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Houston
Michael John Smith
Return to Record: A sign of thetimes
in '69, the Steelwood House is Still Shining brightly.
Built as part of a housing exposition
in Houston, three steel-framed townhouses were published in
the May 1969 issue of Record Houses. Click
here to see the original
1969 coverage of the project (PDF: 5pages, 300k Note:
you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the article which
can be downloaded for free here).
Plus, click here to see a list of people
and products used in the restoration.
Below, Smith takes us on a tour of his
own restored and relighted house. See Architectural Record,
November, 2001, for Architect Michael John Smith's restoration
and relighting of the house.
Notes from
Michael John Smith, the current owner of Steelwood
All photos © Paul Bardagjy
unless otherwise noted.
The Steelwood townhouse was built in 1969 to demonstrate the
use of steel in residential construction. The project was
sponsored by the American Iron and Steel Industry, General
Electric, and Houston Lighting and Power (now Reliant Energy).
All electrical wiring was installed in rigid conduit. All
appliances and heating and air conditioning units were furnished
by General Electric. This was a "gold medallion total
electric home." All furniture on display in Steelwood
during the convention was manufactured by Knoll.
Convention-goers were bused to and from
the Astrodome (the convention site) to tour them. The architects
of the Houston Astrodome, Wilson, Morris, Crain, and Anderson
(now Morris Architects) designed the townhouses.
© Michael John Smith
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EXTERIOR
The exterior appears as a solid stucco wall from the street.
A pair of steel-framed wood-louvered gates marks the entrance.
At night the house number is illuminated with the original
double bracket-mounted downlight, now lamped with PAR20 narrow
floods. Three new flush-mounted uplights with halogen PAR20
narrow floods illuminate three crepe myrtles in front of the
wall. Two cylindrical wall bracket-mounted PAR38 up/down lights
with 40-watt, 130-volt flood lamps are visible through the
horizontal louvers of the gates creating a welcoming glow
for visitors. The fixtures are virtually identical to the
originals that had to be replaced after 30 years of use.
 FRONT
COURTYARD
This area was covered with a wooden
deck when we purchased the house in 1995. The travertine fountain
curb was topped with a square, doughnut-shaped wooden planter
hiding the stone except inside the pool. The patio was broken
up and removed to achieve the current landscape design. Pieces
of the original glass tile were unearthed during excavation
for the new wiring and drainage systems.
Originally, bare PAR38 floodlights and
pipe conduit had been screwed to the surface of the aluminum
gravel guard across the facade. A new stainless steel gravel
guard was added when the house was re-roofed.
As part of the restoration, all exposed
structural steel was sandblasted, primed, and spray painted.
The front courtyard now is landscaped in the manner of a small
Zen garden. Crushed black star marble simulates the sea. The
garden is illuminated with thirteen 12-volt AR111 adjustable
spotlights mounted on the edge of the roof (a la Philip Johnson's
glass house). They are deeply shielded and louvered to eliminate
any source brightness from normal viewing angles. The front
courtyard visually extends both the living room and the study.
The front courtyard lighting is controlled in unison with
the lighting in the living room and the side yard, visible
from the dining area. An eight-scene preset control system
allows for push-button control of the equivalent of 40 wall-box
dimmers.
Two sets of lights illuminate the fountain:
a pair of clear AR111 spots and a second pair of AR111 spots
filtered with medium blue dichroic lenses. Each pair is on
its own dimming zone. The remainder of the garden is illuminated
with a set of clear spots and floods and a separate set of
medium blue filtered spots and floods.
By carefully mixing the amount of blue
and white light, it is possible to dim the front courtyard
lighting in unison with the living room while keeping the
fountain jet and plant materials from appearing yellow.
STUDY
This room extends across three bays of the south-facing front
courtyard facade. Ambient light is reflected off the travertine
floor from the fixed 12-volt, 50-watt MR16 downlights. The
center of the room is illuminated with one of the relocated
semi-recessed downlights from the dining area. These are lamped
with 90-watt, PAR38, halogen floods. The task light on the
desk is produced by a Cedric Hartman desk luminaire lamped
with a 60-watt T10 frosted showcase lamp. Reading light for
the bed comes from a swing-arm wall mounted lamp with a white
fabric shade. It uses a good old-fashioned 100-watt A19. The
George Nelson CSS shelving on the west wall is washed with
two 71-watt MR16 floods in recessed pinhole adjustable accent
lights. There is a third pinhole adjustable accent light in
the room illuminating a paper artwork hanging above the bed.
The birch grid panel is part of a light sculpture called Light
Space II that was done for my last one-man show in 1982. Its
watt incandescent lamps create a warm glow that is controlled
by its own dimming zone.
 LIVING/DINING
ROOM
There are four floor outlets forming a square at the perimeter
of the seating area. One '60s newspaper photo showed a floor
lamp in this part of the room. The only other light in the space
came from three semi-recessed downlights over the dining area.
These fixtures were too close to the wall to light the center
of the table and too far from the wall to wash all but the bottom
foot or so. Therefore we elected to remove, rewire, and relocate
one in the center of the study, the den, and the master bedroom.
Five more of the recessed MR16 downlights,
each centered on a curtain wall panel form a line across the
south end of the living room and the study. The remaining
light sources in the Living/Dining room are 12-volt MR16s
in recessed, pinhole aperture, adjustable accent lights with
the addition of two decorative wall sconces flanking the mirror
over the fireplace. Ambient light reflects off the white wall
opposite the fireplace and the travertine floor and is supplemented
by the wall sconces.
The large birch plywood structure spanning
the side of the dining area is a piece called Light Space
I, which I created for my gallery show in 1982. It provides
a soft warm light via lamps within the wooden cells of the
piece.
Four pinholes with MR16 floods provide
task light for the dining table. A fifth, in the center, with
a narrow spot is on a separate control zone for the centerpiece.
Only one architectural change was made
to the house during our restoration/renovation. We extended
the wall between the dining area and the kitchen by 30 inches.
This new section of wall supports 10 canopy-mounted spotlights
in a vertical line from floor to ceiling. One luminaire is
clear and aimed at the floor. Another group of three is filtered
with blue dichroic glass, the second group is filtered with
magenta dichroic glass, and the third group is filtered with
green dichroic glass. The nine luminaires are aimed directly
toward the wall facing the front door of the house. This color
wall changes hue according to an electronic preset sequencer
that fades the colors from magenta/blue/green, to blue/green,
to all blue, over a 14-second fade time. Depending on the
occasion, many people visiting the house never see the colors.
It is a privilege to live in such a
beautiful piece of architecture. Our intent is to preserve
it for the future by making it valuable to the next caretakers
without damaging its original design.
Web Exclusive:
Click here to see the original
1969 coverage of the project (PDF: 5pages, 300k Note:
you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the article which
can be downloaded for free here).
Plus click here to see a list of people
and products used in the restoration.
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