Neighborhood Stack

AGENDA ARCHITECTURE

“This is a scale and type of building that is being built many times across Texas and elsewhere in the country right now. Taking the private balcony and turning it into a green public space at many levels in a high-rise building was a very interesting take. We were excited at how possible it seemed and that it would be an improvement of a very common building type.”

—Matthew Griffith, FAIA

Neighborhood Stack is a speculative residential tower reimagining high-rise living. Rather than assigning private balconies to individual units, the design aggregates outdoor space into vertically distributed, multilevel parks embedded within the building. These shared landscapes foster social interaction, reframing the tower as a stratified network of neighborhoods rather than isolated residences. Each “neighborhood”—27 to 33 units with a three-story park—operates as a semi-autonomous enclave, offering opportunities for communal engagement. The project challenges condominium models that privilege exclusivity through penthouse hierarchies and privatized amenities. Situated on a vacant parcel in Austin’s Rainey Street District, the proposal employs stepped floorplates to prioritize sightlines and a thickened facade to modulate daylight exposure, while advocating for submerged or eliminated parking to promote a pedestrian-oriented environment.