Design of a mixed-use timber building in Austin

Design of a mixed-use timber building in Austin,

Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron has revealed a design for its new mixed-use project in Austin, Texas.

Design Features

The project includes an entire residential building in the city, consisting of a hotel,

residences, offices and shops, and it is called Sixth & Blanco.

Located in the Sixth & Blanco Street neighborhood adjacent to downtown and the Colorado River,

the project will consist of varied wood in different facade configurations,

providing a porous structure to invite residents from every direction.

Once completed, this project will be the first ever built by Herzog & de Meuron, in Texas.

Architectural language is accessed through the project site and cues are taken from existing local storefronts, notable restaurants, department stores, galleries and generous streets.

The tree-lined and walkable character of the surrounding Clarksville neighborhood” is known as one of Austin’s most sought-after areas.

Challenge and potential of the project is also to propose a project architecture,

taking key components from the surrounding context and distributing them through a dense program.

The project occupying the site in a rectangular plan, is envisioned as a continuous horizontal timber structure.

While commercial units, such as shops and restaurants, occupy the entire ground floor, offices are located on the second floor.

Design of a mixed-use timber building in Austin

Design shape

The hotel is designed on the third floor, and residences occupy the fourth and fifth floors,

with the building seen as a series of two-storey structures organized around planted courtyards.

The project also retreats from the street and decreases in density as it increases in height,

allowing a network of outdoor spaces with gardens, courtyards and balconies on all levels.

The project will bring a human scale and a sense of home comfort to everyone – rather than an individually unified gesture,

a project is a complex summation of its many individual parts.”

All units are drawn on rectangular or square plans, while a series of internal courtyards leads visitors to different units within a low-rise complex.

Wooden blinds, columned walkways, and voluminous volumes enhance the layers and depth within the entire complex.

Herzog & de Meuron worked with Page Southerland Page,

a Texas-based firm that served as the architect for the project registration.

Since Herzog & de Meuron is not licensed to practice architecture in Texas,

For the landscaping of the project, Herzog & de Meuron work with Austin-based landscape architect Ten Eyck,

Vancouver-based structural engineer Fast & Epp and Austin-based engineering firm Bay & Associates.

Herzog & de Meuron has also recently completed the new campus of the Royal College of Art (RCA) in Battersea, London.

OMA, Herzog & de Meuron and ELEMENTAL were announced as the architects for the three major new museums in Qatar, earlier this year.