved through swathes of Midtown and the First, Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Wards they’ve gotta be planning to go with this.
“Question: What should Houston vernacular be? By that I mean, what type of residential architecture design is most logical with respect to our climate, region and lifestyle? The home designs as represented by the Toll Brothers are typical of the amalgam homes that proliferate throughout Houston. The two designs represented in this piece are pure kitsch – regardless of how well made they may be or the ‘amenities’ lavished upon the interiors. The Hill Country and Austin both possess vernacular employing indigenous materials – split face limestone – and a mixture of elements capturing key elements from Spanish Missions, turn-of-the-century farm houses and modernism. While this in itself is an amalgam the end results are more pleasing and ‘honest’ than the stucco containers for humans that dot Houston’s landscape.” [JAH, commenting on Getting Houston Right: The Toll Brothers Come to Town]
“I drove by the house at 701 Olive during the demolition. I was curious to see if any efforts were made to keep any of the items out of a landfill. What I saw was a house, complete with furniture, cabinets, ceiling fans, windows, clothing, etc. getting crushed by a bulldozer and scooped into a roll off. I saw 3 french doors that would have looked great in my house getting smashed to bits. Such a shame :(” [mstark, commenting on Daily Demolition Report: Bacher House Down]
A new city-run Reuse Warehouse that’s been open for just 2 weeks at 9003 N. Main St. (just north of Crosstimbers) is designed to reduce the amount of excess building materials dumped into landfills. The warehouse accepts donations of extra building materials, and offers them for free to nonprofit organizations. What can you donate? “Cabinets, copper, doors, electrical fixtures and equipment, fans, flooring material, glass, gutters, hardware, lighting, lumber, metal, mirrors, pipe, plumbing, plywood, roofing material, screens, sheetrock, sinks, showers, trim, tubs, wall coverings, or windows” but no paint. “More than one-third of the waste stream in the Houston area is made up of construction and demolition material.” [Green Houston, via Hair Balls]
Over at Wilshire Village, all appears on track for one of those classic salvage-free start-over-the-weekend demos — the kind this town is famous for! A pre-demo sewer-disconnect permit for the apartments was pulled yesterday. And a Swamplot reader has sent in a photo report:
I saw that one of your commenters had noticed the Komatsu in the parking lot of Wilshire Village. It’s from Ambush Demolition, so that’s not a particularly good sign. There are numbers spray-painted on the sides of at least some of the buildings there and orange cable (and gas line?) markings on the sidewalks . . .
Will Wilshire Village’s actual demo permit be purchased sometime today? You’ll get a definitive answer . . . in next Monday’s Daily Demolition Report, right here on Swamplot!
“We, too, have formica counters — rather nice-looking, attractively textured and easy-to-care-for laminate — plus a useful bit of stainless steel around the sink. Past abodes have had concrete, little 1940’s hexagonal tiles, or 1960’s 4″ tiles in the kitchen. But, yes, Cathy, all this granite business has got me to thinking about the Next Big Countertop Thing. I predict that it will be Spanish moss. Cheap, renewable, non-toxic, pleasantly yielding under a cutting board, and doubling as garnish for everything from humble casseroles to stuffed breast of veal…what’s not to like?” [Miz Brooke Smith, commenting on Neighborhood Guessing Game: Panel Discussion]
The nonprofit Historic Houston Salvage Warehouse sure would like some of them nice materials that went into the Wilshire Village Apartments. But no dice:
“All efforts to contact owner have been a dead end,” founder Lynn Edmundson writes:
If anyone knows or can get in contact with the owners…my crew could start immediately!!!
Hey, that would be great — because there’s apparently a Komatsu excavator hanging out in the parking lot on Dunlavy, looking for some action.
The brise-soleil modern Harris County Administration Building at 1001 Preston Downtown — across from a Metro Rail stop on Main St. — has been having a little problem holding it all together, reports the Chronicle’s Liz Peterson. And it’ll take a little fixing:
Employees noticed the first bits of fallen concrete in February 2008, prompting the county to hire Walter P. Moore and Associates to evaluate the extent of the problem, said Mike Swain, the county’s deputy director of architecture.
