OMA is set to realize their first commercial residential project in the US: Park Grove. Planned to rise alongside the Biscayne Bay in Miami’s Coconut Grove, in close proximity to BIG’s “Grove” residences at Grand Bay, the three-tower luxury residential project will be the last building allotted for the “walkable” Floridan neighborhood.
Fentress Architects has released plans for the $500 million redesign of the Miami Beach Convention Center. The news follows the City of Miami’s controversial decision to nix plans provided by OMA, who was originally awarded the commission after a high profile competition against BIG.
Fentress will be working with Arquitectonica and West 8 on a significantly scaled-down masterplan that will include the renovation of the 500,000-square-foot exhibition hall and 200,000-square-feet of existing meeting space, as well as a new 80,000-square-foot ballroom and outdoor event space.
Studio Gang Architects has released designs for a 14-story residential tower in the Miami Design District. Anchored by ground floor retail and topped with a resident lounge and swimming pool, the tower will, as the architects describe, “demonstrate Studio Gang’s principle of exo-spatial high-rise design in which the inside extends to the outside in a dynamic spatial arrangement.”
Each of the building’s 76 residential units will frame panoramic views of Biscayne Bay and surrounding Buena Vista neighborhood with Studio Gang’s contemporary reinterpretation of a “Florida Room.”
Construction has begun on Miami’s tallest tower: SkyRise Miami. Standing 305 meters above the Biscayne Bay, the waterfront tower will offer three viewing decks, a restaurant, nightclub, ballroom, exhibition space, and even the chance to bungee jump off its upper floors.
It’s designers, locally based arquitectonica, hope SkyRise will achieve LEED Gold upon completion in mid-2017.
Following the controversial decision to scrap plans by OMA earlier this year, Miami Beach officials have selected Arquitectonica for the redesign of the Miami Beach Convention Center. In a significant scaling-down of OMA's $1 billion masterplan, the new scheme calls for the existing center to be kept and renovated to 'Class A' standards, along with the addition of a new ballroom, meeting space and rooftop parking. The center's existing parking lot will be converted into a 6.5 acre public park, designed by landscape firm West 8.
More on the Convention Center Controversy after the break
Florida International University’s Stempel Complex, designed by Perkins + Will, will be completed this fall. The complex will house the Extreme Event Institute, which will bring together a number of the university’s research and academic programs to study “extreme natural events.” The form of the building itself takes inspiration from natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes, and is centered around an oval-shaped courtyard.
Plans to build a new soccer stadium in Miami have generated an argument this week between David Beckham, current city officials, and past city officials. The stadium, which will be home to a new Miami MLS team owned by ex-superstar Beckham, was originally proposed to occupy a site at PortMiami, with a design drawn up by Arquitectonica and 360 Architects. However, Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez had concerns over the location, and earlier this month convinced Beckham and his group to consider an alternative location, a disused boat slip between the American Airlines Arena and Museum Park.
Now a group including former mayor Manny Diaz and Alexander Cooper, the masterplan designer for Museum Park have issued a statement condemning the new plans and saying they are "not in harmony with the vision of Miami as a world class city with parks and open areas available for all."
More on the row after the break
Non-profit organization DawnTown has chosen Design with Company as the winner of its second official design-build competition. The Chicago-based practice’s winning entry, Pavilion MMM (Miami Many-a-chair Monument), will tell the multicultural story of Miami through metaphor by constructing a temporary monument of recycled chairs collected from local yard sales on Miami’s Cultural Plaza.
Metro 1 has partnered with DawnTown Miami to present an international ideas, design and build competition for a true urban park in the heart of the burgeoning Wynwood Arts District in Miami, Florida. The winning design team will have their idea and proposal built as well as a cash prize of $10,000.
Miami-based Arquitectonica and 360 Architecture have unveiled preliminary details for a 25,000-seat, open-air Major League Soccer (MLS) stadium at the Port of Miami. One of 30 locations currently being reviewed as a potential site, the downtown location could serve as the home for David Beckham’s MLS expansion team as early as 2018.
