Austin City Hall & Public Plaza
Antoine Predock

Photo courtesy Antoine Predock Architect

The new Austin City Hall and Public Plaza is located at the edge of the dynamic Warehouse district on the shores of Downtown Austin's Town Lake. The environmentally intelligent approaches in the project earned it a LEED Gold Certification.

The project is dominated by landscape and incorporates limestone, copper, glass, water and shade to create the city's living room. The building contains several city departments along with the Mayor, City Manager, City Council offices, Council Chambers, and a café and city store along urban second street.


Photo courtesy Antoine Predock Architect

Austin's Warehouse District is rapidly being transformed into a tight grid of restaurants, nightspots, housing, and mid-rise office spaces. City hall mediates the city grid and the natural realm terracing down from Second Street to Town Lake.


Photo courtesy Antoine Predock Architect

Terraces slide out of the building into the plaza analogous to the limestone overhangs known as balcones in the hill country surrounding Austin. The terraces are shaded with trees and have become prime locations for viewing the activities on the plaza and Town Lake beyond.

Photo courtesy Antoine Predock Architect

The plaza winds its way around the limestone peninsulas of the terraced building. Water runs through a group of monumental limestone boulders in the plaza to symbolically return to Town Lake through a vortex. Amphitheater seating spilling down from the terraces can be used informally or to view performances on a Limestone stage.

The amphitheater is protected from the sun by a photovoltaic glass trellis, supplying ten percent of the building's power.


Photo courtesy Antoine Predock Architect

Photo courtesy Antoine Predock Architect

A massive arcing Lueders Limestone wall, emerging from bedrock at the lowest level of the parking garage below, anchors the project to the site.


Photo courtesy Antoine Predock Architect

Morphing out of this wall is a limestone base that encloses the first two stories. A scrim like copper skin, resting on the limestone base and capped with a folded copper roof, shelters the upper levels. As the arcing wall cuts through the building it creates an open four-story lobby transected by catwalk-like bridges at each level. A reflective copper ceiling over the lobby bounces light into the gathering space below.

Photo courtesy Antoine Predock Architect

Photo courtesy Antoine Predock Architect

Photo courtesy Antoine Predock Architect

City Hall defeats the formality of the surrounding blocks by angling away from the adjacent streets and echoes the warm informality that characterizes Austinites.


Sketch courtesy Antoine Predock Architect


Drawing courtesy Antoine Predock ArchitectSite Plan

Drawing courtesy Antoine Predock ArchitectFirste Floor Plan
Drawing courtesy Antoine Predock ArchitectThird Floor Plan