Design Excellence Awards

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Hospitality Design Excellence Award
Presented to Michael Hsu Office of Architecture
Icenhauer’s
Austin, Texas

Project Description

Named for the business owners, Icenhauer’s is the remodel of an existing 1893 house into a cocktail lounge located in the up and coming Rainey Street bar district in Austin. The front two rooms of the original house were restored and combined with a modern addition and landscaping.

Due to the historic character of the house, the original gable roof and exterior façade were required to be maintained and restored. The challenge was to distinguish and preserve the historic components while also integrating them with modern materials and forms.

While the addition to the historic house maintains the same roofline, the walls are brought to the edges of the eave and clad with ebony stained cedar siding to give the vernacular form a modern feel. We employed environment impact preservation inside by restoring the original wood siding and using recycled long leaf pine flooring throughout. These materials are set against varying colors of wood along with stone and glass. Covered exterior seating areas were also added to reduce energy consumption and enable more of an outdoor lounging experience. The front and back yards are anchored by inviting covered porches and surrounded by warmly lit native landscaping. The goal inside and outside was to create intimate seating areas filled with a mix of modern and vintage furniture reupholstered in updated colorful textures.

Judges Comments

• Feels very regional, can’t find this anywhere else in the world.
• Keep the integrity of the house but with flare.
• Lovely floorplan.