Rio de Janeiro-based writer Robert Landon has shared with us his experience exploring Herzog and de Meuron's Perez Art Museum Miami.
I am standing with Christine Binswanger, senior partner of Herzog & de Meuron, a few hours before the Perez Art Museum Miami opens it doors to the public for the first time. All around us, construction workers are making last minute adjustments, while troublesome clusters of VIPs take their first peak into the museum's airy, austere galleries. The excitement is palpable.
And yet I can't unpeel my eyes from the huge, hurricane-proof window before us. They offer enormous views of resplendent Biscayne Bay and the six-lane, 5.6km Macarthur Causeway that crosses it. Throbbing with traffic, the causeway is the kind of thing that, I imagine, people come to museums to forget. So I ask Binswanger, the museum's project architect, how her team approached this design problem.
"Problem? What problem?" says Binswanger. "That is what Miami is about. Anyway, I find it beautiful. Don't you?"
Suddenly I do. Or at least I find beautiful the building's wide-open embrace of Miami, causeways and all. And I suspect that this visual (and programmatic) permeability to the city's realities—natural and manmade—will define PAMM's institutional success.
Recently, City of Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado declared March as Miami Bike Month. And why shouldn’t it? Did you see the latest gathering this past Friday for Critical Mass? Hundreds of people, including celebrity cyclists and NBA megastars Dwyane Wade and Lebron James, were in attendance for a 13 mile trek around Miami. Cycling has become the latest “thing” in Miami. However, it could be more than just a monthly ride. Why not see cycling as a serious solution to the traffic congestion problems in and out of the city? Cities like Amsterdam and Chicago seem to think of it as a real solution. It doesn’t have to just be about bikes either, car sharing has become a major business as well and could also assist with making our streets safer. What if there was a place in Miami, built infrastructure that helped promote these solutions? Well there could be…..that’s where DawnTown needs your help.
La Maison au Bord de L'Eau, an unrealized beach house in Miami designed by architect, designer, planner and photographer Charlotte Perriand, has been built by Louis Vuitton for a Design Miami 2013 satellite exhibition. Designed in 1934, the house was first conceived for a design contest held by L’architecture d’aujourd’hui magazine with the aim of creating a simple, economical form of holiday lodging for the mass market. After winning second prize it was never built but, eight decades later, "Perriand’s studies prove quite contemporary in light of the advancements in wooden architecture."
Miami Beach city commissioners have unanimously agreed to abandon the $1 billion redevelopment of its 52-acre convention center district, which aimed to radically reinvent the area. This decision comes just six months after the city awarded developer South Beach ACE and OMA the bid after an international, highly-publicized competition that pitted OMA against BIG.
“For the purposes of getting this project done fast, on time, on budget, it’s unfortunate that we’ll have to make a very tough, challenging decision,” said Miami Beach Mayer Philip Levine, “To some people, it’s a little disheartening. To other people, it’s a very fresh start.”
As reported by the Miami Herald, the city plans to reinstate a bid for the renovation of the city-owned convention center as well as another for the development of a nearby hotel. Under the new bid, the city will no longer be required to attain 60 percent of voter approval to build. By doing this, Levine believes the renovation will be expedited.
Alan Faena — prominent argentine developer — is partnering with an all-star cast of celebrated artists, architects and Hollywood darlings to revive the decadence of the roaring twenties, envisioning a booming cultural "epicenter" for the city of Miami. The development, Faena Miami Beach, would include the restoration of the historic Saxony Hotel (the original symbol of opulent resorts along Florida beaches), the construction of new luxury apartments by Foster + Partners and the Rem Koolhaas/OMA-designed Faena Arts Center and Artist Residency. Review them all after the break.
In her article for BlouinArtInfo, Janelle Zara wittily recounts her experience at an architecture event in which 70% of the audience left before the night's end. The event? A talk, held last week in Miami’s Design District, between Kanye West and Pritzker laureate Jacque Herzog. Despite the audience's clear lack of interest, Zara insists the skippers missed quite the conversation: "Herzog’s half of the conversation lent it its gravitas; Kanye’s token Westisms provided the candy-coated sprinkles on top." Read the full post here.
