AIA Austin Homes Tour: What you need to know

The 40th annual AIA Austin Homes Tour is coming up this weekend. It's a self-guided tour featuring nine diverse homes designed by locals. Tiara Newbaum joins us live from Barton Hills this morning with a closer look at what you can expect. Tiara, good morning. Good morning. This is always a fun segment for me getting to tour beautiful homes in our community and a fun weekend that you guys have planned, Ingrid. So what's going on? How can our community join in on this? Well, it's nine houses. You get to go inside. you get to see them and you get to meet the architects behind them so aiaustin.org for tickets and it's going to be a great couple of days 40 years congratulations what makes this what do you hope that people get out of this event each year i hope people are inspired i hope they can meet the architects behind the houses as well as the teams because it takes a team of people to make you know crafts people to make these homes and i hope they really have dinner conversations that night about what they saw well we get to tour this beautiful home diane you're the homeowner and the architect here so um take us on a tour tell us about your beautiful home all right so after you come in the foyer we're going to come in here through the library all right the library is just funky it's fun what was your inspiration and hope for this room well we had a lot of architecture books and cookbooks and so we definitely wanted to create a library and we wanted it to face north which it does and so this location was just perfect and then we just love having all the textures and of course this is where you can kind of keep your collections like we have pencil sharpeners and other little tchotchke things right so it's just a good place to collect all those things and then we were able to like recover the Barcelona chairs and some new fun corduroy fabric we have a lot of wood going on there's a lot of materials in here we have the walnut floor we have a wood ceiling we also have a pickled wood wall so it's just a lot of fun textures and everybody loves this room i love to be in this room we like to sit and have a glass of wine in the evening so i love this room when we walked in this morning i was like wow this is only our first stop and there's so much to show there's so many spots in your house to have a warm cozy cup of coffee i think the cool weather helping us out with that this morning all right then where are we headed next so then we ended up having this little sneaky door through to the scullery so that you could just come in and grab that coffee or tea or wine or whatever or a little snack so i always love a scullery because it's where you can have the mess you can have all the extra appliances i love to bake so i did the wood countertop so i can just roll out my pie crust um it's just and it's so functional and when you have a really big dinner party or something you've got an extra dishwasher extra refrigerator to store all the things and so it's just i just love scullery this is ideal yes leave the mess in there but then we head to your beautiful kitchen and a perfect place for hosting what are some of the new touches that you guys um wanted to incorporate here in the kitchen so we looked at a lot of kitchens which i often tell my clients to do to just get inspired of what you liked and we kept getting drawn to walnut cabinets so we decided to do a walnut cabinet kitchen and then we really wanted to keep with the modern 1960s style so we did the flat slab cabinet fronts and then we also found this amazing blue marble Italian blue marble and just had to have it and then mixed it with the backsplash and then we also we do love blue and we found this really great tile from Wimberley Dunes so it's actually locally made it took a while to get but it is just such a fun tile you can see the depth of how the tile brings all these different waves of color through it. It's stunning. I love the pop of blue there and everything meshes together so well. You're of course the architect behind this house. What did you guys do when you bought the house to kind of make it your own here? So the house was a 1976 Melbourne back home. It was really kind of your typical ranch. It had some low ceilings. You couldn't see this amazing view. This was a giant forest back there it had low ceilings so we just pushed the walls out added on added a big screened porch raised the ceiling the roof so we have 12 foot ceilings and then it just really connects you to the outside which is just such a beautiful piece of nature that we have right here in Austin we're so lucky right in downtown to have the view you have is absolutely stunning yes right along the green belt here this screened in porch I mean this is the second spot I'd be moving out grabbing a cozy blanket this morning and having some coffee so yeah you know what else are folks going to see this is just a small preview of your home what are some other areas that they'll see this weekend yeah so we also have a game room upstairs that we also added a big dormer on to enjoy the view and that is kind of