Victory Plaza — the oval deck seen across the palm and river-rock garden
Austin, Texas  ·  Completed 2024

Victory Plaza

A heritage oak left standing, and a deck built to hold the ground around it. Everything else on this site was negotiated with that one condition.
Location
Austin
Travis County, Texas
Delivered
2024
Design & Delivery
RUNA Workshop
Coleman & Associates
Flintco
Savage Land Scope
Landscape construction,
planting & establishment
Honors
2024 Eagle Award — ABC Central Texas Excellence in Construction.

The Eagle is the highest honor ABC Central Texas gives. Awarded in General Contractor — Commercial, $25 to $100 Million, for 5209 Burnet Road Office Building and Parking Garage: Flintco, LLC, contractor; Runa Workshop, architect; Bruno Workshop, engineer; Pennybacker Capital, owner. Savage Land Solutions is the ABC member on the project.

01 — The Approach

The plaza reads as one gesture: a raised timber ring that steps out over planted grade, held on a curved steel edge, and cut open at the centre for a live oak that predates every building around it.

Working to Coleman & Associates' landscape drawings within RUNA Workshop's architecture, under Flintco, our crews set the planting, structural soil volumes, and irrigation that make a rooftop-adjacent garden behave like real ground — then stayed through establishment, because a plaza is only as good as its second summer.

The bridge approach to the oval deck, the heritage live oak centred beyond
Fig. 01 — The bridge approach. The deck is entered on axis with the oak.
02
Under the canopy

Planting that works as furniture.

The planted counter beneath the oak, ferns and dichondra spilling over the steel edge
Fig. 02 — Asparagus fern and silver dichondra over the steel planter edge.
Cast planters and stools on the timber deck, the counter beyond
Fig. 03 — Cast vessels double as seating; understory kept low for sightlines.
The deck in use — tables and chairs beneath the oak, the mural facade beyond
Fig. 04 — Occupied. Shade, not shade structures.
03 — The Meadow

Below the deck, the grade is not lawn. It is a native meadow held in a concrete terrace — bluestem, winecup, salvia — planted to be mown once a year and otherwise left alone.

The deck above a native wildflower meadow, the muralled garage beyond
Fig. 05 — Meadow terrace in first-year bloom, June.
The oval deck seen across a river-rock swale and mixed shrub planting
Fig. 06 — River-rock swale takes deck runoff into the planting beds.
A walkway along the deck edge with cast planters and ornamental grasses
Fig. 07 — Deck edge, looking toward the garage entry.
04
The upper terrace

A room with a sky for a ceiling.

Two people at a table on the turf terrace, planted parapet and city beyond
Fig. 08 — Turf terrace, planted parapet, desert willow.
The terrace seen from inside the building through full-height glazing
Fig. 09 — Read from inside: the landscape is the view.
Aerial view over the muralled parking structure toward the deck and tree line
Fig. 10 — The site in context, from the upper deck.

Beauty born
from Chaos.

Architect
RUNA Workshop
Landscape Architect
Coleman & Associates
General Contractor
Flintco
Landscape Contractor
Savage Land Solutions
Owner
Pennybacker Capital
Honors
2024 Eagle Award
ABC Central Texas
All plates Previous — The Modern Start a project →