On Saturday and Sunday, March 20-21, from 1:00 p.m. until 6:00 p.m., RDA members and their guests will have the opportunity to visit eight houses in Houston’s Southgate neighborhood on RDA’s 34th annual architecture tour, Southgate: An Urban Oasis.

Southgate is located inside Loop 610 and is bounded by University Boulevard to the north, Travis to the east, W. Holcombe to the south, and Greenbriar to the west. The neighborhood is adjacent to Rice University and the Texas Medical Center, two Houston institutions that are expanding substantially. Southgate is undergoing considerable change, yet it has retained its close-knit community feeling. Architects and designers working in the neighborhood have been successful integrating their designs into the older fabric and staying within the neighborhood’s strict deed restrictions. The community is thriving, leveraging the same attributes the subdivision had when first developed: location close to big employment centers, excellent schools, transportation via bus and now light rail, and nearby shopping.

Houses on the self-guided tour include (*tickets can be purchased at Houses #1, 4, and 8):

*1. 2239 University Boulevard (Strasser/Ragni Architects with Emily Sing, 2008) TICKETS SOLD HERE!

2. 2045 University Boulevard (Collaborative Design Works, preliminary design with Openshop Studio, 2005)

3. 2056 Dryden Road (M. R. Van Valkenbergh, designer, 1942; rehabilitation, 1998)

*4. 2102 Addison Road (Dixon & Ellis, 1938; rehabilitation: Rogers LaBarthe Architects, 2009) TICKETS SOLD HERE!

5. 1925 Addison Road (1938; rehabilitation: Z-K Building Design, 2006)

6. 2145 Southgate Boulevard (Charles B. Thomsen, Architect, 1965; rehabilitation: Kelie Mayfield, 2008)

7. 2201 Southgate Boulevard (Dillon Kyle Architecture, 2006)

*8. 2206 Sheridan (Brave/Architecture, 2004) TICKETS SOLD HERE!

* Tickets will be available at ONLY these 3 locations on the tour! Please plan your tour accordingly.

The tour is open only to RDA members and their guests. RDA memberships can be purchased in advance at the RDA office, or on the tour and include one complimentary tour ticket at the Student ($15) or Individual level ($45) or two complimentary tickets at the Household level ($75) and above. Click here to see our membership benefits.

Tickets may be purchased online by clicking here or at the designated three tour locations or in advance by mailing a check made payable to the Rice Design Alliance and a self-addressed, stamped envelope to:

Rice University
Rice Design Alliance – MS 51
P.O. Box 1892
Houston, Texas 77251-1892

For further information, please call 713-348-4876.

The Rice Design Alliance is an AIA/CES Registered Provider of educational programs. For this tour, attendees will earn two Learning Units. Learning Units will be reported to CES Records on the member’s behalf. Registration at one house on the tour is required. Non-AIA members may pick up a Certificate of Completion to fulfill state MCE requirements.

This tour is made possible by support from A & E – The Graphics Complex; Barton Construction; W. S. Bellows Construction Corporation; Berger Iron Works, Inc.; CenterPoint Energy, Inc.; JE Dunn Construction; FKP Architects; Fisk Electric Company; Fretz Construction Company; D. E. Harvey Builders; Haynes Whaley Associates, Inc.; Linbeck Group; McCoy Workplace Solutions; The OFIS; PSTC, Inc.; Satterfield & Pontikes Construction, Inc.; Smith Seckman Reid, Inc.; SpawMaxwell Company; TDIndustries, Inc.; Tellepsen; Mr. and Mrs. Robert B. Tudor; the Corporate Members of the Rice Design Alliance; the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance; the National Endowment for the Arts; and the Texas Commission on the Arts.

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The Small House Tour may have been held in spring 2009, but our friends at Hometta have been working on something special. They just published a short three minute video about the Tour and the Civic Forum. Take a look (and watch it full screen for optimal viewing):

Small Houses from Hometta, Inc. on Vimeo.

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Architecture Center Houston (ArCH) with the cooperation of Buffalo Bayou Partnership invite you to a stroll along Buffalo Bayou Parkway for an overview of downtown Houston’s history and architecture from it’s beginnings in 1836 to the efforts to revitalize the central city today. ArCH docents will lead you on this 2 hour architectural tour.