where my son and all his teenage friends love to hang out and then we added a whole new primary suite which is at the other end of the house also looks out onto the green belt and then we kind of rearranged the whole inside of the house with the bedrooms, well you guys did a spectacular job, thank you for inviting us in this morning and showing us this view, man, this is good guys and this is only one of the nine stops on the tour, so AIAustin.org to grab your tickets and get inspired this weekend, check out some beautiful homes with some beautiful views, Diane, thank you so much, yeah, this is the jealousy tour every year these amazing beautiful spaces but it does give you so many good ideas on the kitchen island, yeah I love that, looks nice, thanks Tara. 40th annual AIA Austin homes tour is coming up this weekend, it's a self-guided tour featuring nine diverse homes designed by locals, we've already picked out parts of this home that we want in our house, uh Tara Newbom joins us live from East Austin with a closer look, hey Tara, good morning, hey guys, good morning yeah we're taking our own little tour this morning we started off in Barton Hills, an amazing house with great outdoor views and now we're in East Austin and this house is a showstopper, right when you pull up, that's why we're doing this first segment outside before we head inside, but this is exciting, this is one of nine houses that's going to be on the tour this weekend, how does the tour work, and what do people need to know as they make their way around town this weekend Of course, Tara. So it's nine houses in East Austin and it's a self-guided tour, so you just drive from house to house and you get to see inside, you get to meet these architects and the people behind these houses. You know, what's the goal for AIA when hosting this event, 40 years of the Homes Tour? That's right, 40 years. So AIA Austin works with architects and we create community and we showcase their work to the public. So this is how you will see what the amazing minds of an architect can do. Yes, we've got one of them here joining us, Dave, the incredible architect behind this beautiful house. This is very unique, Dave. So can you kind of walk us through the the architecture and the build of this house? Sure. I think one of the standout features of this house is that it's built predominantly with rammed earth, which is an ancient building technique which uses compressed earth, two foot thick walls of compressed earth to create the structure and the finish for the house. The benefit of this is that it's a thermal mass. So this wall faces west. It takes a while for that heat, the western sun to transfer through that wall and so throughout the day in August when that western sun is hitting that wall it takes a while to get through it and by the time it's gotten to the other side night time has come and it cools and it works its way back out the other side. It also acts as a great sound insulator so we're on a busy street right here so this western facing wall that's on the street is blocked the noise is blocked from that thick wall as well. Really fascinating you guys were inspired by landscape in Arizona um what made kind of this all come to life in East Austin and why was that the inspiration well we we had never designed with rammed earth before and the builder Rob Trachten we had never built it as well and so we went to Arizona to do a workshop to learn how to build and design with rammed earth. Through that process we took a hike out in the mountains and talked about what we learned in the workshop and decompressed from that and we were sort of inspired by the landscape forms out in the desert. So obviously the rammed earth color is inspired by the desert floor. And then of course this green roof that wraps the house was inspired by the flora that covers the desert floor as well. What are some of the unique features we're going to see inside in just a bit? Oh, lots of beautiful tile. There's some marigold colored tile throughout the house that's reminiscent of the marigold flowers that we found in the desert as well. Lots of natural light. And then of course the rammed earth is also on the inside as well. So you can see that, touch that and and admire that from the inside as well, really fascinating stories that are also going to be told this weekend. All right, where do we grab tickets? Can we grab them in advance? Can people grab them day of? Great, they can. It's AIAAustin.org, you can get tickets and um from the front and you can also buy them at the tour itself, okay so Saturday and Sunday they can go to any of the houses either day. That's right, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday if you don't have those weekend plans and need some inspiration learn some stories about these beautiful houses, meet the architects, ask some questions. All of that's going to be going on this weekend, along with a lot going on around town. But this is a great way to kind of escape the crowds. Guys, we'll send it back to you. You're kind of getting into that, the architect and design of homes. I mean, that I like