Studio project · High-rise residential · Tampa, USA
AURA Bayfront Residences
A 52-storey waterfront tower on Tampa's Garrison Channel — visualised from the first grey-massing camera study to a 90-second day-in-the-life film.
Overview
Tampa's first true bayfront high-rise, told as a day in the lives of the people who'd live there.
AURA is a slender tapering tower with stacked curved balcony bands on the water side, champagne-bronze fluted panelling on the city side and three green sky-garden voids cut through its flank. The package covers the full pre-launch story: skyline heroes, the arrival, the amenity deck and dock, the residences, and a vertical film built for the sales gallery and social.
Location
Tampa, USA
Site
Garrison Channel, Channel District, downtown Tampa
Height
586 ft · 52 storeys
Programme
Residential tower · amenity podium · private residents' dock
Residences
214 residences
Type
High-rise residential
Scope
25 stills · 90-second film · process set
Stage
Pre-launch visualisation package · 2026
01 / The brief
Make the tower feel inevitable on the skyline
Buyers commit off renders. The tower had to read as part of downtown Tampa at a glance — cruise ships, the Riverwalk, Hillsborough Bay — and the homes inside had to feel like somewhere you'd already live.
How it was made
From plan to photograph.
Typical residential floor plan.
Elevation and section · the massing model in its city context.
The clay camera study, and the same view finished.
Material board and design references on the studio desk.
02 / The approach
One anchor, every frame
We locked the design in a single anchor image and carried it through every exterior — aerial, arrival, blue hour — naming the crown and the sky-garden voids on every wide shot so the silhouette never drifts. Interiors and amenities share one palette: honed travertine, white oak, warm plaster, champagne bronze.
The tower
On the skyline.
Exteriors — aerial, arrival, blue hour, facade.
Exteriors — aerial, arrival, blue hour, facade.
Amenities & residences
Life inside.
Amenities, residences and the people who'd live there.
Amenities, residences and the people who'd live there.
Amenities, residences and the people who'd live there.
Amenities, residences and the people who'd live there.
Amenities, residences and the people who'd live there.
Amenities, residences and the people who'd live there.
Amenities, residences and the people who'd live there.
Amenities, residences and the people who'd live there.
Amenities, residences and the people who'd live there.
Amenities, residences and the people who'd live there.
One tower, first light to blue hour.
03 / The set
From plan to film
Twenty-five stills at 4K, a 90-second vertical film with an original score, and the process set — floor plan, elevation, massing model, clay study and material board — that shows how the tower was worked up.
