Tag: Houston Architects

Demolitions
11/28/11 10:03pm

M.D. Anderson: Prudential Building Demo Site Will Sit Vacant for Years

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Historic Preservation, Houston Architects, Houston History, Medical Buildings, Office Buildings, Proposed Developments, Texas Medical Center
9 Comments

An M.D. Anderson Cancer Center official tells the HBJ‘s Jennifer Dawson that the UT institution will likely wait 3 to 10 years before putting any new structure on the site of the former Prudential Tower it’s been working diligently all year to knock down. Workers were moved out of the 18-story structure — renamed the Houston Main Building — last year. The hulking remains of the iconic 1952 Kenneth Franzheim building at 1100 Holcombe Blvd. will come down in a cloud of dust after several rounds of dynamite blasts on January 8th.

M.D. Anderson senior VP Dan Fontaine says the Med Center institution doesn’t even have a design yet for the 2 new structures — likely for outpatient care — that will eventually be built in that location. Until the institution finds a better use for it, the demo site will be turned into a “park-like setting.”

Photo: Karen Lantz

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Boulevard Oaks
11/21/11 2:29pm

Ashby Highrise Developers Copied Site Plan We Made for Them, Says Attorney for Dallas Architecture Firm

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Highrises, Houston Architects, Lawsuits, Neighborhood Disputes, Proposed Developments, Southampton
18 Comments

A Houston attorney says the site plan for the Ashby Highrise “substantially” copies the one a Dallas-based architecture firm created for the same developers 5 years ago. Patrick Zummo, who is representing Humphreys and Partners Architects in a lawsuit filed last week against Buckhead Investment Partners, tells the West U Examiner‘s Charlotte Aguilar that the plan for the Ashby Highrise site at the corner of Bissonnet and Ashby — which Buckhead attributes to the firm it hired later, EDI Architecture — is “extremely close, if not identical to” both a plan Humphreys drew up for the same site while under contract to Buckhead in 2006 and the site plan the architecture firm produced a few years earlier for the Grant Park Condominium tower in the Elliot Park neighborhood of Minneapolis (above).

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Boulevard Oaks
11/21/11 12:11pm

Lawsuit Claims Ashby Highrise Design Is Copy of Minneapolis Condo Tower

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Highrises, Houston Architects, Lawsuits, Proposed Developments, Southampton
23 Comments

An architecture firm headquartered in Dallas has filed suit against the developers of the Ashby Highrise, alleging that Buckhead Investment Partners made “copies and derivatives” of the firm’s design for the 27-story Grant Park Condominiums tower in Minneapolis. Humphreys and Partners Architects designed that complex (pictured above) in 2003. The lawsuit is also directed at EDI Architecture, the firm Buckhead hired to produce drawings for the proposed highrise at the corner of Bissonnet and Ashby near Southampton.

The lawsuit claims that Buckhead infringed on Humphreys’ copyright by submitting plans for a proposed 23-story tower at 1717 Bissonnet to the city of Houston. Those plans have already received permits. The lawsuit seeks an injunction to prevent Buckhead from constructing the building, because doing so would “necessarily create additional copies and derivatives” of Humphreys’ intellectual property.

How closely does Houston’s proposed tower follow Grant Park’s design?

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Demolitions
11/15/11 10:18am

Med Center Prudential Tower Skeleton Will Survive Through End of Year

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Historic Preservation, Houston Architects, Houston History, Medical Buildings, Office Buildings, Texas Medical Center, Uncategorized
7 Comments

The folks charged with blowing up old buildings at UT’s M.D. Anderson Cancer Center have set a January 8th date for the big dynamite surgical event meant to knock down what’s left of the institution’s Houston Main Building. The hulking 18-story tower at 1100 Holcombe Blvd. was built in 1952 for Prudential Life Insurance as part of Houston’s first-ever suburban office campus, designed by architect Kenneth Franzheim. The Med Center institution bought the building in 1975, but began the long demo process early this year.

