Houston Endowment Headquarters

Text description provided by architect.

The Houston Endowment headquarters has been thoughtfully designed to be the center of a network, equally a meeting place for members of the community and for the distribution of resources and expertise back to the community at large.

The challenge of the project addressed by kdA and the design team was to create a building that is simultaneously a front door and a back porch for the organization. 

The building’s signature design element is an airy, elegant superstructure generously shaded by a large canopy within a grove of oak trees. The design is strongly connected to the site and context: the landscape and history of Spotts Park on the banks of Houston’s Buffalo Bayou.

nterior spaces are conceived within public and private zones and are highly flexible, linked to the park through a series of exterior terraces, shaded by the canopy.

For the construction of the building, the architectural and engineering teams evaluated numerous systems, ultimately recommending the headquarters be constructed using a hybrid steel and cross- laminated timber (CLT) approach.

The building’s CLT, a mass timber product consisting of layers of lumber glued together in alternate directions, offers exceptional strength while also enabling a reduced carbon footprint as a renewable resource, and steel framing provides both stability and flexibility.

The 2030 Net Zero Challenge was set as the project’s primary sustainability objective, providing an achievable and forward-thinking framework and setting a goal of carbon neutrality by 2030 through prioritizing energy-efficient planning and design.

By including a geothermal well system, high-efficient rainscreen façade, and shade canopy, the carbon consumption of Houston Endowment headquarters will be reduced by 33%, as compared to a typical office building. The energy generation from the photovoltaic system will cover the balance of the required energy demand, therefore resulting in a “net zero” project.