looking at it, yes. It's about as far as I get. These are the people who can do it. It's amazing. They're beautiful houses. Thanks, Tara. Appreciate it. 40th annual AIA Austin Homes Tour is coming up this weekend. It's a self-guided tour featuring nine diverse homes designed by locals. Tara Newbaum has been checking it out this morning. She joins us live with a closer look. Tara, good morning. Hey, guys. Good morning. Yeah, this is such a great tour, a way to get inspired from local architects, builders, homes that are in our community, nine of them on the tour this weekend. Saturday, Sunday kicks off at 10 a.m. both days. I'm here with Davey McKeithran. He is one of the architects that is part of the tour. And we're outside still at this house. We're going to head in in just a moment. But the outside of this house is just a showstopper. So what makes it unique? Well, it's the rammed earth walls, these two-foot-thick walls that we have here. And it's covered by this green metal roof like the desert scrub that follows over the desert floor. And how are we going to see some of this throughout the home? Because this is kind of the theme. Yeah, so the rammed earth is exposed on the inside very well. And we have these big vaulted roofs as well. And we also have a beautiful texture throughout the house in the lime paint and the tiles and textures. What are we seeing right now? So there's like a little pool or hot tub outside. We have a half-moon-shaped pool, and you can see the yellow marigold tile, which is reminiscent of the marigold flowers in the desert. And then, of course, everything is xeriscaped with low-impact, low-water usage plants. Okay, very, very beautiful landscaping. And then as we head inside, can you kind of tell us about the floors and the materials that were used throughout this house? So in the floors, we did a special mix in our concrete, And we ground it down about three-eighths of an inch to expose the aggregate. And you can see it kind of has this very nice, natural, warm texture to it. It balances well with the rammed earth color and the walls as well. And then as we head around the corner here, a really great little powder room downstairs here. So, you know, what are some of the different tiles and features and textures that make this house stand out? Well, we really wanted all the features to be very warm and natural feelings. So we've got the terracotta tile there in the bathroom from Clay Imports Tile. And then the rammed earth, of course, is exposed everywhere. And the other finish that you'll see on the walls besides the white painted walls is a burnished lime wash paint. Okay, it's all stunning and very cohesive. There's a really unique feature upstairs that we're not going to see on Good Day Austin this morning, but the people that come out to the tour will see. Can you tell us about that one? The hammock floor? Yes. We put a hammock floor on the bridge between the garage apartment and the house. It's a great little community activator space. You can hang out on that hammock floor. It's a very walkable street. A lot of pedestrians happen to be walking through all the time, and so you can have communication with the people on the street. Everyone's always very curious about the house, and the hammock floor is also a big draw. A lot of curiosity sparked here, okay? And then as we head into the dining and kitchen area, what was the idea behind the concept here? We really wanted to keep that rammed earth exposed, So instead of doing traditional upper cabinets on this wall, we did floating steel plates so that we could visualize all of the rammed earth as well. And then, of course, you're seeing the marigold-colored tile again. And then the cabinets, they're all white oak, so it's a very warm, natural material. And then we have this stark, contrasting black countertop. What are some good questions that folks can come with this weekend when they're meeting these architects and touring these homes? I would really love to talk about the rammed earth so we can talk about the technique of the rammed earth. That would be a very, very hot topic, I think. And then, you know, it's the thermal impacts of it and the savings that we have on the air conditioning. And then, of course, all of our finished selections. We love talking about it. You took a trip to Arizona with the builders of this house to kind of get inspired to build this one. How will you use kind of what you've learned and what you've done here going forward? Well, we're hoping that people want to continue doing this type of construction. I think it's very useful in this climate that we have, and it's very beautiful, and it's very long-lasting. It's very durable. The Great Wall of China uses this material. It is beautiful, and Clay Imports, of course, always bringing beauty into local homes with their tiles, too. Great job here. Thank you. Thank you for joining us on Good Day Austin, one of nine stops on the tour, aiaustin.org, to grab your tickets to take part in the Homes Tour this weekend. so many beautiful homes on this tour and good ideas maybe you can incorporate some of them in your house