h+uo BLOG

One of h+uo’s project architects, Kristina Olivent, AIA, is going to be a presenter at the 40th Annual Conference of the Association for Community Design taking place in Dallas, Texas from June 22-25.

The conference is made up of a series of presentations, workshops, participatory and/or advocacy events, tours and networking opportunities which seek to further the practice and awareness of community-engaged design.

As defined by ACD, community-engaged design is “a movement focused on the creation and management of environments for people. This process promotes change to the built environment from the neighborhood to regional scale, and aims to meet community needs through participatory decision-making at all levels.”

Kristina Olivent, AIA is a co-chair of AIA Austin’s DesignVoice committee. Along with fellow committee members, she will be presenting case studies, tools for success, and lessons learned from DesignVoice’s current community-engaged design projects. These projects will be the Mi Jardin Bus Stop Shelter, which was a design competition DesignVoice held in partnership with Austin’s transportation authority, CapMetro, to provide a placemaking neighborhood landmark in an underserved part of the city.  A second project to be featured will be the Tiny Victories competition DesignVoice hosted to provide designs for micro-homes for the chronically homeless in partnership with Community First! Village.

h+uo encourages you to consider attending this conference that will offer inspiring ideas for fostering community design and enriching our shared daily experience. You can register by clicking the link below.

We are honored to have been the architects for the Lakeline Station Apartments, which just celebrated its Grand Opening on April 19th. Thanks to this new living community, families who have struggled to find affordable housing in Austin now have a safe, beautiful, and supportive place to call home.

With all 128 units fully leased, Lakeline Station is off to a successful start! This affordable housing development was built with sustainable green building practices in mind, particularly at the on-site Michael & Susan Dell Foundation Learning Center. The Learning Center will be the first “net zero” commercial building in Austin, ultimately producing more energy than it consumes.  Additionally, surrounding the building are metal cisterns which store rainwater harvested from the roof and a landscape which includes edible plants such as a loquat grove, sunflowers, and veggies planted in raised gardening beds for the children.

In keeping with the inspired mission of our client, Foundation Communities, the space will host after-school and summer learning programs for children as  well as “English as a second language” classes. For adults, the Learning Center will also provide financial coaching, exercise and nutrition classes, and help with health insurance enrollment.

To learn more about Lakeline Station Apartments, visit Foundation Communities’ website.

Our project team included the following collaborators:

Contractor:  B.E.C. Austin General Contractors

Landscape Architecture:  Studio Balcones

MEP Engineering:  Aptus Engineering

Structural Engineering:  Integrity Structural

Civil Engineering:  Civilitude Engineers & Planners

As more and more people continue to re-locate to Austin, we are seeing a steady increase in the number of residential projects we are doing here at h+uo. This includes everything from single-family homes, ADU’s, duplexes, whole-house remodels, and additions. We expect this trend to continue as U.S. News and World Report recently named Austin the best place to live in America.

Here is one of our latest residential projects to be completed.  Located in the revitalized Chestnut Neighborhood on the east side of town, this speculative home sold in just a few weeks.   To see more of our featured residential projects, please visit our website HERE.

Every year, the AIA Board President has the opportunity to recognize an individual that supports the mission of AIA Austin.

This year, President Jim Susman, gave the award to David Carroll, AIA. “This award is in recognition of David’s steadfast and heartfelt commitment to our Chapter, specifically with respect to advocacy and urban design issues.”

AIA grants the honor for making a special contribution to the design and construction community, supporting the members, and going above and beyond the requirements of the employment or volunteer position.

We are so proud of David and his accomplishments for both AIA and our firm, h+uo. Keep up the great work!