APRIL 2003

CAA's work at 1117 Banks Street, Houston, was featured by the Rice Design Alliance in its 2003 Architecture Tour on March 29-30, 2003. More than 1200 people toured six new and renovated houses in Houston's historic Museum District, including designs by Natalye Appel+Partners, Francois de Menil Architect, Jay Baker Architects, and the Wittenberg Partnership, in addition to CAA.

Robert Wallin and Diane Kerr, who completed the renovation of their Southgate area house (2047 Swift) in 2002, have listed it for sale.

Cameron Armstrong was a featured speaker at the Texas Assoication of Museums' 2003 General Meeting. TAM sponsored a conversation between Cameron and the University of Houston's Ronnie Self, moderated by Howard Taylor, Director of the San Angelo Museum of Art.

CAA has been retained by Jim Faulkner to design a guest house, studio complex and recreation building on his property near Industry, TX. The project will feature several "stealth" structures, designed to disappear into the landscape as barns and other typical farm structures.

Works+Partners' work on 2626 Richmond, TX, has started up again with preparation of design revisions and specifications. Construction is planned to start Summer, 2003.

West End Mansion Flats (see: Of Interest @ Main Page) is under revision for the purposes of re-pricing the project. CAC Strategic Services Inc., CAA's real estate affiliate, has identified several sites, and is seeking joint venture investors for the first project.

OCTOBER 2002

Nancy Rust will be moving into her new house at 4902 Chestnut in Bellaire by early November. Griffin Construction reports good progress with the hot rolled steel countertops, decks and the ramp. The metal siding has been completed. We think this may be the first new house in Bellaire to update the elevated-deck-on-piers type of foundation since the 1960s (let us know of any we missed).

GG Hsieh and Mark Hausknecht saw their structural concrete foundation at 2322 Maroneal poured and finished Saturday, September 21. At the specified mix, this amounted to about 600 tons of cement -- and don't forget the steel. Dungan Designs' David Miller saw to the mirror finish and builder Jeff West of Prism Construction personally placed the shadow reveal blocking. The pour started at about 8:00 am and was complete by 4:00 pm, a testimony to the good organization at Custom Foundation. Pictures will be up on the "Of Interest" page soon.

The first of CAA's "Mansion Flats" projects is now being priced, with construction planned for next year -- possibly early next year! These will be Houston's first small mid rise residential buildings, a new type for the city, and will play a part in the city's continuing (re)urbanization. See the Site Visit page for pictures.

Works+Partners (CAA and affiliates) is now pricing the renovation of 2626 Richmond Avenue.

The studio addition to 311 Asbury for Lucy Anderson (originally the Nordbrock-Andrews house) was completed in September. The house, with its landscaping by Sarah Lake, was featured in Cite Magazine in its Summer 2002 issue (see Bibliography).

APRIL 2002

Charlotte Sun and Ed Rubenstein moved into their new house at 2154 Dryden in January. Pictures soon...

CAA and Works+Partners affiliates completed the Fotofest exhibition design for this year's International Month of Photography, as well as the event design for opening night. See the Projects archive for a link to pictures and text.

Works+Partners (CAA and affiliates) has been retained to design the renovation of 2626 Richmond Avenue, a small office building in Central Houston.

Drawings for 2322 Maroneal, a new house for GG Hsieh and Mark Hausknecht, have been completed. Construction is planned for late Summer.

Construction of 4902 Chestnut, a new metal house in Bellaire for Nancy Rust, has commenced. The building features an elevated first floor on concrete piers.

OCTOBER 2001

CAA was retained by Ray and Audrey Taylor to design a new house at 1320 Beachton St. It will feature a polished, stained concrete floors and a shell that combines masonry, stucco and galvalume metal siding.

CAA has affiliated with Works+Partners, a joint venture of CAA, Daniel Kornberg Architects and That's Architecture, for the purpose of producing larger and more complex projects. This collaboration will not affect CAA's residential work. Our office has moved to 1113 Vine Street, Suite 210 (mail service will continue at 5423 Gibson).

CAA was pleased to participate in the recent New Blue exhibit at the Yale School of Architecture, curated by Aaron Betsky, a survey of work by approximately forty graduates of the school since 1980 (catalog with essays by Betsky and Vincent Scully).

Billie and Ned Mercer's house was featured in the August 19 edition of Texas Magazine with an illustrated article called "Special Affections," about their integration of the landscape and building.

APRIL 2001

Framing continues at Charlotte Sun and Ed Rubenstein's new house at 2154 Dryden. Pictures soon...

