OpenHOUse on the Move: From Houston to an Innovative Future in Housing

A year has passed since The Gateway Decathlon chose the University of Houston Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design as a player in its competitive event, including ten categories addressing the future of housing and providing teams with $100,000 to build their housing units. The international competition puts the Hines College against other architecture schools at California Polytechnic State University, Virginia Tech, Dalian University of Technology, and more. The multi-year process culminates in an exhibition near the iconic Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri, where eleven teams will showcase their built designs on-site in the summer of 2026.

Getting Ready for the Race with OpenHOUse

Jason Logan, associate professor and director of the Burdette Keeland, Jr. Design Exploration Lab, worked with fellow faculty members to develop a winning proposal for a thermodynamic house to address living in Houston’s climate.

“We have all experienced, as a result of overcooling, needing a sweater in a building when it is over 90° Fahrenheit outside,” said Logan. “Buildings are inherently thermodynamic, yet most structures are homogenously air-conditioned based on a singular notion of comfort. Our proposal offers an alternative through passive and active conditioning systems, leveraging different temperatures within a building to improve environmental performance.”

The team Logan assembled to kick off the project included architecture faculty Chris Battaglia, Dijana Handanovic, Matthew Johnson, Andrew Kudless, Mili Kyropoulou, and Joaquin Tobar Martinez, along with Driss Benhaddou from the UH Cullen College of Engineering. Together, they worked with student researchers Ezequiel Alvarenga, Hozeh Chae, James Daveney, Haley Hudgeons, Cameron Klassen, and Benjamin Mendoza to develop OpenHOUse, both the team’s name and the project concept for their prototype for shared and sustainable forms of living. OpenHOUse seeks to create a design to reduce a home’s carbon footprint and rethink ways passive and active systems can create indoor and outdoor microclimates, balancing human comfort and building performance.

The team met weekly throughout the spring 2024 semester to complete competition objectives and project milestones, working on drawings, models, and renderings to bring their idea to life. At the same time, Logan worked to secure industry partnerships, bringing on Timberlyne to help provide lumber and fabrication support and Daikin to provide equipment and design support for HVAC systems.

This past summer, the team traveled to St. Louis to present their concept alongside competitors, attend workshops hosted by Gateway Decathlon, and tour construction companies. Most importantly, they also got to experience the site where they will eventually construct their design for the exhibition.

Collaborating and Running Full-Scale Ahead

To get more students involved and enrich their design education with a real-world project, Logan led a vertical 1:1 Design-Build Studio this fall, comprising both undergraduate and graduate students. The first in a series, the studio promoted full-scale thinking for all tasks. Students drew all the assembly and fabrication details and constructed models large enough to test joinery methods. This method helped students consider materiality and thinking beyond a conceptual framework.

In the class, students developed OpenHOUse’s design while investigating ways to transport the project to St. Louis. They worked in teams to present two design schemes building on open plans and sections to incorporate passive cooling and heating strategies. One scheme accommodates a roof deck and terrace with a large, shared living area. It could also be shipped without needing a wide-load permit. The other design included a wraparound porch, more roof overhang to provide shade, and a clearer diagram of nested volumes.

The studio hosted a one-week exhibition in the College’s Mashburn Gallery to solicit feedback from the public after presenting their ideas to more industry partners secured by Logan, including CRAFT Engineering Studio and Aura Dwellings & Hospitality. Students considered the feedback carefully and settled on merging both schemes in a design addressing the project’s goals while retaining some of the characteristics of the original concept, such as the saw-tooth roof design.

The semester’s impact has been profound for the burgeoning designers. Mario Guzman, a fifth-year architecture student, was able to understand more about how mechanical systems like HVAC work in the context of the building. Students also visited Timberlyne and Aura to learn about how each company fabricates their products, which made Guzman excited about how OpenHOUse will eventually come together at full-scale.

“Seeing the outcome of the physical model is my favorite [part] of the semester as it allowed the whole class to work together,” Guzman shared. “It allowed the public to see a visual of how the project would look. One [other] fulfilling aspect of this studio's work has been seeing how a house is truly put together. Residential architecture has always fascinated me, and learning the smaller details has helped me understand the process.”

Like her classmate, Dana Shnoudi, a third-year graduate student, enjoyed the model-making process because it strengthened her skills and helped her understand the assembly process. She also enjoyed researching wood joints and creating models to test their strength and suitability for OpenHOUse. Combining research and the act of design deepened her knowledge of how things connect and interact with each other.

“In this studio, we worked alongside undergraduate students and structural engineers as one cohesive team,” Shnoudi added. “It felt like working in a professional firm, where everyone contributed towards a shared goal. This teamwork provided a valuable and realistic experience of the collaborative nature of architectural practice. Witnessing the transition from conceptual design to a physical structure will be incredibly rewarding. It will showcase the result of our design ideas and planning efforts and allow us to evaluate how our concepts work in a real-world context.”

The studio also collaborated with the Hines College’s Building Analytics and Sutstainable Environments (BASE) Lab led by Kyropoulou. The BASE Lab designed box modules helping the team test a variety of insulation materials, all going back to the house’s thermodynamic philosophy. In line with the studio’s full-scale mentality, at the end of the semester, students presented their design progress, models, renderings, and studies about how their housing unit could be affected by the elements.

During the fall semester, Logan and Battaglia were awarded places in the Autodesk “Design Sprint” Residency in Boston. Battaglia, who joined the Hines College under UH’s Presidential Frontier Faculty initiative specializing in emerging construction technologies, worked with students to develop joinery concepts and studies. The pair taught remotely for three weeks while working at the Autodesk Technology Center, developing research and utilizing construction robotic technology to fabricate timber prototypes for OpenHOUse.

Getting Closer to the Finish Line

After the Gateway Decathlon competition is over, the OpenHOUse will return to UH for an exhibition and serve as a case-study home for continued environmental and performance analysis. In addition to these plans, students in Martinez’s class will propose ways to integrate 3D concrete printing, including creating a foundation, exterior benches, and planter and rain garden elements for the house. The class has already worked with industry partner PERI 3D Construction for two years.

While the OpenHOUse team has already thought about the far future, much is still to be done in the next 18 months leading up to the Gateway Decathlon.

“Since the fall studio focused on narrowing the design to one scheme and developing the structure for the project, the spring 2025 semester will begin to develop the interior of the project, the exterior building envelope, and the building systems like mechanical, electrical, and plumbing,” Logan noted.

Plans for the spring 2025 studio include an interdisciplinary studio with the Hines College’s interior architecture program, co-led by Logan and Handanovic. With the focus shifting to the interior of OpenHOUse, the studio will help develop finishes, millwork, and furnishings. The students’ research will also include using a digital knitting machine to fabricate textiles for curtains to control solar exposure and create privacy within the home.

As OpenHOUse continues to make headway on the design phase and will soon enter the construction stage, Logan hopes to connect with additional industry partners to provide support for different areas and have an opportunity to showcase their products through the home at the Gateway Decathlon. Currently, the team seeks connections with industry partners for solar energy, rainwater collection, plumbing fixtures and appliances, kitchen systems, exterior and interior lighting, and electrical wiring, switches, and outlets.

The team will begin building at full scale this upcoming spring, and the plan includes construction through the rest of the year and into 2026 until the exhibition in St. Louis. Students who join the team through future studios will continue to get hands-on experience and the opportunity to tour industry partner facilities to build their skills, knowledge, and network.

Follow OpenHOUse’s journey on Instagram (@OpenHOUse_UH)!