HOUSTON, TX.- In an exciting collaboration, the Menil Collection and Rice University’s Rice Building Workshop (RBW) have joined forces to design and construct a café across Sul Ross Street from the museum’s main entrance. The project began earlier this year, when Menil Director Josef Helfenstein, inspired by RBW’s Solar Decathlon ZeRow House, approached Rice University architecture professors Nonya Grenader and Danny Samuels with the idea of working with Rice architecture students to design a museum café. Helfenstein has long seen the need for such a gathering place, in keeping with the wishes of John and Dominique de Menil, who also envisioned a café to complement the museum, which opened in 1987. Said Helfenstein: “Designed to be in harmony with our green, residential surroundings, the Menil café will enhance the neighborhood as well as the visitor’s experience, being a place of welcome, reflection a