From online small-house-plan hawkers Hometta comes this video preview of H-Town, a virtual neighborhood where versions of the company’s modern home designs (several of which are from Houston architects) will always be open for visitors. If the preview bears more than a passing resemblance to Second Life, that’s because it uses OpenSimulator — an open-source Second Life-like 3D environment simulator.
H-Town isn’t modeled on Houston, explains Hometta’s Ann Chou — the H stands for Hometta. The small island features sidewalks, roads, a plaza, a gallery, and a market for Hometta’s small line of “Etc.” products the company also sells plans for, such as Collaborative DesignWorks’ 3×3 storage system:
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and this Brett Zamore Design carport:
A welcome pavilion on H-Town’s plaza will feature navigation instructions — for teleporting to the houses or opening doors and windows:
A few H-Town homes may seem familiar. Brett Zamore Design’s Shot-Trot House was built in Houston’s East End before it ended up on H-Town’s virtual shore:
And Interloop—Architecture’s 48′ House
is missing its prime Highway 59-side location:
Here’s Collaborative DesignWorks’ yet-to-be-built Binary House, in traditionally rendered
and OpenSim views:
Visits to H-Town will be free. Chou reports house-plan explorers will be able to chat and IM each other — on a purely professional basis, of course: At launch you’ll only be able to choose from local architect, licensed builder, attorney, and lender avatars.
- H-Town. Coming Soon. [Hometta]
- Welcome to H-Town, OpenSim used to create a virtual neighborhood of sustainable modern houses [The Arch Network]
- OpenSimulator
- Kaplan House (shot-trot) [Brett Zamore Design]
- 48′ House [Interloop—Architecture]
- Previously on Swamplot: Gingerbread Modern: A First Draft House You Can Bake Yourself, From the Houston Mod Squad: Hometta Small House Plans, Online
Images: Daniel Hennessey for Interloop Architecture (48′ House); Hometta (video and all others)
H-town appears to be inhabited by neurotic/obsessive/catatonic humanoids given the actions of the two figures in the video:
One has taken to some sort of repetitive carrot cutting activity with a roll of drawings (presumably architectural drawings.
Another stands stoically outside of a domicile (presumably theirs) while the hours of the day speed by in a time-lapse manner.
In both cases… c-r-e-e-p-y.
There is a tremendous amount of irony in the creation of a virtual subdivision at this particular moment in time…
I am curious whether this H-town has any zoning?
Still, subdivisions do sell.
Developers in the greater Houston area continue to ‘finish what they started’
and this program is a good selling tool.
Movocelot–is Hometta creating an actual subdivision? My understanding is that they are a kind of facilitator if you want to build your own house with a modern design. (Ditto with Brett Zamore.) It would be cool if one of the developers building subdivisions used modern designs from Hometta (and it’s not unheard of to have modernist subdivisions–Houston used to do it and Denver has a more recent example)–but developers in Houston seem to be much to conservative for that.
I’m thinking that ‘SIMS-ing up’ presentations would help sell houses – any houses – as well as developments.
That said, rendering programs like 20/20 have been around a long time and developers don’t use them at the customer level. I never understood why because people *love* pictures!
@JAH you are funny.
(The obsessive carrot-cutting of house plans, however, is a message.)
Cool, reminds me of the Agave modern development in Austin.
H-Town is a tool for homeowners. The intention is to facilitate a more detailed and overall understanding of our designs. It’s a rendering but in 3D.
Our designs can work in a multitude of site conditions (rural – urban infill). The current configuration of H-Town is evocative of a suburb simply to provide a context for the houses. Additionally, it gives us flexibility to build more houses in the near future.
While there is no ‘zoning’ in the virtual world, H-Town will be primarily residential with plenty of open green space and ‘public’ plazas.
Thanks for the feedback, we’re excited about getting this project off the ground.
I WOULD LIKE TO LIVE THERE IF SOME ONE LIVE THERE CAN YOU TELL ME I AM IN NEW YORK RIGHT NOW I AM GOING THERE NEXT MONTH SO CAN YOU SAVE IT FOR ME THAT WILL BE NICE OF YOU.AND CAN YOU GIVE ME THE SREET