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Herzog & de Meuron has updated its plans for the forthcoming Sixth&Blanco mixed-use development in Austin, Texas. The mass timber design will be realized as the firm’s first-ever completed work in Texas. The plan calls for a full city block construction with a hotel, office spaces, a residential... View full entry
Austin on Thursday became the largest city in the country to stop requiring new developments to have a set amount of parking — a move aimed at both fighting climate change and spurring more housing construction amid the city’s affordability crisis. The Austin City Council voted 8-2 Thursday to wipe out minimum parking requirements for virtually every kind of property citywide. That includes single-family homes, apartment buildings, offices and shopping malls. — The Texas Tribune
As noted by The Texas Tribune, housing advocates, developers, and climate activists have increasingly advocated for the erasure of parking requirements, which have been found to drive up housing costs and fuels a dependency on cars. Cities across the country in recent years, including Portland... View full entry
School is back in session, and that means it's time for another installment of our Get Lectured series. Today, we’ll have a look at what’s in store for the Fall semester at The University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture in the first year of Dean Heather Woofter’s tenure. The... View full entry
The University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture has announced Dora Epstein Jones will be joining its faculty in the fall as one of five new appointments. Previously, Jones served as former faculty at Texas Tech University at Huckabee College of Architecture in Lubbock and will be... View full entry
A recently completed project from three alumni Snøhetta staffers at the University of Texas at Austin’s Blanton Museum of Art has delivered an artistic intervention they say stands as a new gateway between the 51,000-student campus and its host city. Principal and co-founder Craig Dykers... View full entry
Amid challenging conditions in the real estate and lending markets, a proposed 80-story residential tower that had been planned to be the tallest high-rise in Texas has now been scaled back to 45 stories. [...]
Taylor Wilson, president of Wilson Capital, said the revised design comes in response both to feedback from Austin's Design Commission and to significant changes in the real estate and financial markets, which are grappling with rising interest rates and tightened lending standards.
— The Austin American-Statesman
The revised Wilson Tower proposal would have surpassed I.M. Pei’s JPMorgan Chase Tower in Houston as the state’s record-holder. KPF’s Waterline development is still on track to break it by 20 feet. The episode highlights the economic stasis affecting developers in the city’s insanely... View full entry
A unique new philanthropic initiative from Michael Hsu Office of Architecture (MHOA) is offering nonprofits in the Austin, Texas area the chance to win a $20,000 pro-bono consultation in the interests of providing much-needed space to organizations affected by the city’s rapid transformation... View full entry
The annual SXSW festival opens today in Austin, Texas. A total of four installations will be featured prominently along with a series of art-based conferences in the event’s 36th edition, which this year runs until Sunday, March 19th. “The 2023 SXSW Art Program highlights three artists... View full entry
In meetings with landowners and real-estate agents, Musk has reportedly described his idea for the estate — which he envisions building on thousands of acres of property he purchased on the Colorado River — as a utopia, so that his employees can live, work, and play without ever leaving. — New York Magazine
The community, named “Snailbrook” after the Boring Company mascot, would be the first new town in Texas since Ellinger was incorporated in 2020. Pre-fab homes are the most likely housing option, with rents as low as $800 and a Montessori school campus to serve employees' children, according to... View full entry
BIG and prominent lawyer-turned-hotelier Liz Lambert have announced they will be teaming up with ICON on a new high-end hospitality project in Marfa, Texas. The project will reshape Lambert’s 21-acre El Cosmico resort from a collection of disparate yurts, tents, and other small structures into a... View full entry
UNStudio, HKS, and Gehl have been selected by the Austin Transit Partnership (ATP) to lead the architecture and urban design of Project Connect, a major expansion of the city’s public transit system. The voter-approved investment includes new light rail, expanded bus routes, a subway, and more... View full entry
But joining the fraternity of cities with supertalls can also be a dubious distinction: Real estate is a lagging indicator, and skyscrapers often arrive after the boom is over, looming half-empty as monuments to a bust. Others, however, are convinced that Austin’s high-rise stampede is just getting started.
Given the city’s emerging significance as a next-gen manufacturing hub this building boom could defy the skyscraper effect.
— Bloomberg
With a slate of high-rises and supertalls, including KPF’s Waterline design and the record-setting Wilson Tower from HKS in the works, Bloomberg asks if the pace of development can be sustained amidst tech’s downturn and the annals of urban economic history. The salvation apparently lies... View full entry
[...] Wilson Capital announced this morning that its redevelopment of the Avenue Lofts site will be significantly larger than previously reported. The multifamily residential building planned for the 0.8-acre property at 410 East Fifth Street, now known as Wilson Tower, is set to rise 80 floors to a total height of 1,035 feet — and yes, that would make the project the new tallest tower in Texas upon completion, exceeding the height of the Waterline supertall project [...] — Towers Austin
HKS is behind the Wilson Tower project, which will complement the 43-story 700 River development that broke ground recently on a tract fast becoming Austin’s “second” downtown. The would-be new record-setter had been previously planned for only 54 stories and is now advertising lets for... View full entry
Construction has commenced on the largest community of 3D printed residences in the United States. The hundred-home 'Wolf Ranch' development was designed by Bjarke Ingels Group and 3D printing technology group ICON and is being constructed in the city of Georgetown, Texas, just north of... View full entry
Following last week’s visit to Atlanta-based Houser Walker, we are moving our Meet Your Next Employer series to Los Angeles this week to meet the international design collective RIOS. Founded by Mark Rios in 1985, the collective has evolved from its architectural and landscape architecture... View full entry