Felecia Residence

The Felicia Residence responds to the desire of two high school teachers to live in a unique dwelling on a limited budget. To moderate cost and complexity, the design separates spaces for working, living, and sleeping into separate wings and places each into a conventional wood-framed box. Three curved stud walls connect these boxes, leaving the kitchen at the heart of the home. The curved walls create distinctly rounded interior and exterior spaces within a home constructed for $159 per square foot.

Flexible corrugated metal wraps the exterior walls, providing a durable and affordable shell that adapts easily to the shape of the curved walls. Thresholds lined with wood puncture the metal skin, providing a sense of warmth as one enters and leaves. Along the curve between the living and sleeping spaces, eleven floor-to-ceiling glass panels facet subtly to approximate a curve, blurring the distinction between public and private spaces.

The home’s placement within the site utilizes the building’s irregular shape to divide the exterior landscape into three distinct zones. Those curved walls define the edges of a series of three convex outdoor spaces. Each of those spaces serve a specific purpose: formal entry, driveway, and backyard. At the back porch, an oculus allows smoke to escape from the fire-pit recessed within the deck while also allowing rainwater to cascade downward during a storm.

At the outset of the project, the property surrounding the site on Houston’s northwest side sat surrounded by largely undeveloped vacant land. Since that time developer-driven homes and townhouses that define the majority of new residential construction in Houston have sprung up around it. The house’s irregular shape, subtle curves, and reflective metal skin serve as reminders that it’s possible for a house with a modest budget in Houston to do less of the same.