01 · About
A development lab for better places.
PLACELAB Development™ is a Houston-based developer founded by Christopher L. Smith. We are pursuing our first custom infill homes and neighborhood-scale commercial projects across the Texas Triangle (Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio, and Houston) and in Birmingham, Alabama.
What we believe.
Most builders treat energy performance as an upgrade. We treat it as the foundation. The research says buyers, renters, and appraisers reward buildings that prove their efficiency (Freddie Mac 2019; Eichholtz, Kok, and Quigley 2010) — so we design, test, and document every project to earn that premium. We cite our sources like a graduate thesis, because our investors and clients deserve numbers they can check.
Where we work.
The Texas Triangle
Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio, and Houston, our home base. Hot climates that put building performance to the hardest test, and the markets our spec was engineered for.
Birmingham, Alabama
Our second market. Similar construction logic, milder climate zone 3A, and one of the Southeast's steadiest housing markets (ACRE 2026).
Founder
Christopher L. Smith
It started with the Sunday paper. Growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, I hunted down the Home of the Week and studied house designs in Southern Living. That pulled me into architecture, then into development — and into a problem nobody was solving: buildings that cost too much to run and lose value the day code catches up.
I started PLACELAB Development to fix that. We are a small team pursuing our first high-performance homes and commercial buildings across the Texas Triangle and Birmingham. Our plan is to treat every project as a test: measure it, learn from it, then repeat what works. I run the company as owner, CEO, and founder.
I bring nine-plus years from established architecture firms in Texas, Georgia, and Florida, across schools, healthcare, civic, and multifamily projects. Bachelor of Architecture from Florida A&M University's NAAB-accredited program, Master of Science in Facilities Planning and Management, Associate AIA, and graduate work at Texas A&M in land use planning and development. I also serve as a First Lieutenant and Combat Engineer Officer in the U.S. Army Reserve.
Our thesis is simple. Buildings that outperform code are worth more to own.