Eight Thousand Two Hundred Fifteen / Studio BONNER & Stayner Architects

Designed by Studio BONNER & Stayner Architects, Eight Thousand Two Hundred Fifteen is a proposal for an entrance plaza and children’s play area for Zoo Miami and Miami-Dade Art in Public Places. Emerging from the uncontrollability of hydrology and urbanism, the 80,000 ft2 paving system is comprised of thousands of pre-cast and cast-in-place concrete surfaces that mutate from horizontal to vertical at key points, both adaptive and constantly changing. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Approximately two hundred of these pavers delaminate and peel off the ground. Levitating as if by the force of South Florida’s wind or nature’s influence from below, they reveal an unexpected thinness — under which a subterranean landscape exists subjugated by the man-made. Concrete material behaviors are made possible through the use of different concrete technologies, including an extremely high-strength proprietary mixture and standard glass-fiber concrete mixes.

Environments are cultured below our everyday experience of the pavement: specific microclimates are created by embedding tubes into the concrete, chilled surfaces remove humidity from the air, and fans create air movements. The massive numbers of tiles becomes a living agent of physical organization, paralleling the archival system of the zoological garden and further blurs the boundary between authentic and fabricated. The public art proposal presents a possibility of positioning visitors to be critical of the precarious position of the zoo in relation to the imaginary, natural environment it constructs.

Architects: Studio BONNOR & Stayner Architects
Location: Miami, Florida, United States
Project Team: Jennifer Bonner, Studio Bonner; Christian Stayner, Stayner Architects; Antonio Follo, Leo Castillo, Jack Gaumer, Jonathon Schnure, Dolly Davis, H Clark
Client: Miami-Dade Art in Public Places / Zoo Miami
Program: Entrance Plaza and Children’s Play Area
Project Type: Public Art Competition, Shortlisted
Size: 80,000ft2
Budget: $1.3 million