The first phase of our project is complete at The Groves in Houston. As always, our goal is to preserve as much as possible, and minimize disruption in the environment. Something made easier after the project developer paired with Huffman resident Randy Sullivan.

He is able to put his wood carving hobby to use. His experience in wood work made him the perfect fit to help create reusable items with pieces of wood for the development.

Though removing trees is inevitable, we took conscious efforts to keep as many as possible. The trees we had to remove to clear roadway paths were able to be turned into children’s playground equipment, stepping stones, and beams for the master-planned community.

The Groves is a 993-acre project consisting of 2,200 homes. We are happy to have found a way to preserve and re-purpose on such a unique scale.

Link to full story found through LinkedIn by Crescent Communities: LINK FOUND HERE

From a young age Erik was always drawing. For him, there was only one option when it came to being asked what he wanted to be when he grew up. Here is an inside look at the inspiration behind Erik’s journey:

You could say one of my first memories was wanting to be an architect. Since I was very, very little it has been my dream. I’ve always loved to design and build things.

At 7-years-old I entered a local contest to “Draw Your Dream House.”  I drew the tree house shown above and won the competition. They put my picture in the paper! It was one of those moments where you just know you are doing the right thing. It was exciting and fun.

I was in a drafting class in high school where I competed in speed drafting, and won first place in state and went on to place 7th in the nation. This was a really big honor and it gave me the confidence to draw up a set of house plans in high school for a young couple that they then had built. Seeing your work come to life was a very rewarding experience.

I love the ability of designing a space in my head, putting it on paper, having it built and the client experiencing the space we initially envisioned. I have worked with hundreds of people over the years and strive to make every one of them happy by enriching their lives through architecture.

It’s no secret that we love what we do at h+uo. Architecture is our passion and we strive to have that be seen in each and every project. Something many of our clients might not know is what got us in to this amazing field in the first place. Randall gives an inside look at his inspiration behind the firm:

As long as I can remember I loved to draw.  But it was my father that led me down the path of wanting to become an architect.  He was a pipe fitter for Steamfitters Local 420 out of Philadelphia; a blue collar guy who never went to college.  Perhaps my love of and talent for drawing came from him.  In his spare time, when not working in the yard (landscaping was another of his passions) or on the house, he would be drawing.  He spent hours and hours on drawings of houses and landscape ideas, very meticulously filling in walls or drawing deck boards and even coloring in the better ones with colored pencils.  I inherited a box of drawings, literally thousands of drawings, mostly plan drawings that show multiple versions of ideas, tested as a good architect is supposed to test ideas.  It is baffling to think how many hours worth of drawings are in that box but it may be upwards of a year or more.  And he drew these without a T-square or parallel straight edge.

Without a formal education, he knew it would be impossible to follow the steps to become an architect.  But that didn’t stop his love of drawing, designing and visualizing his ideas.  He did a lot of landscaping and building of decks that he designed.  He also did some home remodeling including tearing out walls to make the spaces more open plan.  Lots of projects, many that went unfinished.  But that allowed me to see things go from paper to being built.  It was inspiring to see that process.

He suggested I take a mechanical drawing class in high school, which I did, and loved it.  That was when I knew I really wanted to become an architect.  A 5-year Bachelor of Architecture degree later and 21 years in the business since college, I still love my job and what I do and I thank my father for the Inspiration to Become an Architect.