We at RAM Windows & Doors are incredibly proud to have our windows featured in three stunning homes recognized in the Houston 2024 AIA Awards. 

Each of these award-winning residences showcases innovative design, quality craftsmanship, and sustainability—values we share as a company. It’s an honor to see our aluminum, modern, high-performance windows contribute to the beauty and functionality of these exceptional homes. Our in-person interview below with Brad Hollenbeck of Hollenbeck Architects dives deeper into his experience crafting this award-winning Falkirk residence.

Tell us about your affiliation with AIA and tell us what they do for the community? 
Brad: I've been a member of the AIA for probably 30 years. I have been a member of the design committee for that amount of time. The AIA has the home tours that make people aware. They have events like the sandcastle event in Galveston and the gingerbread build-off event downtown. They do a pretty good job of having things that the public can see about architecture. I think that’s important.

Talk to us a little bit about this AIA home. What inspired the overall design and were there any specific architectural styles or elements that you wanted to incorporate? 
Brad: It's a modern style. We're near the bayou so we wanted to lift the house up, but we wanted it not to overshadow the street so we stepped it back with the volumes that modern planes kind of helped us to do. We used a sustainable block on the first floor to elevate the house.

How did you feel/what was your reaction when you found out your design was chosen for the AIA tour? 
Brad: Very excited! Yeah, it was great. I love being in the AIA home tour.

Did anything interesting or unusual occur when you were building this home and what were some of the biggest challenges that you encountered? 
Brad: We built it during COVID, so that was a bit interesting. With raising the house, the masonry block goes all the way around the house, and that's kind of an unusual thing to do. To design it that way and make it look good was really quite a challenge.

How do you feel RAM’s products contributed to your goal for this? 
Brad: So the house is expressive of a lot of different volumes. And we use the RAM windows to sort of create a negative and positive space in that house. And because RAM is a custom window, we could fit it to whatever we were trying to do.

How did you incorporate sustainability into the home? Did you incorporate any specific materials or technologies?
Brad: We used Best Block. It's a recycled material that we used for the foundation and for the first floor. And it's what we used in the architecture on various parts of the courtyard and in the back. It’s basically a CMU block that has like 80% sustainable, recyclable materials. There are a lot of things we can do with it.

Do you have a favorite space in the home? 
Brad: I think this is my favorite space (the hallway on the top floor with large RAM windows). It kind of speaks about everything in this house in that it's, you know, it's the use of the natural light, the use of the elements that kind of give it this feel.

Do you have any future plans or aspirations for further AIA involvement? 
Brad: I would like to participate in more tours. I'd also like to see the AIA expand and have an extended office where it's more of a promotional area, you know, like in the Galleria or Discovery Green - somewhere people could go in and kind of learn about Houston's architecture that the AIA could sponsor for the public. I think that would be something I would be interested in helping with.

Click here to see RAM's 2024 AIA Eyles Residence.

Click here to see RAM's 2024 AIA Arlington Residence.