{"id":218271,"date":"2023-11-27T09:04:36","date_gmt":"2023-11-27T14:04:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/interiordesign.net\/?post_type=id_project&p=218271"},"modified":"2023-11-17T09:05:02","modified_gmt":"2023-11-17T14:05:02","slug":"inside-the-brava-tower-in-houston","status":"publish","type":"id_project","link":"https:\/\/interiordesign.net\/projects\/inside-the-brava-tower-in-houston\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston’s Brava Tower Blends Newspaper History with Modern Luxury"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Calacatta marble and porcelain top the custom 23-foot-long island-table in the resident kitchen. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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November 27, 2023<\/p>\n\n\n

Words: <\/span>Rebecca Dalzell<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photography: <\/span>Eric Laignel<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Houston’s Brava Tower Blends Newspaper History with Modern Luxury<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Residential high-rises tend to look similar. Step into a gleaming white-stone lobby, and you could be anywhere from Philadelphia to Phoenix. But Brava, a 46-story building in downtown Houston, by MaRS Culture<\/a> and Munoz + Albin<\/a> Architecture & Planning, bucks the trend. It has something most contemporary towers lack: a sense of place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kelie Mayfield, MaRS principal and the interiors lead, believes that a concept only resonates if there\u2019s a story behind it. \u201cIt has to do with the site, the context, and the nature of the location,\u201d she says. \u201cIf it doesn\u2019t have a soul or purpose, then it\u2019s just a pretty space.\u201d Mayfield starts each project by creating a narrative that informs all design decisions. For Brava, she and her team focused on the history of the location, which was once owned by The Houston Chronicle<\/em>, thus formulated interiors that tip a hat to both the physical newspaper and the stories within it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Located in the heart of the arts district, Brava stands out with its shape, a slim rectangle diagonal to the street. Munoz + Albin, the building architect, rotated the structure 45 degrees to maximize views for the 373 rental units and gave it a dynamic exterior. The developer, Hines, has its headquarters across the street, so Brava had to be a showpiece with distinctive offerings. On the podium, housing retail and parking, a white aluminum frame projects in front of a dark perforated screen, mimicking a proscenium in a theater. Above it, Munoz + Albin devoted level 10 to such amenities as an outdoor pool, entertaining kitchen, a fitness room, and coworking space, and installed a sky lounge with a terrace on the 46th floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Designing a Residential High-Rise That Reflects Its Surroundings\u00a0<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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In the lobby of Brava, a 373-unit rental tower in Houston by MaRS Culture and Munoz + Albin Architecture & Planning, a custom fluorescent-tube fixture spells out Libertas perfundet omnia luce, Latin for Freedom will flood all things with light, refer\u00adring to freedom of the press and the building\u2019s site, which once be\u00adlonged to The Houston Chronicle.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe made some innovative moves,\u201d principal Jorge Munoz notes. \u201cIt\u2019s a unique assembly of pieces that resulted from the geometry of the site.\u201d The confines of the parcel required Munoz and co-principal Enrique Albin to round off the corners of the rectangle, resulting in a boatlike shape. They also created a curtain wall with a bowed vertical edge that resembles a glass sail. The mix of curved and straight lines continues inside. \u201cThe interior and exterior work together well,\u201d Albin adds. \u201cWhen you walk into the building, it feels like a whole composition.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read All About It: How Newspapers Shaped the Interior Design\u00a0<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

