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 2013satellite 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."
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Proposed Convention Center Entrance. Image via OMA
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.
https://www.archdaily.com/462667/star-architects-and-artists-recruited-to-design-faena-district-of-miami-beachJose Luis Gabriel Cruz
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.
DawnTown, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting architecture in Miami, is announcing an open call for portfolios to their new competition: DAWNTOWN DESIGN/BUILD 2.
Herzog & de Meuron just celebrated the grand opening of the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), alongside the commence of the Art Basel in Miami Beach. Located on a waterfront site overlooking the Biscayne Bay, near the MacArthur Causeway, the three-story museum’s low-profile seems to almost disappear into its surroundings - a pleasant contrast to the ornate and often form-based architecture that is typically found throughout the city. This lack of form, as Jacques Herzog described, is all about “permeability.”
“Miami is known for its iconic art deco district – in fact art deco was about decorated boxes with no great relationship and exchange between inside and outside,” Herzog continued. “The greatest thing, however, that makes Miami so extraordinary is its amazing climate, lush vegetation and cultural diversity. How can these assets be fully exploited and translated into architecture? That’s the way we tried to go with our design for the new art museum in Miami.”
Continue reading for a sneak peak inside the Museum...
Starchitecture has come to Miami — in a big way. Developers are using the name recognition of some of the world’s star architects to bring in buyers for their posh towers.
Each December, Design Miami/ commissions early-career architects to build a designed environment for the fair's entrance as part of its biannual Design Commissions program. This year's winning proposal, dubbed "Tent Pile," was designed by the New York-based architectural practice formlessfinder. Its design harnesses the properties of sand and aluminum to create shade, seating, cool air and a space to play for Miami's public.
The Miami Design District, an 18 square-block neighborhood between Miami’s downtown and South Beach, has announced that the facade of its new mixed-use retail building will be designed by Sou Fujimoto. The two-floor, 17,000 square foot structure, which will feature "an elongated series of glass fins extending from the rooftop down to the open courtyard," will create unique pedestrian arcades covered by a "structural waterfall."
Foster + Partners have released new images of the luxurious, 18-story Faena House currently being constructed in Miami. The project, which is commissioned by Argentinean developer Alan Faena who is best known for transforming Buenos Aires’ abandoned Puerto Madero neighborhood into the city’s most vital culture center, will mark the first phase of the anticipated Faena District Miami Beach. Once complete, the district will include a five-star hotel, a large and versatile Arts Center, an OMA-designed parking complex, a luxury retail complex, and a marina.
The Miami Beach Convention Center, a giant box of a building constructed in 1957, is in desperate need of a makeover and two design teams have bravely accepted the challenge. Team 1 is dubbed South Beach ACE (Arts, Culture, Entertainment District) and is a collaboration between Rem Koolhaas's OMA firm, Tishman, UIA, MVVA, Raymond Jungles and TVS. Team 2 goes by the name of Miami Beach Square and includes BIG, West 8, Fentress, JPA and Portman CMC. Both proposals completely re-imagine 52 acres of prime beach real estate and cost over a billion dollars in public and private funds. So, who does it better?
South Beach ACE just unveiled their master plan for the redevelopment of the Miami Beach Convention Center site. Currently in a battle with BIG and Portman CMC for the right to overhaul the 52-acre site, national developer Tishman, international architecture firm OMA, international firm TVS, and Miami Beach developer UIA Management comprise the South Beach ACE team. The vision involves bringing to life one of Miami Beach’s most underutilized public sites with a fully-revamped convention center capable of luring major events from around the world, an iconic hotel, inviting green spaces, low-density retail uses, and cultural venues.
More images and the team's description after the break...
BIG has collaborated with West 8, Fentress, JPA and developers Portman CMC to challenge an OMA- and South Beach ACE-lead team in the 52-acre Miami Beach Convention Center overhaul. With a mission to “bring Miami Beach back to the Convention Center,” BIG’s newly unveiled proposal aims to transform the “dead black hole of asphalt in the heart of one of the most beautiful and lively cities in America” into an archipelago of urban oases made up of paths, plazas, parks and gardens, which will all lead to the heart of the plan: the Miami Beach Square. This tropical centerpiece will become the front door to the convention center and the convention hotel, as well as the front lawn to a revitalized Jackie Gleason Theatre, a town square for the city hall, an outdoor arena for the Latin American Cultural Museum, and the red carpet for the big botanical ball room.
“We have devised a strategy that combines urban planning and landscape design to create a neighborhood characterized by human scale, pedestrian connections, shaded spaces with public oriented programs lining the streets and squares. A neighborhood that, depending on the season, the weekday, or even the time of day can be perceived as a lively downtown neighborhood or an inviting public park.” Bjarke Ingels, Creative Director BIG
More images and the teams description after the break...
DawnTown recently announced the winners for Landmark Miami, their 2013 ideas competition which focused on how cities are instantly identified by the individual structures within them. With the challenge of coming up with a new symbol for the future, architects and designers were tasked with creating an iconic architectural piece that contributes to the image of Miami. Studio Dror was announced as the first prize winner for their 'Miami Lift' proposal which pays tribute to the city's by elevating visitors to give them a new perspective to the city. More images and information on the winning entries after the break.
Most parking is free - but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a high cost. A recent podcast from Freakonomics Radio examined parking in US cities, investigating the “cost of parking not paid for by drivers” - a cost paid not just by the government, but by the environment - due to congestion and pollution caused by people searching for kerbside parking. For example, in a 15 block area of Los Angeles the distance traveled by drivers looking for parking is equivalent to one trip across the USA per day.
One potential solution which they discuss is a San Francisco project called SF Park, which makes use of sensor technology to measure the demand for parking in certain areas of the city and adjust price according to demand. In theory, this would create a small number of empty spaces on each block and dramatically reduce the time that many drivers spend cruising for parking spaces.
Though the idea is certainly an intelligent approach to the problem of kerbside parking, unsurprisingly all this talk of supply, demand and pricing sounds very much like an economist's answer to a problem. But what can designers do to help the situation?
Perhaps, from the designer’s point of view, the real problem with kerbside parking and surface lots is that they are always seen as a provision “coupled with” a building or area of the city. There have been a number of attempts by architects – some successful and some tragically flawed – to make parking spaces less of a rupture in a city's fabric and more of a destination in themselves. Could these point to another way?
Read about 3 examples of parking’s past, and one of its potential future, after the break...
Up-Downtown, the prize-winning installation in DawnTown's competition for the creation of a temporary installation on the theme of the “Evolution of Miami", is taken literally to present an interactive story of Miami’s rise. “A city is a complex machine, where everything is interconnected and any movement affects the other,” said Manuel Clavel-Rojo, co-creator of the Up-Downtown team. The installation, exhibited at HistoryMiami, features a 10’ x 10’ x 10’ box structure using steel for supports. A mirror sits at its base, with blue and pink neon lights representing the water’s edge and roadways, creating a perimeter of the downtown area. More images and information after the break.
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_HI_RES_(40).jpg?1383616793 "© Robin Hill")
_HI_RES_(47).jpg?1383616796 "© Robin Hill")
