MADE (MOSTLY) IN AMERICA

摘要

Cruising slowly up banks, a narrow residential street in Houston's Museum District, I'm trying to guess which house belongs to architect Karen Lantz, AIA. Along the way I find the typical Houston mix: postwar ranch houses and their lot-filling replacements, mostly McMansions loosely modeled on Versailles. I'm momentarily fooled by a big white modernist house, but it's too cool, too formulaic. I know I'm looking for something more particular. Finally, I spot a precise assemblage of boxy volumes that looks -and this is a good thing -like it was put together from a Kenner Building Set. The exterior is marked by a xeriscape garden instead of a lawn, a length of white vinyl fence framed like a work of minimalist art, a solar water heater astride the roof that resembles a high-tech gable, and a light sculpture -a bright cluster of LED bulbs -above the entrance.