Houston’s Emory House is a spatially-efficient marvel on a tight lot

The sustainable Emory House is a cozy home for a young family in Texas. In designing the house, Houston-based studioMET Architects focused on design strategies that created a spatially efficient house for a very small lot. They used repurposed wood acquired through Habitat for Humanity to build parts of the building and worked towards minimizing utility costs.

The architects designed a large open volume to house a living room, dining and kitchen. To create more square footage to the living space, they added a small patio accessible via a sliding door. The tight lot was maximized by efficiently massing the volumes according to the programmatic wishes, and site considerations were strategic with a grass paver system tucked into the back of the lot to serve dual functions as a driveway and mini soccer pitch.

Natural light was brought in as much as possible to minimize utility costs, and the wooden floors on the stair treads and upper floor of the house were found and repurposed through a program with Habitat for Humanity. Once again, taking a measured, minimalist approach design pays off in dividends.