The Austonian Blog - Downtown Luxury Condo in Austin, Texas

Austonian Interior Designer Wins Awards for Three Homes in the Luxury Condo Project

Laura Britt Design recently won five first-place awards at the annual ASID Austin Design Excellence Awards. Three of the awards were for interior design of residences at The Austonian luxury high rise condominium.

The 26^th annual event, held on November 4^th, honored designers in 17 categories.

Laura Britt Design has aided residents of The Austonian in the selection of finishes for their homes and designed the interiors of several units in the building.

Photos of the award-winning residences by Laura Britt Design follow.

Residential: Model Home 

(Unit S, The Austonian)

Residential: Contemporary Large >3,500 sq. ft.

(Unit HC, The Austonian)

 

Residential: Contemporary Small <3,500 sq. ft.

(Unit E, The Austonian)

Private homes at The Austonian are complemented by more than 40,000 square feet of shared amenity space designed by Ziegler Cooper Architects, Gary Lee Partners and Greer Interiors. For more information about interior design at The Austonian, visit these blog posts:

“The Austonian Featured in Architectural Record”

“Award-Winning Interior Design Firm Gary Lee Partners Brings Comfortable Luxury to Austin’s Newest High-Rise Condo”

“Meet the Interior Design Team behind The Austonian”

Storage and a Sommelier: Wine at The Austonian and Congress

At The Austonian, wine aficionados have excellent resources at their disposal including access to the secured climate-controlled wine storage on the 9^th floor, proximity to award-winning restaurant Congress, and the personal service that Urban Wine & Liquor will offer to wine enthusiasts when it opens this winter.

The climate-controlled wine room at The Austonian is 400 square-feet in size and currently stores the collections of several homeowners.  Wine Trend was responsible for the design of the room, including the 147 floor-to-ceiling lockers that can hold about 3,500 bottles of wine.

The space is climate controlled with two air handling units to maintain the humidity and room temperature at 58 degrees. The space is also connected to The Austonian’s back-up generator to protect residents’ wine in case of power outages.

For homeowners in need of new wines and spirits, Urban Wine & Liquor is slated to open in the base of the luxury condo this winter. The store will offer wine lovers a variety of services including events and tastings, special orders tailored to client’s needs and delivery to The Austonian.

For homeowners who prefer to enjoy their fine wines with a five-star meal, the Beverage Director at the trio of restaurants at The Austonian (Bar Congress, Congress and Second Bar + Kitchen) offers thoughtfully selected wine pairings as well as a comprehensive wine list. In 2009, June Rodil took first place at the Texas Best Sommelier Competition, an accomplishment that earned her the designation 2009 Texas Best Sommelier. This year, Wine and Spirits magazine named her one of “The Best New Sommeliers of 2011,” a title she shares with only four other sommeliers in the country.

(Photo Credit: JH Jackson Photography)

 

Austin Condo Designs Profiled in Austin Home Magazine

In addition to helping with finish selections for most homeowners, Austin interior design house Laura Britt Design has custom-designed several striking units within The Austonian high-rise condos. See the design firm’s inspiring work as well as examples of interiors in the Four Seasons Residences and the W Residences in the Fall 2011 issue of Austin Home (formerly Austin Monthly Home).

The above slide show is of 26HC, a seven bedroom and five-and-a-half bathroom home at The Austonian. It is listed for sale at $2.8 million.

Read the article here Download Austin_Home_Sept2011.

(Photo credit: Casey Dunn)

Austonian Art Collection: Shawn Camp’s Artwork at Gallery Shoal Creek

The paintings of Austonian Art Collection artist Shawn Camp will be on display at Gallery Shoal Creek this
October. The exhibition entitled “The Sum of All Parts” opens Friday, October 14th and will be on view at the gallery until November 5th.

Camp works from his studio in East Austin, creating mixed media paintings that hint at and explore topography and the human desire to create order from disorder. He completed a Master of Fine Arts in painting at the Virginia Commonwealth University and has since exhibited his work in Austin, Dallas, Los Angeles and Tokyo, among other places. Since 2000, Camp has lived in Austin, teaching painting classes at ACC.

Camp’s painting, “By Imperceptible Degree,” can be seen in The Austonian’s 10th floor elevator lobby.

Austonian Art Collection: Claudia Reese’s Art in Public Places Project

Claudia Reese, an artist in The Austonian Art Collection was recently selected to create one of eight way-finding ”Obeliscos” along East 7^th Street. The unveiling of this public art, which is part of Austin’s Art in Public Places East 7^th Street Improvement Project, took place this weekend.

Reese is an Austin artist who has been making ceramics for over 20 years and runs CeraMix Studios. She has exhibited national and internationally at museums including the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas; Art Expo, Chicago; and the Takashimaya, Tokyo.

