Horizon Tower

Horizon Tower addresses one of urban architecture's central challenges: how to stack radically different uses — retail, commercial, residential — into a single vertical structure while maintaining coherence, efficiency, and identity.

The project rises 15 stories above grade with three additional levels of basement parking below. At ground level, retail spaces activate the street edge. A commercial podium fills the lower floors. Residential units occupy the tower above.

This isn't speculative design. The project navigates real constraints: zoning limits, parking ratios, leasable area targets, and construction economics. The architecture emerges from solving these constraints elegantly.

The building organizes into three distinct zones, each optimized for its program:

The basement — three full levels — handles parking for residents, commercial tenants, and visitors. By burying parking, the ground floor is freed for revenue-generating and street-activating uses.

The podium — ground floor through approximately the fifth floor — houses retail at street level and commercial space above. These floors have larger floor plates, higher ceilings, and column grids optimized for open-plan flexibility.

The tower — floors six through fifteen — contains residential units. Floor plates are smaller and more efficient, with columns positioned to accommodate apartment layouts.

Rather than a single repeated floor plate, Horizon Tower employs multiple configurations that respond to programmatic needs.

The ground floor is unique: retail storefronts with maximum transparency, a grand lobby with vertical circulation core, back-of-house service areas.

Commercial floors (levels 1-5) utilize larger floor plates with column-free spans suitable for open-plan offices. Core elements are centralized to maximize usable perimeter space.

Residential floors (levels 6-15) step back slightly, creating terraces on some units while reducing the building's visual bulk. The floor plate is organized around a central corridor with units on either side.

The tower's facade expresses its internal organization while maintaining visual coherence from street to skyline.

At the base, the facade is predominantly glazed — storefront systems at retail, curtain wall at the commercial levels. This transparency signals public access and allows the interior activity to activate the street.

At the transition from podium to tower, a horizontal band marks the shift. The tower portion employs a consistent window pattern: punched openings in a solid wall, creating the repetition that towers require to read as unified objects.

Color and material are restrained. The palette is essentially two-tone: a lighter material for the primary wall surfaces, darker accents at window frames and transition bands.