Building in Houston since 2009.

The firm

SDB is a design-led builder: lot acquisition, design direction, permitting, construction management, and after-sale warranty service are all coordinated under one roof, with owner Jack Lin personally accountable for every step. Trained in architecture at Columbia and Harvard, Jack leads the design process on each home, sometimes designing in-house, and often collaborating with outside design studios and interior designers he selects for the project. On every home, he directs the design intent, reviews each drawing set, and personally curates the finishes and selections with the design team, so the ideas on paper survive contact with the realities of budget, structure, and schedule. The result is a home that is not only functional but a remarkable space for both owners and guests.

The company was founded in April 2009 as Inflection Design Group to acquire distressed and obsolete properties and realize their full potential through redesign and renovation. Operating in a down economy, at a time when many builders were hanging up their hard hats, Jack persisted through the great financial crisis and was building new construction by 2012. In 2020, the firm rebranded as Scale Design + Build to better reflect its focus on ground-up design and construction, and it has since delivered new homes across Houston's Inner Loop neighborhoods, including Braeswood Place and the surrounding communities.

Today, SDB builds both ways: it acquires and develops residential infill lots inside the Loop for sale as finished homes, and it builds custom homes on a buyer's own lot. SDB can also engage at any earlier stage (lot feasibility, design and pre-construction budgeting, permitting, or construction management for a project already designed). Every SDB-built home is backed by a written express limited warranty with defined one-, two-, and six-year coverage periods and a documented service process, so the relationship with homeowners continues well past closing.

Jack Lin

Jack grew up on Long Island, New York. He attended Columbia University, graduating in 2001 with a dual BA/BS degree in Architecture and Civil Engineering. Right out of college, he spent time in the corporate and consulting world at Accenture, a global technology and management consulting firm, where he helped build New York City's 311 call center, the largest in the country.

After about two years in consulting, Jack returned to his original interests, completing a Master in Architecture degree at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design in 2008. That year, Jack moved to Houston with his wife Elaine, and by the following spring he had launched the company that would become Scale Design + Build. At SDB, Jack is responsible for the hundreds of decisions, spread over many months, required of a builder: site selection and feasibility, design and engineering coordination, permitting, budgeting and purchasing, day-to-day construction oversight, and warranty service after closing. His hands-on ownership of that entire chain is what keeps quality consistent from one home to the next.

Jack is driven by a focus on detailed craftsmanship and on how a well-designed space can enhance daily life and add a sense of wonder to it. Natural light is a signature element of his work: in each project he studies how daylight will move through the home over the course of the day, shaping window placement, room orientation, and sightlines to create spaces that feel open and alive. A favorite move, where the design allows, is a skylit light slot above the primary shower, washing the space in daylight from above. His objective is an extraordinary level of quality in each home he builds.

Jack lives in Houston's Braes Heights neighborhood, one of the Inner Loop communities where he builds, and enjoys trying new restaurants around town and spending time with Elaine and their energetic daughter, Riley.

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