Kenny Braun

Best Architectural Trend

Empty, Unfinished Buildings

Spikes of rebar tangle in the twilight. Walls leading nowhere and connecting to nothing create monolithic shadows on streets under perpetual construction. You voted for this year's biggest Austin architectural trend, folks, and here you have it: the Empty, Unfinished Building! Actually this new BOA award yielded some interesting answers, attesting to many of your penchants for design and livability. Non-winning answers ranged from specific details like "cupola," "galvanized steel," and "bigger closets," to broad strokes like "modernism," "retro," and "straw bale." While some advocated green glass and others green building, the majority of our readers, inspired by the likes of boondoggles like Intel and CSC, chose to tell it like it is.