Training
Office Center

Location: Houston, TX
Type: Private School — Office

Houston, Texas — Private School

A new building that had to look like it was always there.

This one started as string lines and pier pads in the mud. It is a ground-up wood-frame building holding office and training space, and it sits directly beside the school's basketball court — close enough that it could never be treated as a standalone object.

So the exterior takes its cues from the sports facility next to it: the same gable, the same standing-seam roof, the same vertical metal skin over a lapped base. Stood side by side, the two read as one campus rather than as a court with a shed added later.

The structure is raised on piers, which is why the finished building sits above the lawn and is reached by a timber walk and a curving concrete path. The sequence below runs in the order it was built — forms, floor, frame, sheathing, skin, and finally the approach.

The site at the start: timber form boards laying out the footprint across churned earth, with poured pier pads and reinforcing dowels set at the corners — 01 Ground broken — the pier layoutHouston, TX

The floor structure set and braced clear of the ground on concrete pier blocks, the joists fanned out and waiting for decking — 02 The floor, set on piersHouston, TX

The timber frame standing on the completed deck — studs, headers and diagonal bracing open to the sky, with the crew working inside — 03 FrameHouston, TX

The gable end sheathed in green structural panels with taped seams, the roof rafters run out along one side and ladders against the wall — 04 SheathedHouston, TX

The long elevation sheathed and taped under a grey sky, door and window openings framed out, crew working along the wall and on the roof — 05 The envelope closesHouston, TX

Vertical metal siding going on over the sheathing with windows installed and the dark roof edge complete, the neighbouring building visible to the right — 06 SkinHouston, TX

The building nearly clad, with the curving path formed up in timber ready for concrete and picnic tables already set out on the lawn — 07 The walk goes inHouston, TX

The finished elevation: three doors onto a timber deck with steps, wall lights above, the lapped base skirting the piers and the campus building beyond — 08 CompleteHouston, TX

The building in use: lawn laid, young trees planted, the poured concrete path curving up to the timber walkway and tables set out under the trees — 09 The approachHouston, TX

01 — 09

The full length of the sheathed elevation with the crew working along it under a grey sky

Off the ground

The building is carried on piers rather than laid on a slab, so the floor structure went in before anything stood up — set, levelled and braced clear of the ground. Everything above it is wood frame.

Piers
Deck
Frame
Envelope

The floor structure braced above the ground on concrete pier blocks

Vertical metal siding going on over the taped sheathing, with the roof of the adjacent campus building in the background

One campus

The skin is where the building joins the school. Gable, standing-seam roof, vertical metal above a lapped base — the same vocabulary as the basketball facility beside it, so the training centre reads as part of the court rather than as a neighbour of it.

Project: Training Office Center
Location: Houston, TX
Type: Private School — Office
Structure: Wood frame on piers