Selected landmark structures along the tour route:
A Allen’s Landing Park and Main Street Viaduct B San Jacinto Jail C University of Houston Downtown: One Main Building D Historic warehouses on Commerce Avenue E Remnants of Houston Ice & Brewing Co. complex F Buffalo Bayou bridge complex G U.S. Post Office H Preston Avenue Bridge and Sesquicentennial Park Commons I Wortham Theater Center J Sesquicentennial Park promenade and entrance K Bayou Place L Downtown Aquarium M Sabine-to-Bagby Promenade N Hobby Center O City Hall P Bob Casey Federal Building

Recommended parking (parking validation not included) at the Hobby Center Parking Garage. Tour departs promptly at 10am, please arrive early to park and check in.

Date: Saturday, January 16, 2010
Time: 10 am – 12 pm
Location: Architecture Center Houston
315 Capitol, Suite 120
Houston, Texas 77002
Tickets: $10 for ArCH members; $15 for non-member

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Join Rice Design Alliance and Citizens’ Transportation Coalition
for a three-hour bus tour of Houston’s crucial but often unnoticed freight rail network with
RDA Board Member and Cite writer, Christof Spieler.

Saturday, September 12, 9 am – 12 pm*

Cite 79 focuses on the hidden infrastructure that keeps Houston working. This tour will reveal one of those networks: rail junctions, yards, bridges, and industrial sidings that carry coal, chemicals, new cars, and consumer goods, supporting our industrial economy and supplying our daily lives. We’ll also see how these networks coexist and clash with the neighborhoods around them.

*The tour will begin at the Ninfa’s on Navigation parking lot at 9 am and will conclude by 12:30 pm (to allow for unforeseen possible traffic issues). We will spend most of the trip on the bus but we’ll also get out once or twice. Tour goers will be supplied with light snacks and water for the tour.

Payment of $25 from interested RDA members is required to secure your place by Friday, September 4th. There are only a limited number of seats, so spots are available on a first-come, first-served basis.

We hope you will join us for this unique tour, highlighting the incredible industrial infrastructure of our city!

For questions and payment, please call 713-348-4876.

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For some, living small is a virtue; a small house means less resources used. For others, living small is a necessity. A job is lost, the household income shrunk, and the budget can’t fit the bonus rooms. And for another group, living small is both virtue and necessity, but also a challenge to design. It is an opportunity to create a house that is efficient, intricate, and lovely.

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The 2008 Rice Design Alliance (RDA) annual architecture tour highlighted the work of John F. Staub and was held Saturday and Sunday, March 29 and 30, 2008. The Rice Design Alliance featured six of John F. Staub’s Houston houses, which represent the various phases of Staub’s career, the scales at which he worked, and the neighborhoods in which his designs were built.

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Of all American architects practicing successfully in the first half of the 20th century, no one may have designed houses in more varied styles than John F. Staub. What accounted for his remarkable versatility? Was he pandering to his clients or was he exploring new visual experiences because of a restless imagination?

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The Rice Design Alliance 2007 architecture tour featured both old and new architecture in Southampton.  The neighborhood’s planner was William Ward Watkin, the first professor of architecture at Rice. It was the RDA’s 30th annual tour and took place on Saturday and Sunday, April 14-15, 2007.

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29th Annual RDA Architecture Tour
From its founding, one of Houston’s most distinctive topographical features have been its winding bayous. In residential areas, ravines and embankments provide scenic variation and an habitat for plants and animals that thrive in riparian woodland. At the same time, sandy and eroding banks and occasional quick-rising floods make bayous perilous places to live near.

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in conjunction with
The American Institute of Architects

Practicum: Both the Rice University School of Architecture and the University of Houston College of Architecture present upper level design/build classes. The general intention of both programs is to offer design students broader exposure to the construction process and industry. By focusing on smaller scale projects or prototype assemblages, students and their faculty advisors are given the opportunity to work from schematic design through construction documents to cost estimating, and ultimately to fabrication and construction of the built structure.

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