Houston’s Brava Tower Blends Newspaper History with Modern Luxury

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 and Munoz + Albin Architecture & Planning, bucks the trend. It has something most contemporary towers lack: a sense of place.

Kelie Mayfield, MaRS principal and the interiors lead, believes that a concept only resonates if there’s a story behind it. “It has to do with the site, the context, and the nature of the location,” she says. “If it doesn’t have a soul or purpose, then it’s just a pretty space.” 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, thus formulated interiors that tip a hat to both the physical newspaper and the stories within it.

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.

Designing a Residential High-Rise That Reflects Its Surroundings 

“We made some innovative moves,” principal Jorge Munoz notes. “It’s a unique assembly of pieces that resulted from the geometry of the site.” 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. “The interior and exterior work together well,” Albin adds. “When you walk into the building, it feels like a whole composition.”

Read All About It: How Newspapers Shaped the Interior Design 

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. “This helped us integrate the structure while creating something seamless,” 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’s surrounding theaters.

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

Local Art Enlivens Public Spaces in the Luxury Building 

Inside The Brava Tower in Houston 

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

kirksey: architect of record.

tbg partners: landscape architect.

kpk lighting design: lighting consultant.

weingarten art group: art consultant.

natural graphics: custom graphics.

magnusson klemencic associates: structural engineer.

schmidt and stacy: mep.

2stone designer concrete: concretework.

harvey cleary: general contractor.

meyda lighting: custom light fixture (lobby).

arhaus: chairs.

four hands: bench (lobby), chairs (resident kitchen).

rove concepts: chairs (leasing lounge).

abbey: custom rug.

echo-wood: paneling (elevator lobby).

minotti: sectional (resident lounge).

rh: cocktail table.

through branch: custom rug.

thorntree slate: island top (resident kitchen).

neri&hu: pendant fixture.

innovations: wallcovering (nook, penthouse lounge).

sunpan: table (nook).

ledge: chaise lounges, side tables (pool).

mitchell gold + bob williams: chair (pool lounge).

jaime young co.: table lamp (bedroom).

area environments: wallcovering (hall).

protec: flooring (gym).

astek: wallcovering.

dcw editions: pendant fixtures (penthouse lounge).

living divani: sofa.

porcelanosa: floor tile.

ppg paints: paint.

Gensler and MaRS Design a Community-Minded Office Building in Denver

Hospitality-inspired workplaces have been popular for years. We can all remember when lounges with ping-pong tables and kombucha and beer on tap started making their way into the corporate interiors of tech companies and other sectors. But the trend hasn’t fully extended to the office building itself. Lobbies can be drab and lack seating; shared gyms can feel like an afterthought. But a developer in Denver is upending that model: Patrinely Group believes the commercial real estate market demands a more elegant, considered approach. In 2015, it hired Gensler to design Block 162, a 30-story tower that would attract high-end tenants with a distinctive lobby and an amenity floor. Later, Patrinely brought on MaRS to collaborate on the common areas, which include a fitness center, coworking spaces, meeting rooms, and a terrace. The firms shared an interest in creating a unified aesthetic that spoke to the location and brought people together.

How the Design of Block 162 Revitalizes Its Surroundings

Block 162 occupies what was previously an empty lot between the Colorado Convention Center and the 16th Street Mall, a pedestrian corridor. The site was sure to get foot traffic, and architect Raffael Scasserra, principal and design director at Gensler Houston, hoped to draw passersby inside. “We saw an opportunity to invigorate the street, invite people into the lobby, and turn it into a community space for the neigh­borhood,” Scasserra says. “The building itself should also have a sense of community.” He began by considering the local context, taking inspiration from the Rocky Mountains and the city’s outdoor-oriented culture.

Architectural Accents Capture the Rocky Mountain Spirit 

Block 162’s exterior architecture evokes an eroding rock face, with a crevice in the top corner that splits the glass building in two. The 8,500-square-foot lobby continues the mountain theme. Faceted exposed-concrete columns and an angled gypsum ceiling crisscrossed with recessed linear LEDs bring a rugged note to the sleek marble-floored space. “It’s a place where the user can pause, reflect, and enjoy their surroundings,” says Scasserra. “It’s a hospitality-type environment that welcomes people in.” The main attraction is Cedar Point Reeds, a 30- foot-long kinetic sculpture by New York’s Breakfast Studio, conceived in collaboration with MaRS partners in charge Kelie Mayfield and Erick Ragni.

Mayfield and Ragni both studied art history in college and have curated artwork for many clients since founding their Houston-based firm in 2010. “We think of art and architecture holistically,” Ragni says. “Each project starts with a narrative, and the art responds to it.” For Block 162, the narrative was based on early site visits, when they explored the River North Arts District, walked through downtown after a snowstorm, and snapped photos of shimmering icicles on a fence.

Block 162 Explores the Intersection of Art and Architecture

The pair sees the latter echoed in the Breakfast sculpture’s glowing acrylic rods, though viewers also compare it to blowing wheat fields; the piece moves based on current wind speeds in eastern Colorado and responds to people nearby as well. David Haltom, senior vice president at Patrinely, says it’s been a hit with the neighborhood: “We see nose prints on the glass.” While engaging pedestrians and animating the cavernous lobby, Cedar Point Reeds also establishes the building’s emphasis on art.

MaRS commissioned multiple contemporary artworks, mostly by local talent, for the 12,400-square-foot amenity deck that occupies much of the building’s 11th floor. There’s a long, lenticular mural by Frank T. Martinez backdropping the coworking area; stained book pages in Pam Fortner’s mixed-media works hanging in the lounge; and a trippy graffiti-esque mural by Anna Charney in the gym. “We reinterpreted the street art we saw in the RiNo District in a sophisticated way,” Mayfield notes.

Halton says that though the tenants come from multiple industries, many see their company culture reflected in the building’s design. “It’s authentically of a place—not cartoonishly of a place,” he observes. “It brings in the local flavor without elk heads on the wall.” And like any good host, Block 162 makes everyone feel at home.

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Inside the Office Tower Designed by Gensler and MaRS 

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Gensler: jon gambrill; tim vuong; jonathan larocca; melinda ubera; nicholas mcmunn; maria qi; blanca mcgrath; ariel becker; maria perez; yingfei wang; harry spetnagel

MaRS: linnea wingo; kim le; alisha gaubert; zoe pittman

confluence; studioinsite: landscaping consultants

bos lighting design: lighting consultant

nine dot arts: art consultant

imeg corp.: structural engineer

m-e engineers: mep

kimley-horn and associates: civil engineer

harmon: curtain wall contractor; glasswork

w&w: structural curtain wall contractor

isec: millwork

gallegos: stonework

swinerton: general contractor

prudential lighting: recessed ceiling fixtures (lobby)

bernhardt design: chairs

decca: custom ottomans

pk30: door, wi­n­d­ow system (gym)

rh: sofas, armchairs (terrace)

kettal: black chairs

han­over: pavers

meyda lighting: custom lamps (coworking)

sunpan: brown chairs

jay edwards: custom tables (coworking, library)

rulon inter­national: ceiling system (lounge)

bloomsburg carpet: custom rugs

riva 1920: armchairs

minotti: side table

Living Divani: sect­ionals (lounge, library)

brightview: turf (terrace)

Florida Tile: floor tile

gen3: facade metal panels

viracon: facade glass

benjamin moore & co.; sherwin-williams company: paint