Skip to content

Firm

Cast in Place

Our work is defined by craft, detail, and restraint. Every building is shaped by its site, its climate, and the privacy of the people who will live in it — built to feel inevitable, not imposed.

Specht Novak designs detailed, modern luxury residences, commercial, and hospitality spaces in Austin and nationally, specializing in cast-in-place architectural concrete and private walled compounds, with close attention to proportion and craft. Structure, interiors, and landscape are conceived together, from the first pour to the final finish.

Recognized by the AIA, Architectural Record, and named to Architizer’s 100 Best Architecture and Design Firms in the United States, our team has built a body of work spanning more than 350 publications and 70+ awards, for clients who want architecture that holds its ground quietly.

Interior photo of the Sangre de Cristo House by Specht Novak Architects. Shot by Casey Dunn, featuring a bright living area with beamed ceilings, Fireplace, and stairs from entrance area.

News

Recently.

Reach

Rooted in Austin. Building beyond it.

Our practice is rooted in Austin, grounded in Central Texas limestone and caliche, yet our cast-concrete language has traveled, to lakefronts, coastlines, and cliffs from New England to the Yucatán. We don’t borrow the look of a place so much as read it: climate, construction methods, material traditions, topography, and light shape every design before a wall is drawn. A forested island site asks something different of us than a sun-exposed Texas lot, but the answer is always recognizably ours.

US States
10
Countries
6
Years in Practice
30+

Practice

Material, not ornament.

We design homes around proportion, light, and material honesty rather than trend. Each residence responds to its own site and climate, built from concrete, wood, and steel meant to weather — and improve — with age.

Trends date; proportion doesn’t. We choose materials for how they’ll look in twenty years, not on delivery day — concrete that develops a patina instead of a maintenance schedule, wood that silvers rather than fades. It’s a slower, more deliberate way to build, but it’s how a house earns the right to be called timeless rather than simply new.

Meridian House front facade illuminated at blue hour, glowing brick bays against a deep evening sky.

Recognition

Published. Awarded. Cited.

Our work has been published more than 350 times, in outlets ranging from The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal to Architectural Digest, Residential Design, and Architectural Record, with Stealth House alone earning coverage from Dwell, Architizer, Fine Homebuilding, and Dezeen.

Specht Novak has earned more than 70 awards dating back to 2000, from the AIA at the local and national level, Architizer, the Texas Society of Architects, and Architectural Record’s Record House program, honors that recognize a consistent standard of design across residential, commercial, and hospitality work.

Publications, 2005–2026
350+
Awards & Honors
70+
Firm founded
1995

Awards & Honors

Complete List.