MaRS, which was responsible for the two model apartments and all public areas, totaling 20,00 square feet, aimed to make the interiors feel fluid. This was a challenge given the unusual geometry and hulking structural columns. The designers embedded the latter in undulating plaster walls inspired by the folds of a newspaper. \u201cThis helped us integrate the structure while creating something seamless,\u201d Mayfield explains. The folds also draw you through and impart a sense of movement, which she thinks of as a kind of choreography that references the dancers that perform in the neighborhood\u2019s surrounding theaters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Columns that remain visible are still on theme: They\u2019re embossed with front-page headlines from the Chronicle<\/em> dating to 1908. The earliest headlines are in the lobby and more recent ones appear upstairs on the amenity floor; they range from \u201cThousands Out to Greet President Taft in Houston\u201d (1909) to \u201cThousands Jam the Streets to Celebrate With Astros\u201d (2017). A local muralist applied the text on hand-troweled concrete using a custom stencil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Local Art Enlivens Public Spaces in the Luxury Building\u00a0<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Many of Brava\u2019s 45 artworks similarly refer to newspapers, if not so literally. For the lobby, Spanish artist Sergio Albiac used Chronicle clippings for a digital portrait collage that hangs at reception. Overhead, a circular fixture spells out a Latin phrase meaning Freedom will flood all things with light<\/em>, alluding to freedom of the press. In the pet spa, a large photograph printed on vinyl shows a local rescue dog who made headlines of his own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The art collection plays into the color and material palette. \u201cWhat\u2019s black and white and red all over,\u201d Mayfield jokes. \u201cWe used warm tones, like natural paper with black contrast, and saturated colors that draw on the color blocking used in the early history of the newspaper.\u201d Bright pieces\u2014like a red acrylic-on-canvas circle by Jaime Dom\u00ednguez\u2014pop against a neutral background of eucalyptus-veneered walls and gray tile flooring. More muted pieces balance them out: On the amenity floor, MaRS paired another bold Dom\u00ednguez with D\u2019lisa Creager\u2019s woven copper-mesh sculptures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other allusions to ink on paper include carpeting in tenant corridors with a scribblelike pattern and wallcoverings woven from recycled newspaper. Yet the narrative never overwhelms the design. \u201cWe kept distilling it down to make it quiet and timeless,\u201d Mayfield concludes. Pierro Lissoni seating in the lobby, Neri&Hu lighting in the amenity kitchen, and smoked-oak tables in the leasing lounge ensure the setting still feels current\u2014more like a boutique hotel than an apartment building. Mayfield thinks that residential developers are finally taking cues from the hospitality world and giving their projects local character. The end of the bland high-rise? Now that<\/em> would be good news.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Beyond the elevator lobby\u2019s ebony-veneer paneling is the mailroom and a Jaime Dom\u00ednguez artwork. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Inside The Brava Tower in Houston\u00a0<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Local muralist Robynn Sanders stenciled historic head\u00adlines from the Chronicle onto the hand-troweled concrete on structural columns. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Gently undulating plaster walls evoke newspaper folds in the leasing lounge, furnished with a custom table by MaRS that\u2019s veneered in smoked oak.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Limestone forms the walls of Brava\u2019s motor-court entrance.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The building\u2019s 10th floor is devoted to amenities, including the resident lounge with a Christophe Delcourt sectional, Anthony Fox cocktail table, and custom rug. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Calacatta marble and porcelain top the custom 23-foot-long island-table in the resident kitchen. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Beyond oak-veneered panels, built-in seating around a concrete table forms a nook in the penthouse lounge, another building amenity. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Munoz + Albin\u2019s facade of acid-washed precast concrete panels with limestone masonry faces the 10th-floor pool.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Sergio Albiac\u2019s digital portrait of Chronicle clippings in reception.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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D\u2019lisa Creager\u2019s copper-mesh sculptures and a Dom\u00ednguez artwork at the gym\u2019s entry.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Dom\u00ednguez\u2019s Alebrije Madre C1. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Painted poured-in-place concrete and panels of perforated aluminum and concrete cladding the podium.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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The pool\u2019s resin chaise lounges and side tables. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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The pool lounge\u2019s cane chair. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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A model apartment\u2019s bedroom. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Dana and Stephane Maitec\u2019s Mirror Reflections #60 in the resident kitchen.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Sculpted balconies fringe the northeast side of the 46-story building, its LED-edged glazed facade resembling a sail. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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The boatlike curved facade. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Wallcovering with Kitty Sabatier art lines a corridor on the penthouse floor.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Recycled-rubber flooring and a Henri Boissiere photograph outfit the gym.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Yesterday\u2019s News, recycled-newspaper wallcovering, backs a penthouse lounge with Bertrand Balas pendant fixtures and a Piero Lissoni sectional.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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A terrace adjoins the gym.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
PROJECT TEAM<\/h6><\/div>\n\n\n\n

munoz + albin architecture & planning<\/strong>: erick ragni; rachel grady; daniela gonzalez; linnea wingo; zoe pittman; alisha gaubert: mars culture. jeff schmidt; taylor currell; richard rodgers; michael cox.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

kirksey<\/strong>: architect of record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

tbg partners<\/strong>: landscape architect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

kpk lighting design<\/strong>: lighting consultant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

weingarten art group<\/strong>: art consultant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

natural graphics<\/strong>: custom graphics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

magnusson klemencic associates<\/strong>: structural engineer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

schmidt and stacy<\/strong>: mep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2stone designer concrete<\/strong>: concretework.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

harvey cleary<\/strong>: general contractor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PRODUCT SOURCES<\/h6><\/div>\n\n\n\n

meyda lighting<\/strong>: custom light fixture (lobby).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

arhaus<\/strong>: chairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

four hands<\/strong>: bench (lobby), chairs (resident kitchen).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

rove concepts<\/strong>: chairs (leasing lounge).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

abbey<\/strong>: custom rug.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

echo-wood<\/strong>: paneling (elevator lobby).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

minotti<\/strong>: sectional (resident lounge).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

rh<\/strong>: cocktail table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

through branch<\/strong>: custom rug.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

thorntree slate<\/strong>: island top (resident kitchen).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

neri&hu<\/strong>: pendant fixture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

innovations<\/strong>: wallcovering (nook, penthouse lounge).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

sunpan<\/strong>: table (nook).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ledge<\/strong>: chaise lounges, side tables (pool).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

mitchell gold + bob williams<\/strong>: chair (pool lounge).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

jaime young co.<\/strong>: table lamp (bedroom).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

area environments<\/strong>: wallcovering (hall).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

protec<\/strong>: flooring (gym).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

astek<\/strong>: wallcovering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

dcw editions<\/strong>: pendant fixtures (penthouse lounge).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

living divani<\/strong>: sofa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FROM FRONT<\/h6><\/div>\n\n\n\n

porcelanosa<\/strong>: floor tile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ppg paints<\/strong>: paint.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n