Welcome

Storms are big, temperatures high, floods deep, and drought-fueled fires devastate towns and cities. Worse, these 21st century conditions now often compound each other, multiplying their impacts.

Because tackling them has stalled, and their effects are local and specific, individuals are turning to the direct protection of a sturdy, resilient home. Category-5 supports these decisions with a full spectrum system aimed at more than mere survival - it’s designed for comfort and beauty, as well as peace of mind.

Category-5 has an Answer

Category-5 grew out of Houston’s direct experiences with Hurricanes Alicia, Rita, Ike, Harvey, and Beryl, and storms like Allison.

Their hard lessons taught that constructing climate security is possible at a relatively fast pace and reasonable cost. The key is combining well-known methods in new ways for greater strength, durability and survivability — more than any other type. To date, we’ve completed dozens of buildings for owners in locations from Colorado to Louisiana.

Our goal is to provide the shell for new, climate-secure homes to meet virtually any residential need. We'll specify and design the structure, and coordinate the purchase and delivery of its parts. Inside it, you can install... well, whatever you want. And we can assist with that part too.

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Category-5 is Keyed to Critical Goals

Early work on any project is devoted to the engineering and material challenges posed by its natural conditions. The process begins with reviewing owner requirements and inventories of the site, from plantings and storm history, to reports from EPA and FEMA. We also focuses on prevailing or historical patterns of climate threats, like seasonal winds with fire, and subsidence with flooding. From there, we derive an action plan addressing all the factors impacting the proposed building.

The approach is exhaustive and detailed, with unique results for each site. However, we find a few objectives repeatedly stand out even at this early stage:

STRENGTH

Structures need to outmatch strong winds — even up to Category-5 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale (=157 mph)

SAFETY

Category-5 offers three grades of fire resistance, any degree of elevation and the engineering to meet severe storm threats

ELEVATION

Homes must be sited and designed to ride above floods

THERMAL PROTECTION

Modern weather is bringing frigid winters, hot summers and volatility to be countered with thick walls and extreme insulation

DURABILITY

Envelopes must resist fire and decay, and be fabricated from durable, warranted materials

SUSTAINABILITY

Materials with high embodied carbon should be reduced, substituted or eliminated

Designs should prioritize solar, wind and rainfall harvests, with off-grid water, power and communication

Design

Category-5 Answers Modern Weather

Conservative engineering counters strong winds
Extreme insulation and site-adapted roofs block high temperatures and promote cooling breezes

Elevation to 60”+ protects from high water
Specialty details enhance fire resistance and systematic risks
Warranteed-durable materials assure permanence, durability and storm resistance
Minimal embodied CO2 due to reduced concrete

The Coastal and Iconic models below show design options that can be adapted or expanded to suit virtually any requirement or site

ICONIC: 2 bedrooms + loft, 1600 sf minimum

Cases: Three Challenges, Three Solutions

Category-5s have been designed for states from Colorado to Georgia. Each represents a unique collaboration between owners, engineers and contractors.

The projects pictured here show some of the possibilities available with the Category-5 system, from loft style live-work dwellings to prestige custom and middle income dwellings. They’ve been selected to show how our buildings fit comfortably into conventional neighborhoods, urban settings and remote locations.

Case #1: Hyacinth

“Hyacinth,” located in Houston, embodies key aspects of the Cat5 system: Strength, Elevation, Flexibility and Integration with Nature.

The building comprises an open, loft-style living-dining-kitchen, a customized art studio, and secluded sleeping quarters. The home is set in an expansive garden devoted to native plantings, with a large reservoir of harvested rainfall to fend off drought conditions and assist in cooling the building.

Hyacinth is oriented to capture breezes and collect rainfall needed by its native garden

The garden promotes cooling airflows and calming views

Massive roofs harvest rainfall, with storage below for garden irrigation and passive cooling

Hyacinth boasts a full range of Cat-5 features…

1. A "Storm Strong" steel frame designed for hurricane force winds

2. Elevation far above flood level, even though sited along a major watercourse

3. A loft-inspired interior plan balancing mutual privacy between living, studio and sleeping areas with the open layout of each

4. Integration with nature:

- Building orientation to enhance cooling airflows

- Roof design to maximize rainfall harvesting, plus a large reservoir for irrigation purposes and to cool the building

- Roof oriented to maximize the solar power potential

- Roof slope and overhangs (8 feet plus) designed for maximum shading and to leverage ambient airflows

- Massively insulated exterior walls

- Exterior finishes (wall and roof) made from fire resistive, warranteed-durable materials

- Integration with nature that extends far beyond simple solar and rainfall harvesting, toward a complementary relation between the dwelling and its environment

Case #2: Knox

“Knox,” combines Category-5’s key values in a design of maximum Flexibility and Strength.

Knox’s long-span structure balances a loft-style residential plan with the studio and exhibition requirements of a professional art practice. It's both a family home and a working environment.

