When The Preston high-rise opens three years from now, the residential tower will do more than bring another layer of luxury apartments to the city’s center — it will help launch a new era of modern architecture in Houston.

Shaped like a ship's hull, the building will sit at a 45-degree angle on its lot, rather than facing Prairie, Preston or Milam head on. The Preston has plenty of glass and steel — materials many associate with modern design — but it also has masonry, limestone and plaster.

Downtown Houston has plenty of modernist and post-modern skyscrapers, but The Preston — a Hines development — and its catty-corner neighbor, Texas Tower, will take architecture and design to a new level.

Texas Tower, a Hines/Ivanhoé Cambridge project, is being built on the site of the former Houston Chronicle at 801 Texas, while The Preston will cover the half block where the Chronicle’s parking garage once stood, at the corner of Milam and Prairie.

When the two buildings are finished, they’ll join some 27 other Hines-developed properties that dominate Houston’s skyline — including One Shell Plaza, Pennzoil Place, the TC Energy Center (formerly Bank of America Center), Kinder Morgan Tower and more recent Aris Market Square apartment building.

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Jorge Muñoz and Enrique Albin of Muñoz + Albin Architecture & Planning designed The Preston, playing an intentionally risky hand as they won the invitation-only design competition hosted by Hines, the project developer. Other well-known firms vying for the job included SCB, Handel Architects, HOK and Pelli Clarke Pelli, which, coincidentally, is the architect for Texas Tower.

“We wanted this job really badly,” Muñoz said recently as he and and Kelie Mayfield and Erick Ragni of MaRS Mayfield and Ragni Studio talked about The Preston’s interiors and exteriors. “Risk is the root of our existence, evaluating risk and opportunities. We knew we were putting together something that is not the average. ”

Chris Rector, a managing director at Hines, said that his firm were looking for exceptional ideas.

“We went into it expecting the building design, because of the location and its prominence, to be something special. We didn’t direct or drive it — the groups that competed understood the significance,” he said. “For one, we think (the Chronicle property) is an iconic location. It’s at the crossroads of several important districts in downtown — theater, historic and the central business district. It’s really a special location.”

In all, Muñoz said he and his partner presented six plans for the building, all modernist in nature, but saved the winning design for last, unsure how the panel of judges would receive it.

“We ended the presentation with this one because we knew it had a number of things going for it. One was that having tall buildings on all four sides, all we’d have is an 80-foot view to the next building,” Muñoz said. “When we unveiled the plan for it to sit at a 45-degree angle, I could see it on the faces of everybody. The key client leaned over to his neighbor and started talking and I knew it was good.”

In the end, Hines chose Muñoz + Albin, a Houston-based firm that has worked with them on a number of other buildings, including the La Colombe d’Or Hotel and Residences tower under construction and The Southmore apartment building in Houston, as well as the Diagonal Mar buildings in Barcelona.

Fixing the building at a 45-degree angle changes the physical view and the boat-like shape changes its architectural perspective. Instead of looking directly at another tall building, residents at The Preston would get a longer panoramic view between buildings.

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To make one side of the building look concave, Muñoz described a simple trick of moving the edge of apartment balconies gradually in and then back out all the way down.

The building’s interiors, planned by Mayfield and Ragni, use materials and design to tell the story of the site’s history and to modernize its function.

For example, the first-floor lobby will have a curved wall with a “crease” in the center, a subtle nod to the shape of a newspaper when you hold a broadsheet spread out in front of you to read it. Typography will make an appearance embossed in a decorative way in structural columns. And a neutral palette derives from the black-and-white nature of a printed newspaper.

Public spaces will be designed to be used in several ways. In the past, there might be a TV room and a business center and space to sit and talk. In The Preston, spaces will have built-in sofas and banquettes, as well as tables and chairs. Residents could sit in any of them to quietly have a cup of coffee or bring a laptop and create a temporary office.

“What we are trying not to do is tell people what kind of space it is,” Ragni said. “We are creating a variety of environments, and you can figure out how you want to use them. It’s up to the community.”

You’ll also spot pop-culture references, such as a piece of art being commissioned that creates the face of “Robocop” using keys from a computer keyboard — a nod to 1990’s “Robocop 2” that was filmed in Houston.

Though the building might not be unique in, say, Los Angeles, New York, London or Barcelona, it’s a dramatically new style — Muñoz calls it “progressive modernism” — for Houston, where other modern buildings that have gone up have been on the safe side.

“With every Hines building, that is something we contemplate,” Rector said. “Pennzoil Place and the (former) Bank of America Tower are some of the most iconic buildings in the downtown skyline, and they come from the same inspiration. When people think of Houston they will think of these buildings, and that’s important to us in every city that we work in.”

diane.cowen@chron.com

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