The Linden, a 28-story downtown Austin condo tower project by New York development firm Reger Holdings with local design by the architects at Rhode Partners, could be only months from breaking ground at the corner of 17th and Guadalupe Streets in the formerly sleepy, now fast-growing northwestern corner of downtown. According to the developer, the tower has received approval from the City…
design
Hop the Fence at Austin’s New Alliance Children’s Garden — Virtually, That Is
Here’s a sad little song for you — the Alliance Children’s Garden, a high-concept playground project on more than two acres at Butler Metro Park that broke ground early last year, is finished. It’s actually been done for six months, but if you’ve got a pulse you know how we’ve spent those last six months and more —…
Inside the Former Faulk Central Library, Austin’s Concrete Fortress of Literacy
While downtown Austin’s new Central Library rakes in the accolades for its grand design by equally-acclaimed Texas architects Lake Flato, the former central workhorse of our public library system, built in 1979 and renamed in honor of late humorist and Austinite John Henry Faulk in 1996, now sits with empty shelves — at least for the moment — at 800 Guadalupe Street, just a block south of…
Go Shopping on Sixth Street Circa 1974
We’ve recently discussed the past and present of downtown Austin’s ever-changing East Sixth Street, and though it’s obviously up for debate, our takeaway from the historical context of the street leads us to believe its present occupation as a hotspot for interchangeable shot bars between Congress Avenue and the highway doesn’t do justice to its past as…
Brush Square is the Front Yard of Tomorrow’s Downtown Austin
A funny thing happened earlier this week when Brendan Wittstruck, an urban designer at local firm Asakura Robinson, presented plans to the City of Austin’s Design Commission detailing the Parks and Recreation Department’s efforts to rehabilitate downtown’s historic Brush Square. The plans themselves weren’t fundamentally different from the designs we saw two years ago when the project was first explained in detail…
Austin’s Travis Heights Neighborhood Headed For National Historic Status
The Travis Heights neighborhood of South Austin, one of the city’s more notable concentrations of historic domestic architecture, could attain its long-sought admission to the National Register of Historic Places by next year. The Texas Historical Commission’s State Board of Review unanimously approved the 353-acre district’s nomination to the federal register at a meeting last…