David Vaculin is not an architect. Thankfully, he's not letting that slow him down. After our article last month about the common, yet difficult-to-define notion of the "signature tower," Vaculin, who lives in Round Rock, contacted me with his own thoughts on the subject. He may not be an architect himself -- by day, he designs electrical systems for industrial ...
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Commentary, analysis, and quick thoughts on almost everything in town.
The Tyndall’s On Deck in East Austin
For a long time, I ignored the Tyndall. It just didn't grab my attention. In fact, for several months I thought this Austin condo project, currently in a late stage of construction at 800 Embassy Drive just east of I-35, was destined to be another straightforward mid-rise apartment building like its neighbors, AMLI Eastside and Eleven by Windsor. It certainly looked that ...
A Modest Proposal for Connecting Four Blocks in Downtown Austin
Remember when there weren't any major Austin condo or office towers west of Guadalupe Street in downtown? It's kind of quaint to look back on now -- I'm not old, but I'm old enough to remember the opposition to the 7Rio condo tower proposal at Seventh and Rio Grande Streets back around 2007, which eventually lost about half its height and became the SEVEN Apartments. Back ...
Congress Avenue’s Pocket Patio Transformation, Mapped
The annual PARK(ing) Day event creates public space in downtown Austin by converting, for a day, many of Congress Avenue's street parking spaces into temporary parklets. It's a fun time, but perhaps more importantly, the event serves as a reminder of how much space we've sacrificed to parking in the public realm of our most famous street -- space that, in many cases, can be ...
Austin’s Imaginary Taco Bell Subway System Might Be Worth Digging Into
The mad geniuses at Reddit's r/SubwaySubway page -- a community that, somewhat inexplicably, creates imaginary maps of subway systems for different cities where every Subway sandwich franchise represents a station -- have set their sights on Austin. But this time, creator Epicapabilities used the city's Taco Bell locations, rather than Subway restaurants, to represent the 34 ...