Originally Posted by zguerra
I like it. It's a nice enough complement to City Hall and the Austin Central Library without being too matchy-matchy. I think you’d want newer architecture to dialogue with the past rather than simply copy it.
One of the best parts of the building, in my opinion, is the way it reintegrates the streetscape into the southeast corner of downtown. Convention centers tend to be problematic for downtown landscapes: They often wall themselves off, and despite the thousands of people inside them, their exteriors are often pedestrian dead zones. This convention center seems different: it dialogues with the streets around it and is even reincorporating them back onto the grid; it also does some heavy placemaking by incorporating outdoor plazas and surrounding park spaces, which seem more like public amenities than strict convention spaces.
But the most compelling aspect, to me, is the fact that it completes 2nd Street. In a few years, we'll be able to walk from the southwest corner of downtown—Seaholm Plaza, the Austin Public Library, the Butterfly Bridge, and Shoal Creek—along one of Austin’s greatest public streets underneath an arbor of trees and arrive at a beautiful convention center with outdoor spaces integrated into the Waterloo Greenway and Brush Square, all while passing restaurants, the Moody Theater, City Hall, and Congress Avenue. What other city core offers the opportunity to walk from one forested, trail-lined creek bed, traverse an urban landscape with restaurants and other public amenities under an arbor of trees, and arrive at another forested, trail-lined creek bed? Not many.
Soon, we’ll be able to walk from Seaholm Plaza to Rainey Street through a cohesive, urban center lined with public amenities, restaurants, hotels, retail, offices, housing, and parks.
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