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Homes for Sale
11/10/11 3:59pm

Back After a Break: William Jenkins Mod in Willowbend

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Houston Architects, Interiors, Modern Design, Willowbend
4 Comments

After a fall cleaning and October vacation, this 3-bedroom, 2-bath home in Willowbend jumped back into the market over the weekend. The price is still $259,900, but that’s down $15K (in 2 jumps) from its original ask back in May. It’s a roughly L-shaped 1955 mod wrapped around a pool and fitted onto a cul-de-sac extension by William Jenkins, namesake of UH’s Art and Architecture Library, near several other homes he designed. Busy South Post Oak Blvd. is just beyond the back fence, but inside all is cool and quiet:

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Houston Architects
11/07/11 11:54am

Preston Bolton Goes Out Through the Skylight

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Houston History, Modern Design
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The godfather of Houston’s high-ceilinged modernists passed away last Wednesday at the age of 91. Preston Bolton moved to Houston in the days before air conditioning, after serving in a field artillery unit during World War II. An architect of many distinctive homes in the area — first in partnership with Howard Barnstone, and later on his own — Bolton was also a cofounder of the Houston Ballet and an early supporter of many other arts organizations. Among the homes designed by Bolton featured on Swamplot over the past few years: This elegant single-story townhome on a street that bears his name in Lafayette Place, and his own Buffalo Bayou-side home on Pine Hollow Ln., which is still listed for sale.

Photos: HAR (266 Pine Hollow Ln. and 519 Bolton Pl.)

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Demolitions
10/28/11 9:12pm

Building To Suit: New Dress for Success HQ in Upper Kirby

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Houston Architects, New Construction, Upper Kirby
1 Comment

Going up in place of those 2 mod office buildings at 3210 and 3310 Eastside St. east of Greenway Plaza that were scraped earlier this week: this 2-story, $6.3 million home for Houston’s branch of Dress for Success, a national charity that provides support services, career help, and a free store of interview-appropriate attire for women in need of a working-world boost. Once it’s complete, the Houston Dress for Success will be the first of the organization’s 80 U.S. affiliates to own its own land and building. Included in the upgrade from the current leased warehouse at 3915 Dacoma St.: a larger store and dressing-room area, more clothing storage and sorting space, more meeting space, a babysitting area, and much better access to public transportation. Crews demolishing the 2 existing buildings took a break for Tuesday’s groundbreaking ceremony, where fundraisers announced that pledges covering 97 percent of the cost of the Ziegler Cooper-designed structure have already received.

Rendering: Ziegler Cooper Architects

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Disaster Aftermath
10/25/11 2:05pm

La Porte’s Mod Sylvan Beach Pavilion Should Be Ready To Party Again Late Next Year

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Historic Preservation, Houston Architects, La Porte, Modern Design, Renovations
12 Comments

The Sylvan Beach Pavilion, a dancehall and conference hall on Harris County’s only public beach — with a 10,000-sq.-ft. glass-walled ballroom overlooking Galveston Bay — has been boarded up since its pummeling by Hurricane Ike in 2008. But thanks to a $3.6 million grant awarded last fall by the state Dept. of Rural Affairs, the modern building at Sylvan Beach Park is now headed for restoration to its original 1956 glory (above) — with a few tweaks directed by the architects at Kirksey to gussy it up for weddings, quinceañeras, local meetings, retirement parties, and other La Porte events. Construction is scheduled to start early next year and take 9 months.

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Homes for Sale
10/14/11 2:44pm

An Allen Bianchi Rivercrest Stone Showcase

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Interiors, Rivercrest
39 Comments

Listed earlier this week, for $3.8 million: This 3-story home, designed in 2008 by Houston architect Allen Bianchi for the president of a stone supply company. That would explain the more than 20,000 sq. ft. of stone surfaces attached to the house, including the limestone cladding outside. The 4-bedroom, 5-1/2-bath block sits on 3 3/4 gated acres on West Rivercrest, just a few mansions south of Briar Forest Dr.

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Apartments
10/03/11 5:07pm

Penguin Arms, Houston’s Only Googie Apartment Building, Is Now for Sale

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Buildings for Sale, Houston Architects, Houston Landmarks, Modern Design, Upper Kirby
31 Comments

Arthur Moss’s 1950 Penguin Arms Apartments at 2902 Revere St. behind the Kirby Dr. Whole Foods is now on the market. Sadly, no pix showing the condition of the interior are included with the listing, though the agent’s reference to “lots of deferred maintenance” — along with the comments of a former tenant — should provide a clue. What gives this unique building its Googie cred? Well, a photo of it was included in the original 1952 House and Home magazine article that gave the style its name (amidst complaints about its “orgiastic” and “organic” features, of course). Penguin Arms “looks like something that Frank Lloyd Wright designed for George Jetson,” Chron columnist Lisa Gray declared a few years ago. These days, that’s considered a compliment.

