Houston artists Dan Havel and Dean Ruck have collaborated on a number of site-specific interventions in the domestic architecture of Houston. However, these projects have been ephemeral: preserved only in drawings, models, and photographs. Trespass is the first monumental work by Havel Ruck Projects that is not short-lived.

Created out of materials scavenged at a building site in Houston’s historic Magnolia Grove district, Trespass is constructed from the fragments of a 19th-century wooden bungalow, the kind of structure once typical of the district. At a glance, the sculpture is a seeming whirlwind of flotsam and jetsam. Closer examination, however, reveals the careful structure that holds together this maelstrom of slats. Trespass can be compared to the “anarchitecture” projects of Gordon Matta-Clark. Like Matta-Clark, Havel and Ruck are interested in the social dimension of architecture, and as the title suggests, Trespass raises questions regarding property and community. Should the artists be considered trespassers for scavenging the materials from a building site? Or are the developers who are transforming a neighborhood the trespassers?