Flexible art studio and exhibition spaces

Knox exemplifies Category-5 values of strength, safety, efficiency, and durability…

1. Its flexible steel frame enables full separation between living and working spaces or, for professional social purposes, their combination

2. The long-span steel structure enables expansive spatial volumes suitable for making and exhibiting artworks, and door and window orientations (and sizes) unattainable by conventional homebuilding

3. As with other Category-5 projects, its exterior (wall and roof) is made of fire resistive, warranteed-durable materials

Case #3: Wicktree

“Wicktree” brought Category-5’s structural advantages to the rescue of a suite of ancient, massively spreading oak trees

Wicktree’s widely spaced foundation piers, typical of our system, assured the survival of six historic trees as well as supporting our long span structural design. These features enabled large, double-height spaces as well as cozy family rooms. The exterior fits well into its premier residential neighborhood, with a conservative interior design attuned to the owner’s tastes. Yet the project’s technology reflects the most advanced approaches to thermal protection, with elevation and structural ratings keyed to defending from hurricane and flood risks.

Wicktree is devoted to conserving its location’s historic natural elements and defending from heat, storms and floods

1. A "Storm Strong" steel frame designed for hurricane force winds

2. Elevation far above flood level in preparation for “micro-burst” flash flooding

3. A long span steel structure assuring widely space foundation piers to preserve historic, massively spreading oak tress existing on the site

4. Integration with nature:

- Building orientation to enhance cooling airflows

- Roof slopes, eaves and building overhangs (totaling up to 8 feet) for maximum shading and to leverage ambient airflows

- Massively insulated exterior walls, with an additional Exterior Insulating Finish System installed against its coated steel sheathing

Compare

The Category-5 system stands out for its strength, durable materials, thermal efficiency, and survivability, and for minimizing the carbon embodied in its construction.

These qualities contrast starkly with the fragility, impermanence, inefficiency, vulnerability and high carbon content of conventional homebuilding.

Strength & Survivability

Engineering to resist winds of up to Category-5 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale (157 mph)

Non-combustible, inorganic shells to defend against fire

Elevation to 60”+ to ride above floods and high water, depending on site conditions

Thermal and Performance Strategies

The performance of its systems and materials decides much about a home’s long term durability. Put simply: a house that’s difficult to heat, cool and maintain will wear out anybody’s patience and lead, eventually, to decay and demolition. Category-5 counters this possibility with,

- Massive insulation, including greater than R-48 in outer walls, and more than R-40 in roofs; these numbers far exceed the R-19 and R-30 ratings required by building codes
- Roofs configured with overhangs of up to 10 feet reduce sun exposure, generate cooling breezes and enable solar and rainfall harvesting

Category-5 and Climate Change

A building’s contribution to global warming and climate change comes from two sources:

- Emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases during the making and installation of its materials
- Lifetime energy used for building systems, like heating and air conditioning

The Category-5 system minimizes these factors by avoiding materials that emit large amounts of CO2 during their manufacture, maximizing thermal insulation and roof shade effects, and emphasizing durability.

Specifically regarding embodied CO2,

- We rely on steel columns carried by only a few widely spaced piers
- By comparison, due to its structural weakness, a wood-framed house requires a massive concrete foundation whose cement boosts its “carbon count” to 25%+ above that of a Category-5 (concrete contributes 10% +/- of all CO2 emitted annually, worldwide) - please see the graphs below

Note:

The carbon count of structural steel is high, but balanced against our reduction in concrete, its environmental effects are less. Modern US steel comes from Electrical Arc Furnaces (EAFs) that increasingly rely on renewable energy and use 98%+ recycled feed stock; their output’s carbon count is 75% lower than from traditional mills

Durability

A house that’s hard to maintain will eventually become obsolete due to deterioration, inefficiency or cost. Because high heat and humidity are becoming common, and swings in temperature can prompt frequent water vapor-moisture phase changes in building envelopes, structures without advanced specifications face dire outcomes.

The pictures below show the performance of conventional wooden buildings during climate change. Category-5s’ exterior materials are selected specifically to counter this hazard, and usually carry long manufacturers’ warrantees. Interior organic materials are kept 10”+ away from exterior walls.

Where Build a Climate Defense House?

The Cat-5 is suited to any urban, suburban or country location that’s likely to face fires, floods, or major storms, or where the local climate promotes mold and decay. It’s especially well-suited to ocean and riverfront locations, and virtually anywhere in the Mississippi and Missouri watersheds, as well as arid areas in the west and southwest US.

Please contact Category-5:

ABOUT CATEGORY-5

CATEGORY-5 is a consortium of designers and engineers committed to building strong, durable and beautiful residences across America - houses built for the future not the past. Based in Houston, we’ve seen some of the worst that nature can dish out, and know what it takes to come out the other side.

“HIGHER THAN THE FLOOD, STRONGER THAN THE WIND”

713 . 398 . 5207