Fareground at One Eleven

Fareground at One Eleven

dwg.  is the lead designer and landscape architect behind Fareground at One Eleven Congress, which renovates an existing sunken plaza at a downtown Austin office town. The dramatic makeover, which will result in a dynamic, public outdoor plaza, new lobby space and an adjacent high-end food market offering a variety of gourmet eateries, is currently under construction. The design for the plaza reinvents the space as a park and gathering place open for use to the entire community, with sustainable landscaping, family-friendly features, outdoor seating, an amphitheater for events and an innovative cloudscape water feature. In partnership with owner and architect Michael Hsu Office of Architecture, dwg.’s vision for the project updates the plaza and fills a major void in public open space for this vibrant intersection of downtown Austin. The outdoor element for Fareground at One Eleven redefines the private office plaza into an urban park and civic space. The project resets the traditional language of how an office building communicates with the city and people who interact with it. The landscape design preserves and highlights the existing heritage trees and builds on the ever-increasing blurred line of workplace, recreation space and home in the urban environment. A key design element of the plaza is the cloudscape water feature, which the team anticipates will become an iconic piece of art for downtown Austin. This innovative feature is made up of 12 sculptural stainless steel poles, ranging from 20 feet to 30 feet tall. The poles will emit a cloud-like “fog” at the top, mimicking a cloudscape. All of the water used for the cloudscape will be harvested from AC condensation collected from the building’s system.