Tag: Fifth Ward

Commercial Real Estate
08/10/09 11:17am

The Fifth Ward’s Old Bruce Elementary School: Lead Scraped and Ready!

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Environmental, Fifth Ward, Hazards, Land for Sale, Schools, Toxic Sites
12 Comments

Swamplot’s new “Bottom” of the Fifth Ward correspondent Vaughn Mueller reports from the site of the old Bruce Elementary School, where a sign indicates the property is for sale. A source tells Swamplot that a few details need to be worked out before it’s “officially” on the market, but an HISD web page provides some information about the property.

The school, which was closed at the end of the spring 2007 semester, sits along Cage and Bringhurst on the I-10 feeder road, and comprises a little more than 2 blocks. Mueller reports that the new Bruce Elementary (built by a 2002 HISD bond) less than a mile away on Jensen opened its doors in the fall of 2007.

Why the move?

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Fifth Ward
07/07/09 12:57pm

Farming Opportunities in the Fifth

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Gardening, Landscape, Quicklink
2 Comments

FARMING OPPORTUNITIES IN THE FIFTH Inspired by a visit to a South Florida demonstration farm that emphasizes resourcefulness — “they’ve built things like a well pump from simple bicycle parts, irrigation systems from cinder blocks, and terraces from old tires,” he notes — summer resident James M. Harrison begins “to notice similar ways that people in Houston’s Fifth Ward are harvesting their own backyard crops. Just up the block, one of my neighbors is growing banana trees on his driveway. He’s been able to do it by building a raised bed from cinder blocks against a fence, and using soil that he composts in his backyard. A couple of days ago, we collected basil leaves from the neighbors herb garden, and used them to make pesto. It went great with the tomatoes from our own back yard. And over the weekend, I snacked on figs, cucumbers, and citrus in a Community Garden on Houston’s south side with some friends.” [Neighborhood //#5]

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Crime
06/19/09 3:42pm

5K to the Fifth

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Fifth Ward
6 Comments

New Fifth Ward resident James M. Harrison follows the Astros’ “Race for the Pennant” 5K to the front steps of his own neighborhood:

After running the 3.1 mile race with a friend, I decided that 5K’s should be the next topic on [Christian] Lander’s blog, “Stuff White People Like.” Hundreds of people (many of whom were caucasian), rose with the sun for the big race at 7.00 AM. They came outfitted in their lightweight synthetic clothes and hot-to-trot running shoes– the perfect accessories for the meaningless number we all slapped on our chests to make us look like we were about to compete in the Boston Marathon (mine was 2757).

Nobody trains for a 5K. But if you’re up at daybreak, among the crowd of socially aware locals who are in good enough shape for 25 minutes of running, thanks to their motivated lifestyles (and the iPods strapped to their arms, cued to amp the jam for the blitz across town)– then you must be doing something right with your life. It’s so important to be a part of the healthy crowd, that you’ll even pay $25 to get in on the action for a morning. I am a victim of this system.

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Fifth Ward
06/17/09 3:45pm

The $99k House Competition Winner Opens Up

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Green Design and Development, Home Design, New Construction: Residential
17 Comments

How’d that $99k house project turn out? One reader tells Swamplot he’s impressed that a custom-designed house that “may be LEED accredited” could be completed for that price:

The event was great, if very hot ( it was a Noon yesterday). The mayor and principals involved in the project all spoke briefly, and we toured the house.

More photos from yesterday’s official opening on Jewel St. in the Fifth Ward:

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Fifth Ward
03/02/09 4:00pm

$99K House Series: Adaptable Habitat

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Green Design and Development, Home Design
2 Comments



Denver’s JG Johnson Architects describes its entry in the $99K House Competition using 4 terms:

MODULAR: three modules, numerous configurations, structural insulated panels allow flexible opening installation, mass production

ADAPTABLE: responsive to different site orientations, ratios, topographies

INDIVIDUAL: different users, multifunctional spaces, architectural style variations, pride in ownership supports demographically diverse neighborhoods

ECOLOGICAL (AND ECONOMICAL): ductless climate control system, inclusion of surplus materials, highly insulated, well sealed envelope, minimal built space through inclusion of exterior spaces, glazing orientation, solar shading

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Crime
02/24/09 11:48am

Last Organic Outpost: The Motion Picture

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Fifth Ward, Landscape, Transportation
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Last year Transit Antenna, a 7-person “mobile living experiment,” camped out at Joe Nelson Icet’s Last Organic Outpost, did a little farming, and painted the giant “FARMART” mural at the top of the adjacent Comet rice mill. The group, which travels the country on a city bus converted to run on waste vegetable oil, documented its visit — which included a stint in the Art Car Parade — in a series of website posts.

And not long after the rambling group left its urban campground, Transit Antenna’s Seth Gadsden posted this half-hour documentary the group put together about goings-on at the Emile St. farm and its Fifth Ward neighborhood. An HD version is also available.