The firm’s workers spent the next several months removing the most dangerous loose concrete and studying the rest of the 31-year-old building’s façade, he said.
Their report urges the county to install protective scaffolding around the building’s perimeter as soon as possible. Doing that and removing the rest of the loose concrete is expected to cost about $175,000.
Repairing the concrete façade is expected to cost at least $4.5 million, while waterproofing all the windows will eat up another $460,000.
The first government report on Chinese drywall is out . . . sort of: “On Monday, Florida’s health department said preliminary tests show there’s no ’specific’ health hazard associated with the sulfur-based gases coming from the drywall, but the agency is conducting additional tests. ‘It’s not that we are saying it’s safe,’ Florida toxicologist David Krause told reporters on a conference call on Monday. ‘We are moving forward on a much more detailed in-depth’ study. The test results released by the state health department on Monday did make one, definitive conclusion: Chinese-made drywall contained strontium sulfide, a material that’s known to have the odor of hydrogen sulfide in moist air. The U.S-made drywall did not contain this material. The most common evidence of Chinese drywall problems is the corrosion of air conditional equipment, which is turning black and failing repeatedly. Homeowners have also complained about respiratory problems they believe are connected to the drywall.” [Developments]
A reader sends a couple photos of “what will soon no longer be a nice understated commercial building” at 315 W. Alabama, just south of the Westmoreland Historic District west of Midtown:
I watched the remodel work inside going on for a while and was a little shocked to see the brick facade receiving prep work to be refaced in stucco. You can see the nice bit of decorative garland in the process of being knocked off by the end of today.
“SPACIOUS LIVINGROOM WITH SKYLIGHT & FLOWERBED,” shouts the listing for this 1970s-era home on a cul-de-sac near White Oak Bayou in Candlelight Forest. And it’s no exaggeration. The Swamplot reader who alerted us to the property also expressed appreciation for its mauve carpet and mirrored Dining Room wall:
What is it with these Landscape folks and their capsules? Last spring, L.A.’s sly Center for Land Use Interpretation began its residency in Houston by hauling an old trailer, dubbed the organization’s “field station,” to an old junkyard on the banks of the Houston Ship Channel. And now, a year later — the oil-industry spying mission almost complete — CLUI guru Matthew Coolidge and his henchpeople are capping their Houston romp with another demonstration of the delights of enclosed living.
That’s a Brucker Survival Capsule, painted bright red and decorated with a typically deadpan CLUI inscription, being installed outside the University of Houston’s Blaffer Art Gallery, where CLUI’s exhibit on the landscape practices of the Texas oil industry opens — tonight. If planting an offshore-oil-rig emergency escape vehicle on the front lawn of a university art gallery strikes you as slightly absurd, you’re only beginning to appreciate CLUI’s rare and dry sense of landscape humor.
Swamplot covers real estate, home design and renovation, architecture, and the landscape of Houston, Texas. Swamplot did not flood during Allison — or Ike! Honest! Read more
Comment of the Day: The Right Kind of Home for Houston
“Question: What should Houston vernacular be? By that I mean, what type of residential architecture design is most logical with respect to our climate, region and lifestyle? The home designs as represented by the Toll Brothers are typical of the amalgam homes that proliferate throughout Houston. The two designs represented in this piece are pure kitsch – regardless of how well made they may be or the ‘amenities’ lavished upon the interiors. The Hill Country and Austin both possess vernacular employing indigenous materials – split face limestone – and a mixture of elements capturing key elements from Spanish Missions, turn-of-the-century farm houses and modernism. While this in itself is an amalgam the end results are more pleasing and ‘honest’ than the stucco containers for humans that dot Houston’s landscape.” [JAH, commenting on Getting Houston Right: The Toll Brothers Come to Town]