The Rice University Design Alliance and the American Institute of Architects, Houston Chapter have a timely idea: challenge designers and architects to design an energy efficient and sustainable small house for under $99,000. Even better still, the house must take into account the hot and humid Houston weather and will be donated to a low-income family. This challenge, known as The 99K House Competition, received 182 entries from around the country. Considering the negative......

The Biomimicry Guild and the AIA Committee on the Environment will host a lecture this Wednesday (12/05/07) on Biomimicry its uses and applications. Dayna Baumeister, PhD, and co-founder of the Biomimicry Guild, will give the evening lecture which will then be follow by two workshop sessions on Thursday and Friday. For those less familiar, Biomimicry is "a new discipline that studies nature’s best ideas and imitates them to solve human problems." But wait, aren't......

This weekend (Oct. 27 and 28) stop ogling your neighbor’s house from afar -- get in there and indulge your high design fantasies (legally of course). For one weekend every year the AIA allows even the unlikely likes of you a first-hand experience in top-notch architecture. We won’t even mention what it would actually cost to own these gems, but at $25.00 a ticket the fantasy seems like a pretty good deal. This year’s......

Architecture Center Houston Grand Opening For its inaugural exhibit, the Architecture Center Houston, affectionately referred to as the ArCH, offers a show of current plans for the future of Houston. The exhibit, titled Houston: Future Form, is divided into four areas: Architecture, Bayous, Parks, and Transportation. It includes plans for Discovery Green, the new downtown park, the realignment of I-10 and I-45, as well as the Asia House in the Museum District and continued landscaping......

Yeah, yeah, we know it's not Saturday, but this is worth a special Shelterporn mention: This weekend, you can indulge your list for architect-designed homes (admit it, you have one) at the AIA Houston's 2006 Home Tour. The tour will include 10 architect-designed houses, including a recent Texas Society of Architects award-winning design: 505 West Alabama, a four-unit townhome project by Collaborative Designworks 4029 Chatham, a contemporary home on a Highland Village-area lot by Val......

At Houstonist, we enjoy a good mid-century modern house. So we're really excited about Houston Mod's new exhibit Booming Houston & The Modern House: The Residential Architecture of Neuhaus & Taylor. Neuhaus & Taylor was one of Houston's premier architectural firms in the 1960s and '70s — their designs include the "Taj Mahal," the former HISD headquarters building on Richmond Avenue (which probably won't be around much longer), Galleria I and the towers of......