Juno East Austin is the first mass timber apartment building in Austin, Texas. It stands at 400 Comal Street in East Austin, five stories of prefabricated wood over a steel podium, wrapped in weathering steel that's already turned a deep rust. I made the photographs that ran in Architectural Record and ArchDaily. Here's the building, and what it took to shoot it.
What the building is
Juno East Austin was completed in February 2024. A San Francisco proptech company called Juno developed it, co-founded by BJ Siegel, who spent years designing Apple Stores. The New York firm Ennead Architects designed it. The building holds 24 apartments above a ground floor with a lobby and retail space. Twenty are market-rate. Four are affordable, set aside under Austin's SMART Housing program. The studios run 457 square feet and the one-bedrooms 685. It sits one stop from downtown, next to the Plaza Saltillo rail station, on a lot of less than two-tenths of an acre.
The mass timber system
The point of Juno is repetition. The company builds apartments from a kit of around 30 prefabricated parts, the way a manufacturer builds a product. Mass plywood panels form the floor slabs and columns. Laminated veneer lumber makes up the beams. Bathrooms arrive as finished pods. The weathering steel facade comes as unitized panels. On the Austin site, a five-person crew raised the timber superstructure in 28 days, around 60 percent faster than a stick-built building of the same size.
The wood does more than go up fast. It sequesters carbon. It also stays visible. The ceilings are exposed timber. The floors are wood. The partitions are high-pressure laminate over a plywood core, with the raw edges left showing, in place of drywall. The appliances are all-electric. The result reads warm and precise at the same time, closer to furniture than to standard rental construction.
Photographing it
Weathering steel and warm timber are a hard pair to hold in one frame. The steel is matte and cool and goes almost black in flat light. The wood is warm and wants soft, even light to keep its grain. My job was to make both true in the same image without letting either one go muddy. I worked the exterior in raking light, late in the day, when the rust pulled color and the panel seams read as texture instead of noise. I shot it on a tilt-shift to keep the verticals straight on a building this tall on a lot this tight.
The site fought back. Less than two-tenths of an acre means there's almost nowhere to stand. Every clean exterior angle had a pole, a wire, or a neighbor in it. I scouted the few vantage points that worked and built the exterior set around them.
Inside, the story was light and edge. Floor-to-ceiling glass fills the units and throws hard reflections. I timed the interiors to balance the windows against the rooms so neither blew out. The design lives in its details. The exposed plywood edge. The timber ceiling. The run of electrical along the ceiling line that keeps the walls clear. Those are the frames that show what makes the building different, so those are the frames I gave the most care.
Juno East Austin is one of the most significant recent architectural projects in Austin, combining mass timber construction, prefabricated housing systems, and high-density urban infill design. The project demonstrates how engineered wood can be used to deliver sustainable multifamily housing in rapidly growing cities.
Where the photos ran
Architectural Record published the project in May 2024, written by deputy editor Joann Gonchar, with my photographs carrying the piece from the lead exterior through the interiors. ArchDaily ran it the same month in a feature on productized architecture, using my frames of the building. Both are linked here.
Frequently asked questions
What is Juno East Austin? Juno East Austin is the first mass timber apartment building in Austin, Texas. It's a five-story, 24-unit residential building at 400 Comal Street, completed in February 2024.
Who designed Juno East Austin? Ennead Architects, based in New York, designed Juno East Austin in partnership with the developer Juno.
Who developed Juno East Austin? Juno, a San Francisco real estate company co-founded by former Apple design director BJ Siegel, developed the building.
What is mass timber construction? Mass timber uses large engineered wood components, such as mass plywood panels and laminated veneer lumber, in place of steel or concrete for a building's structure. The wood sequesters carbon and goes up faster than conventional framing.
Who photographed Juno East Austin? Tobin Davies, an architectural and interior photographer based in Austin, Texas, photographed Juno East Austin. His images were published in Architectural Record and ArchDaily.
Where is Juno East Austin located? At 400 Comal Street in East Austin, next to the Plaza Saltillo MetroRail station, one stop east of downtown.
Tobin Davies is an architectural photographer in Austin, working with architects, builders, designers, and developers across the city and the country. See more of my work or get in touch about a shoot.