The Loren at Lady Bird Lake, Austin – USA

The Loren at Lady Bird Lake is a premier hotel and residential project at the urban thoroughfare of Riverside Drive and Lamar Boulevard in Austin, Texas. This is the first urban hotel in The Loren’s collection of boutique properties. The client found Austin to be a city in rapid development and a prime site along the shores of Lady Bird Lake. The mixed-use project features a ground-floor cafe and rooftop restaurant open to the public and invites discerning visitors and locals to experience an understated luxury rooted in Austin’s casual culture and the site’s verdant beauty.
Hotel and residence portions are bridged together horizontally and split with a paseo, open-air passage, and a glass elevator that visually binds the two programs. Drawing inspiration from the beloved Hike and Bike Trail in which it’s nestled, this mixed-use project includes 108 luxury hotel rooms and 24 residences with a decidedly tree house feel. The concrete, brutalist understructure of the building is met with intentional, handcrafted materiality and contemporary art. Moments like the hammered copper ceiling in the lobby, the wood and steel screens in the restaurant, and the deep green textiles throughout reference the dappled sunlight and tree canopy of the site’s context. A warm palette of reclaimed white oak, shou sugi ban paneling, blackened steel, bronze, and stone brings detailed craftsmanship to the forefront of the building’s interior design.
On the exterior, large corrugated bronze panels are in various stages of natural patina-the color of which evolves through the day’s light and particularly glistens in golden hour, greeting visitors on their commutes in and out of Downtown Austin.