The Austin Proper Hotel & Residences is a new mixed-use residential and hotel tower in Austin’s GreenWater District.

The 32-story building has been sculpted to respond to the contours of the land, with views of Lady Bird Lake (a river-like reservoir on Texas’s Colorado River) as well as Texas Hill Country. The project is bordered on its western side by the Shoal Creek, which leads via a winding trail to the reservoir, where people like to hike, bike, fish and canoe. The tower steps back from the Shoal Creek as it rises, with a series of setbacks that create opportunities for pool decks and terraces.

At the pedestrian level, The Austin Proper Hotel & Residences has been designed to feel both intimate and lively, with indoor/outdoor restaurant spaces and cafes, accented with metal panels in graphite grey. The two-story base creates a pedestrian scale along 2nd Street and Nuecess Street that addresses the scale of the neighboring buildings. Framing both the residential entrance and the hotel entrance is a series of 8” wooden slats, burned in the Japanese “shou-sugi-ban” tradition. Hotel guests are greeted by a sunken bar and lounge; above, the 244-key hotel includes ballrooms, meeting rooms, a heated pool, poolside restaurant, spa & treatment rooms, and a fitness facility. Above the hotel, floors 12 to 33 feature 99 private residences, with penthouse units on the top six floors.

The Austin Proper Hotel & Residences is a mix of precast concrete and glass, set on an exposed concrete structure. The structure has been subtly eroded in various places to reveal ribbons of glass and balconies.