Andersson-Wise

The W Hotel and Residences complex creates a bold centerpiece on the city's skyline and a new center of gravity for downtown.  The 37-story tower occupies a prime location framing City Hall and Lady Bird Lake. The multi-use project contains 12 floors for the W Hotel and 25 floors of W-branded luxury condominiums as well as Austin City Limits Live at Moody Theater, the new home for the venerable PBS television production. The 1 million square foot project is the largest LEED Silver Certified building in the American Southwest region, and the only one that is mixed-use.

The slender hotel and residential tower, positioned above a lower podium, reads like a work of minimalist art. Sheer exterior surfaces with highly reflective windows are precisely detailed to express volume and materials. Shadows and natural light animate the mix of mirror and matte finishes by reflecting and sometimes absorbing the color of the surrounding sky. Light hits these surfaces and shimmers from some angles and goes flat from others.

The tower's primary facades are oriented north-south, with differing apertures composed to control daylight, heat gain and energy use. On the south façade, generous, deeply-recessed balconies--inspired by the Hopi Indian cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde--create shaded, outdoor rooms in the summer and admit warm light in the winter. North-facing residences have walls that slide open to form porches. Projecting balconies shade the sun-drenched east and west sides of the tower. A restrained presence is a key component of the entire project.