Five ceramic platters by Reese hang in the 10^th-floor library of The Austonian (www.theaustonian.com). 

(Photo: Texas Wildflowers, 2010, Ceramic by Claudia Reese)

 

The Austonian and Laura Britt Design in Laras Magazine

LARAS Magazine, a publication in Indonesia, featured a unit on the 41^st floor of The Austonian in the latest edition of their local and global living trends. The magazine features Unit 41S on the cover and includes a seven-page article about the luxury condo and Laura Britt Design. The residence, which is 3,836 square feet and wraps around the north, west and east sides of the building, features sweeping views of downtown Austin and the Texas Hill Country.

The home includes two balconies: one large space located off of the living and dining area and a smaller private balcony located off the master bedroom. The kitchen is equipped with two ovens, a six-burner gas stove, a Sub-Zero refrigerator, 132-bottle wine refrigerator and an expansive island that features in-island refrigeration drawers.

Laura Britt Design has partnered with The Austonian to help homeowners select finishes for their residences. The award-winning full service design firm specializes in “turnkey services” for the homeowner. Starting with the needs and desires of the client, the firm integrates architectural and interior design solutions to create beautiful and functional environments.

For more information about Laura Britt Design, visit: http://www.laurabrittdesign.com/

Additional photos of unit 41S follow. For information about this property, contact [email protected] or 512.636.3633.

 

The Austonian Art Collection: Austin Artist Shawn Smith in the Smithsonian Renwick Craft Invitational 2011

Shawn Smith, the Austin artist who created the Fuentes Ficticias sculptures installed on the 10^th floor lawn of The Austonian, will be included in the Smithsonian Museum’s “History in the Making: Renwick Craft Invitational 2011” exhibit curated by Nicholas R. Bell, Curator of Contemporary Craft and Decorative Arts at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington D.C.

The Renwick Craft Invitational 2011 is the fifth in a biennial exhibition series that honors the creativity and talent of craft artists working today. The exhibition of handmade art will last from March 25 to July 31, 2011.

Smith explores “digital identity, color, colliding systems of information, labor, technology, and science” when creating his intricate, pixilated abstract sculptures. Smith reflects these concepts back to the “symbiotic connections between the hand and the ‘thing.’ ”

Smith is one of more than 60 local and regional artists included in the collection of The Austonian, a luxury condo (link to www.theaustonian.com) community in downtown Austin. For information about Smith’s artwork, visit http://shawnsmithart.com/.

Laura Britt Design Open House at The Austonian

Earlier this month, The Austonian hosted a cocktail party in the Laura Britt-designed unit on the 41st floor of the building. A slideshow of photos from the event is below. For more information on Laura Britt design, visit http://www.laurabrittdesign.com/.

Austonian Artist Cynthia Camlin Featured at Austin Museum of Art

The Austonian art collection features artists with strong Texas ties. Each piece was carefully chosen to embody the style of the property and the local roots of the high-rise building.

One such artist is Cynthia Camlin, whose images of deer and elk reconfigure the idea of the natural antler into a twisting, overgrown structure that portrays the idea of untamed nature.

A piece from Camlin’s deer and elk series hangs in the 10^th floor hallway of The Austonian near the Skybox, a room with a billiard table, bar and view of the Texas State Capitol. An edition of the same print is showing in Austin Museum of Art’s exhibit “Advancing Tradition: 20 Years of Printmaking at Flatbed Press,” which is a retrospective of work from the renowned Austin-based printmaking studio and gallery.

For more information on “Advancing Tradition: 20 Years of Printmaking at Flatbed Press,” visit the AMOA website. To view art included in the exhibition, visit the Printeresting.org website.  

Trio of Restaurants at The Austonian on Second Street Feature Unique Design

Second Street is quickly becoming one of the most popular areas of Austin. With new condos, retail and restaurants opening this year, the downtown district is one of the hippest spots in Austin. This week, Austin American-Statesman writer Marques Harper visited La Condesa, The W Hotel, and the restaurants and bars at The Austonian to find out more about the interior design and the inspiration behind each of the spaces.

Bar Congress, Congress and Second Bar + Kitchen, located in the base of The Austonian, were outfitted by interior designer Amber Lewis, who wanted to make the spaces uniquely different but allow them to complement the existing 2^nd Street District. Her aesthetic incorporates industrial components with comfortable places to sit, eat and relax. "We wanted our guests to feel like they were being entertained in a friend's home," said Lewis. To achieve this, she outfitted each space with warm, casual and modern rustic elements.

Lewis’s favorite design piece is the woven leather bar die-mold that wraps the lower wall of Bar Congress. The design was inspired by a visit to the vendor stalls on The Drag after at UT football game, where Lewis met two vendors specializing in leather, who she ultimately commissioned to create the leather treatment for Bar Congress.

Read more about the design of the three spaces as well as La Condesa and The W hotel here.