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Apartments
09/23/11 6:19pm

The End Comes for Central Presbyterian

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Churches, Demolitions, Greenway Plaza, Historic Preservation, Houston Architects, Modern Design, Proposed Developments
8 Comments

Reader Brian Thorp sends in a couple of photos documenting the final hours of what he’s now labeled the “holiest” church in Houston — it was, at least for a time today. The Central Presbyterian Church at 3788 Richmond Ave. was designed in 1962 by Astrodome architects Wilson, Crain, Morris and Anderson; it sits on the site where the Morgan Group is ready to build a new apartment complex. By 9 am this morning (above), the church had developed a few punctures in its side. By noon, much of the dust, and a good portion of the church’s walls, had cleared:

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Demolitions
09/20/11 9:15am

M.D. Anderson Tower Will Go Out with a Bang

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Historic Preservation, Houston Architects, Houston History, Medical Buildings, Office Buildings, Texas Medical Center
12 Comments

The facilities steering committee at UT’s M.D. Anderson Cancer Center has decided to demolish what’s left of the institution’s Houston Main Building at 1100 Holcombe Blvd. with several blasts of dynamite — before the end of the year. The announcement in an online employee-only newsletter cited safety concerns for the decision: “Manual demolition with jackhammers and blow torches would expose our employees, our patients, the public and dozens of construction workers to noise, dust and vibration for months. Implosion reduces that exposure to a matter of minutes.”

The 18-story Med Center structure was known as the Prudential Building before M.D. Anderson purchased it from the insurance company in 1975. It was vacated last year, and demo work on the building began this past April. The newsletter announcement also recaps the institution’s explanation for knocking down the structure, which was designed by Houston architect Kenneth Franzheim in 1952 as part of Houston’s first suburban office park:

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Homes for Sale
09/15/11 1:55pm

A William Floyd from the Pine Hollow Modern Showcase

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Houston Architects, Interiors, Modern Design, Pine Hollow
8 Comments

This home nestled on the south bank of Buffalo Bayou north of Woodway and just outside the West Loop has made brief appearances in the MLS for the last 2 fall seasons. This time, though, the price is almost $200K lower. It’s a 4-bedroom, 3-1/2-bath open-plan home designed by William Floyd in 1954, sporting a few obvious updates and alterations. The 3,519-sq.-ft. home is now on the market for $1,299,000; it’s just a few doors down from the home fellow architect Preston Bolton built for himself on Pine Hollow Ln. 16 years later.

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Comments
09/14/11 7:01pm

Comment of the Day: Sharon Tyler’s Tiles

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Houston Architects, Interiors, Quicklink, West University
No Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: SHARON TYLER’S TILES “I have to agree this house is over the top and she went ‘architect’ nuts with it. I actually live in one of the few other houses that Sharon Tyler built in West U. She built a few others and acted as the ‘architect/builder.’ I have to say the house is built super solid and has a timeless design to it. The bathrooms did have the Sharon Tyler signature floor to ceiling 2×2 tiles and that got old as soon as the 90s hit. Hoewever, in one of the bath remodels I brought a tile vendor to give me a quote to knock down all the tiles and put something more current. The guy liked the Sharon tiles so much that I thought he was going to hit me with a bat for wanting to tear them down. So to each its own. However, I have to say that having lived in a Sharon Tyler house, I have the outmost respect for that woman. No detail was overlooked and I understand she oversaw the construction herself and it was not uncommon for her to stop at the construction and asking to start from scratch on a particular job if she was not pleased with the work. And it shows, the house is solid quality construction.” [west u rez, commenting on Living Large in Houston, Before Her Homes Got Not So Big]

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Galleria
09/13/11 12:12pm

As It Is and Was: Preston Bolton Single-Story Townhome Near the Galleria

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Home Decor, Homes for Sale, Houston Architects, Interiors, Modern Design, Townhomes
16 Comments

Also in the brand-new listing for a single-story “patio home” designed for the original owner by Preston Bolton off Yorktown: photos of the 2-bedroom, 2-bath pad from closer to its 1971 debut. If the now-empty home and its original blue kitchen don’t convey quite the air of Watergate-era sophistication you were looking for, try picturing yourself relaxing, internet-free, in the included black-and-white views. The 2,630-sq.-ft. home’s roof, AC, electrical panel, and water heater have all been replaced recently, but almost everything else is still as it was:

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