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At Home in the Modern World

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Houston, Texas

Texas is known for propagating a "bigger is better" attitude. But even in Houston—the state’s oil and energy epicenter— residents are starting to understand the environmental predicament we’ve created for ourselves and the need to change our actions in order have a livable future.

Zamore Brett ArchitectSlideshow

Houston is a diverse city that attracts intellectuals from around the world to industries such as energy and aerospace (NASA’s Johnson Space Center is located 25 miles southeast of downtown Houston). It’s an international metropolis that retains its sense of Southern hospitality and offers a surprisingly large number of modern and International Style architecture gems.

Brett Zamore is one of Houston’s leading modern architects. He moved to Texas from New Haven, Connecticut, in 1995 to attend graduate school at Rice University, then opened his own firm, Brett Zamore Design, in 2006. I spoke with Zamore on a recent trip down to Houston about the city’s constant state of change and renewal, its lack of zoning laws, the drive to bring more people downtown, and the reason why Houston is the country’s fattest city.

What have Houstonians’ response been to the sustainability movement and the ideas of living smaller, rather than larger?

In the city of the country’s biggest people, they’re slowly learning the benefits of small. People are more aware of the environment and more concerned about their futures. When I moved down to Texas to attend graduate school at Rice University in 1995, everything was big. Now people are building much more modestly and smarter. People have their big car but they also have their Prius. There are a lot of great architecture firms in Houston doing good work, and people are stopping to look at our designs. When you start planting these little seeds like these modest homes, it has a big impact long-term.

How is the city and the building that’s done here affected by all the flooding that occurs since Houston is so close to the coast and hit frequently by hurricanes?

It makes you more aware of the climate, the landscape, and what materials you use for buildings. The ground is clay so it expands like a sponge when it gets wet, which is why most homes in Houston don’t have basements, and then if it keeps raining, the water has no where to go so it floods.

HoustonTexasDiscoveryGreenWalkingPath.jpgslideshow

In addition to walking paths, Houston's downtown park Discovery Green offers an array of activities, from free yoga and Pilates classes to concerts and performances to a playground for kids and a man-made pond for steering electric boats. Visit Discovery Green online at discoverygreen.com. Image courtesy of the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau.

What effect does the lack of zoning have on the city? I find it hard to know which neighborhood of the city I’m in because there’s a church next to home next to a store and it’s hard. It’s a bit disorienting.

It’s totally disorienting. There aren’t zoning laws anywhere in Houston, but a lot of neighborhoods have their own restrictions and deeds that do not allow certain things. You’ll also see that if there’s going to be a development that’s not in line with the type of homes in that neighborhood, neighbors will get together and fight off those plans.

The METRO light rail system from downtown to Rice University to the Reliant Astrodome was completed about five years ago. How effective has this been for encouraging Houston residents to take public transportation?

Houston is a place where people like to have their car; it’s their freedom. There are lots of ideas about expanding the highway systems but not as many about reinventing the city. The government does have future plans for extending the light rails, but there’s always so much resistance, so much politics. They just need to build the light rails out to the smaller arteries and communities to connect them to the downtown rather than adding more lanes to the highways.

HoustonTexasMuseumofFineArts.jpgslideshow

Founded in 1900, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston is the largest art museum in the Southwest, comprising 51,000 works from antiquity to the present. Visit the MFA online at mfah.org. Image courtesy of the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau.

You don’t see a lot of people downtown. Is that because of the underground city or that people are just not there?

Because it’s so hot and humid, you have the underground city where you can go from one building to another all through tunnels and without having to go to the street level or outside. Instead of having a futuristic city where it’s all connected by walkways above ground, here we have it underground. There’s everything in the underground city: restaurants, businesses, laundry services. The downtown is dead when the businesses close, but a number of buildings are being converted for living, and there’s been an increase in downtown residential living and urban development.

What effect has the new Discovery Green park had on attracting people downtown?

It’s created the first true public space downtown and has created an epicenter that not just for businesses. The park has different activities like performances and concerts, great restaurants, Pilates and yoga classes, a playground for kids, a manmade water pond for boats. It’s amazing. It’s really beautiful. It’s one of those things that make you think, “Wow, Houston is actually progressing and thinking about getting people down here and making much more of a public life downtown.”

HoustonTexasMETRO.jslideshow

The recently completed METRO light rail connects downtown Houston to Rice University to the Reliant Astrodome and has increased access to Houston's urban core. Image courtesy of the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau.

What are you favorite things about Houston that might be unknown to people who aren’t from here or haven’t been here before?

The food—it’s incredible. Houston’s one of those undiscovered cities when it comes to food. Because there are so many different cultures here—it’s such an international city because of the energy industry—we have amazing barbecue with all these incredible flavors from Louisiana, from the Gulf Goast. We’ve got incredible seafood. We’ve got Tex-Mex, which is rooted in Houston. You have to watch what you eat—Houston’s the fattest city in the United States for a reason.

  • Published: May 6, 2009

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