Aggregate House: A Heterogeneous Collection of Types

LUTZ OFFICE

“We appreciated that this project rigorously deployed self-similar volumetrics in order to accommodate multiple families, produced compelling renderings, and is operating in a mid-scale development that you could see as a way of accretively densifying a place.”

—Heather Roberge, AIA

Aggregate House draws on the principles of Fumihiko Maki’s Group Form to employ multiple lot ownerships, creating human-scale moments within a collective form on a single-family lot. Sited on Houston’s standard 60-by-120-foot lot, which allows up to two structures with shared primary spaces, this two-story proposal features an active ground-level zigzag porch linking all common areas vital to the upper level and incorporates a useable rooftop garden. The design derives from the semiotics of H&V font characters, shaping an aggregate of rooms and corridors unifying the second floor. Two stairways and shared spaces structurally support the party-wall massing. Regional precedents, such as dogtrot, or breezeway, houses, inform passive ventilation through an open ground-floor corridor, enhancing airflow and improving thermal comfort.