CAA is very busy, with a number of projects in design, including 4902 Chestnut (Bellaire) and 2322 Maroneal (Old Braeswood). Design work for the Fissell-Martinez house in Marfa is ready to move into working drawings, pending the owner's schedule.

CAA was pleased to participate in the Rice Design Alliance's Snapshot exhibit, at Lawndale Art and Performance Space.

OCTOBER 2000

The big news this last six months has been in design, with work on 2154 Dryden, Houston, and the Fissell-Martinez house in Marfa both moving forward.

Cameron's efforts on Site/Work/S, his project in conjunction with Houston Sculpture 2000 and The 18th International Sculpture Conference took a lot of time and effort, but had very good results (link to the page from the Project archive). Site/Work/S had participation by more than a dozen artists, three separate exhibition/installation venues, a historical exhibit curated by Alexandra Irvine, and good attendance at the Forum (taped for later publication by the ISC). Perhaps the best thing about the project was that it was able to commission two important, permanent, site specific works: Dan Havel's (FOUND)ation, and Mark Monroe's Hero House Tower, both at Project Row Houses. Plus, the ZUBBUS Tour by Jim Pirtle, Nestor Topchy and Stephen Fox for ISC attendees was a blast!

Lynette Jenning's program about Suzanne and Tom Dungan's house at 5303 Floyd Street for The Discovery Channel was aired on October 6. It will be rebroadcast another six times by 2004.

Other bibliography news: CAA was featured in Sydney LeBlanc's The Architecture Traveler: a Guide to 250 Key Twentieth-Century American Buildings (Norton, June 2000), an article in This Old House Magazine in July, and in Alan Hollinghurst's essay on Houston in Gulf Coast: The Twentieth Anniversary Issue (originally published in The London Review of Books). Cameron and Alex Irvine were interviewed about Site/Work/S by Chas Bowie for CANVAS.

FEBRUARY 2000

The Kopplin and Mercer houses in the Sixth Ward, Houston, were both occupied in early December 1999. Susan and Pat Kopplin moved into 2013 Lubbock, otherwise known as the "knife in the heart of the historic Sixth Ward " (cf. Houston City Council, August 1998), and Billie and Ned Mercer occupied 2017 Lubbock.

Ellen & Jack Hart, whose house at 1211 Malone in the West End suffered damage resulting from a major fire at the neighboring townhouse project last fall, hope to reoccupy in March 2000. Alan Griffin of Gryphon Builders returned to direct the reconstruction.

"Site/Work/S," an exhibition of site specific interventions and installations scheduled for the 18th International Sculpture Conference (in Houston, May 31- June 3, 2000), won the co-sponsorship of both The Rice Design Alliance and Texas Architect magazine during January. The exhibition will consist of newly commissioned and existing site works, a show documenting the evolution of site work in Houston (curated by Alexandra Irvine), and a conference under the aegis of the ISC. Cameron has been working on this since last year and reports participation by all the important site works, including Project Row Houses, TemplO, Notsuoh and The Artery, as well as of numerous artists and architects.

The Diego Rivera/Mexico City tour (see October 1999, below) was a big success. In addition to all the major Distrito Federal sites, we were able to see the incomparable chapel frescoes at Chapingo.

CAA has been retained to design a new house at 2154 Dryden in Southgate, near Rice University, by Ed Rubenstein and Charlotte Sun.

CAA has been retained by Diller Development to provide the site and building designs for 15 townhouses in the 1900 block of Taft, at the corner of Willard Street, in Montrose

See the CAA "Bibliography" page for details of recent media coverage. December saw publication of the second edition of the AIA's Houston Architectural Guide which cited seven CAA buildings, and a piece about design patents in Architecture magazine which quoted Cameron and described the firm's work as defining "the high end of residential design in Houston."

Watch the Discovery Channel in March for coverage of the Dungans' 5303 Floyd Street house.

OCTOBER 1999

Tom & Suzanne & Tom Dungan's house @ 5303 Floyd in the West End was featured in Metropolitan Home's November-December 1999 issue, pp. 152-157.

The AIA Houston Architectural Guide, Second Edition (just released) cited 1225 Jackson Blvd., 5423 Gibson, 311 Malone, 5419 Blossom, 604 Malone, 5303 Floyd and 2020 North Memorial Way.

Ellen & Jack Hart moved into their house @ 1211 Malone at the end of September.

CAA has been retained by Fenchurch Properties Inc. to design a four story, steel framed office/loft/residence on State Street in the Sixth Ward.

The Diego Rivera/Mexico City tour scheduled in conjunction with the Museum of Fine Arts/Houston Exhibition was fully subscribed and leaves Friday, October 29.