This Dallas residence is called the Preston Hollow home and was designed by American studio Specht Architects being influenced by the texture and shape of modern Dallas, Texas houses built in the 1950s and 1960s. The architecture is brutalist and the long cast concrete volumes comprise 8,826 square feet (820 square meters).
Specht Architects oriented each of the orthogonal structures to wrap around courtyards, grassy patches and stone covered patios. Large windows and steel columns are paired with corrugated concrete walls that were constructed using custom-fabricated formwork. The textured material gives the residence its brutalist appearance while the thin window frames and metal pillars intend to soften its heaviness. Unlike the brutalist work from that era, however, the heavy walls here are countered by delicate steel columns, thin window frames, and the hovering cantilevered edges of the roof.
Concrete steps and gravel pathways that surround the volume are shaded by a flat overhang that spans across a portion of the house. A rectangular opening is cut into the roof structure above a courtyard situated at the center of the house. The cutout, an impluvium modelled after traditional Roman houses, is designed to let rainwater and sunlight reach the array of plants in the central garden space.
A stream that lights up at night snakes around the edge of the residence and cuts into the partially open courtyard space. Its water flows into the rectangular swimming pool that runs alongside one of the concrete volumes.
Inside, the studio has painted the walls a bright white and covered the floors in the main living spaces with light colored hardwood. Some of the precast concrete walls are left exposed inside. Corrugated concrete clads a fireplace in one of the light-filled sitting rooms, while dark wood planks are used to cover an additional hearth in the master bedroom.