As an architect, Richard Davis frequently ponders how his firm’s work fits into the trajectory of architectural history.

The recent design for a house on Cedarbrush Drive in Dallas is a fresh, twenty-first century derivative of ideas originated by architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright and Dallas’ own Howard Meyer in the mid-1900s.

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RDDA has employed in this design a deliberate effort to counteract the recent contemporary architectural style that has been labeled “transitional.” We all have seen the houses made up of agglomerations of white stucco or painted brick boxes with black metal windows, a style everyone is calling “transitional.”

Instead of this cold, uncreative approach, Richard Davis chose a warm palette of natural materials and interlaced horizontal forms and planes which are punctuated and tied together by a careful location and selection of vertical forms and planes.

In the case of the Cedarbrush house, the stone two-story gable at the entry and the two-story covered porch to the right of the entry create vertical lines that contrast the house’s predominantly horizontal lines.

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The earthy color gradations of the stone contrast against the lightness of the stucco portions of the façade, creating a warmth and richness reminiscent of the Arts and Crafts movement.

At the same time, the shallow-pitched, hipped roofs with a horizontal emphasis lend a contemporary, yet vaguely traditional look to the house, as opposed to a “modern” flat roof, favored by earlier European modernist architects, such as Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, and Richard Neutra.

In this RDDA-designed house on White Rock Lake, one sees the same interlaced, horizontal planes with the vertical accent added by the chimney. Texas limestone is combined with a seamed, metal roof providing a nod to Texas Regionalist design.

The voids of the recessed porches help to lighten the massing visually, provide shade for the west-facing glass, and create outdoor living space with a 180-degree view of White Rock Lake.

This RDDA commission in Preston Hollow employs the same interwoven blend of horizontal planes and rectangular shapes with a tower on the left as a vertical element. Richard likens the facade to the composition of a Mondrian painting.

By employing these ideas, RDDA continues to evolve and experiment with contemporary regionalist architectural theories that were first espoused in the 1930s by Dallas architects David Williams and O’Neil Ford. Through their use of warm, natural materials, partnered with highly-functional, open floor plans, Williams and Ford paved the way for conservative Dallasites to open their minds to non-traditional architecture.

RDDA takes pride in continuing the evolution of architecture that is fresh and contemporary, yet offers deeper richness and refinement than the assemblies of white boxes that have defined the latest architectural style.