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Fifth Ward
02/23/09 1:53pm

Next to the Last Organic Outpost: A Few More Notches in the Fifth Ward Farm Belt

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Gardening, Landscape
4 Comments

The Lower Fifth Ward urban farm known as the Last Organic Outpost is set to expand again from its growing campus at 700 Emile, reports founder Joe Nelson Icet:

We are presently working on the Buck Street expansion and hope to get more dirt soon to add to the existing 32 beds we already have growing.

Across the street from the 711 Emile gate, there is a lot up for public auction March 2nd that we hope to farm in the near future. This lot is currently being used for dumping. Also at 4610 Gunter, there is a lot that has been cited by the city for high grass. We would like to take stewardship of these lots for creating a 5th Ward Farm Belt.

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Fifth Ward
02/12/09 11:26am

$99K House Series: Core House

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Green Design and Development, Home Design, Houston Architects
1 Comment

Next featured entry to the $99K House Competition: This design from Houston’s Glassman Shoemake Maldonado Architects. The firm calls its design the Core House:

Like many of the existing homes in the Houston neighborhood, the CORE house is a compact, single story structure that uses pier and beam construction. The CORE house is powered by a “core” module, defined as an unchanging, narrow mechanical/plumbing spine. The body can be built to suit a family’s needs, while the CORE remains the same.

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Fifth Ward
02/04/09 11:27am

$99K House Series: A Simple House

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Green Design and Development, Home Design, Houston Architects
3 Comments

After a longish break, Swamplot returns with featured entries to the $99K House Competition. This design, from Houston’s Royse/Eagleton Architects, is called “A Simple House,” or ash:

ash is designed around three ideas.

1. To be as simple as possible in the building’s layout/function and construction in order to meet a construction budget of $75,000

At just over 1,200 square feet of conditioned space, ash is a small house. High volumes, an open layout, and connections to adjoining, exterior decks make the building feel much larger than its actual footprint.  The layout of the house is two volumes under a single shed roof. The smaller of the two volumes that contains the master is located on the front of the house, and frames a path to the building’s entry. The second volume is split into a private space with bedrooms and a public space that opens to an exterior deck that runs along the entire length of the building’s east side.

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Fifth Ward
12/08/08 11:03am

$99K House Series: The Octagon

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Green Design and Development, Home Design
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The latest in Swamplot’s roundup of entries to the $99K House Competition: This home from Steve Pribyl of dbaArchitects in Los Angeles:

This design is for a relatively modest 1400 s.f. house that utilizes innovative techniques to create an energy-efficient residence. An ecologically friendly house will use minimal natural resources over the life of the house.

A high surface-to-volume ratio is desirable in order to use a minimal amount of raw materials during construction. A sphere is the most efficient shape to meet this criteria, but it isn’t practical in terms of existing timber framing technology. An octagon is the closest reasonable approximation of a sphere using tried and true construction materials and methods.

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Construction Materials
12/04/08 5:05pm

$99K House Series: SoyBeam House

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Fifth Ward, Green Design and Development, Home Design
1 Comment

Next up in our $99K House Competition review: An innovative entry from Nick Gillock and Emil Mertzel of Lookinglass Architecture + Design in L.A.:

This project for an affordable, sustainable and energy efficient new 1264 square-foot home combines some conventional home-building techniques – such as below-grade utilities, an insulated concrete floor slab, concrete curbs and framed wall assemblies with pre-engineered shear panels – with an entirely new building component known as the SoyBeamâ„¢.

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Construction Materials
12/03/08 11:11am

$99K House Series: The Rippling House

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Fifth Ward, Green Design and Development, Home Design
5 Comments

Today’s featured entry to the $99K House Competition comes from Luca Donner and Francesca Sorcinelli of Donner & Sorcinelli Architetti in Silea — near Venice, Italy. It’s called the “Rippling House.”

The idea was to give people a home that could be built cheaply, using simple technologies, suitable for self-construction, and where they can have optimal comfort. These are the issues our studio focuses on: everyday problems. We believe that a good project should not necessarily cost more. You can give convincing answers even with limited budgets, and this project is an example.

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Construction Materials
12/01/08 3:55pm

$99K House Series: The Shell System

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Fifth Ward, Green Design and Development, Home Design
1 Comment

Digsau, an architecture firm out of Philly, worked with Oldcastle Precast to come up with this $99K house entry, which uses some concrete technology more commonly encountered in Houston area civil structures:

A concrete module serves as the building block for the system, and its combination with other modules allows the structure to respond to specificities of climate, site, and individual preference. The system thus proves highly adaptable as an infill structure on vacant properties in an urban context and allowing for a diversity of exterior space in new developments.

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Fifth Ward
11/26/08 11:03am

$99K House Series: Good for Houston

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Green Design and Development, Home Design
9 Comments

Houston architect Carl Brunsting calls his $99K House Competition entry “A Good House.” He says his

intent was to make an affordable house FOR HOUSTON, that emphasis meaning that the design was about having a sloped roof with overhangs to deal with our sun and 56 inches of rain, but without becoming something like a builder’s pastiche. It is built up off the ground like an old bungalow to keep it dry from flooding and up for privacy from the street and to avoid long-term problems with Houston’s expansive gumbo soil. It has a front porch for a lot of obvious reasons, and the overhangs all around mean that windows and doors won’t leak and you can open a window when it’s raining.

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