Hacienda Ja Ja is a LEED-Platinum home nestled beneath a canopy of live oak trees, designed by Lake Flato Architects, in Alamo Heights, Texas.  The 2,328 square foot property is to scale with its neighbors, offering porches that allow its residents to easily engage with activity on the street. Spaces wrap around a small courtyard to maximize natural lighting and ventilation distributed throughout via tall glazings and high ceilings. High-performance features include details like the variety of floors made of polished fly-ash-content concrete, locally sourced stone, engineered wood and locally sourced wood siding installed as a rainscreen system.

Carefully sited to preserve and to protect the live oaks, to promote cross-ventilation and to maximize natural daylighting, the home is also designed to avoid solar thermal gain during the summer and capture passive solar heating during the winter.

Rainwater is collected from the roofs and stored in a below-ground 6,000-gallon tank; during most of the year, captured rain water will supplant domestic water for all landscape irrigation needs.

Photos: Frank Ooms