“Designed for a retired landscape designer intent on restoring the local ecology and living lightly on the land, the residence at Alligator Creek Prairie Preserve is a sustainable off-grid house on a rural site in the grasslands of east-central Texas. The house, inspired by both traditional Texas farmhouse vernacular and Japanese imperial villas, seeks to capture the client's sense of stewardship of the land and fit seamlessly into the restored landscape. The 1170 sf house, is composed of two distinct volumes set on a raised foundation, wrapped by a deep porch, and covered by a steeply pitched roof. The material differences of the volumes delineate their separate functions. One volume, devoted to activity, is clad in wood and has an open layout for kitchen, dining and living. The other, devoted to rest, is clad in half-timbered stucco and has more intimate spaces for sleeping, bathing, and meditation. A dogtrot with a limestone fireplace runs between the two, and a loft spans across on the upper level tying the volumes together. With no front door, the house is accessed from the sliding doors that line the porch and allow the interior to spill outdoors. The elevated porches and platforms give views of the surrounding landscape and gorgeous Texas sunsets.Drawing from a palette of wood, stucco, concrete, limestone, corrugated metal, and bamboo, the house employs warm, natural materials with hues pulled from the landscape. Extensive use was made of materials reclaimed from a local farmhouse built in 1890. Longleaf pine flooring, corrugated tin roofing, wood columns, and wood cladding were all repurposed and reused, preserving the patina and color built up over more than a century in the Texas countryside.The rural site lacked electricity making minimal energy use an integral part of the design, which fit well with the client's vision for her new rural life. The house relies on a 3kW solar system with battery backup as its only power source, and the sleeping area is the only mechanically conditioned space in the house. The overall approach emphasized passive strategies supplemented by active systems. Seasonally-tuned overhangs, shading trees, operable skylights, a vented SIP roof, and a raised ground floor to capture breezes help regulate the indoor environment. An 18,000 gallon rainwater cistern is concealed in the raised foundation, and the house reuses all graywater for irrigation.“
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