FIU - S C H O O L    O F    A R C H I T E C T U R E
ARC 6352                 GRADUATE DESIGN 2 SPRING  1999
Professor Alfredo Andia - office: VH 236 telephone: 348.6703
Professor Claudia Busch - office:  VH 216 telephone: 348.6026

Vertical Urban Projects, Miami Beach

"The design in our century have thought of the city in terms of different models: First the mechanical metropolis of the twenties and thirties, completely integrated into the logic of the industrial revolution; Second the homogenous metropolis of the forties and fifties, with the obsessive repetition of mass-produced goods and rationalist architectural models; Third, the hybrid metropolis of the sixties and seventies, in which complexity and diversity become positive values and sources of a particular rich designÖ.What faces us in the nineties is the fourth metropolis, the Cool Metropolis, in which social and cultural contradictions, instead of exploding, coexist in dynamic equilibrium.."

Andrea Branzi, La Quarta Metropolis, (The Fourth Metropolis)

The studio is concerned with a current question: how to generate architecture in what Andrea Branzi calls the fourth  metropolis. South Miami Beach will be used as the laboratory for exploration. In the last fifteen years South Miami Beach has became again an international destination for tourism, entertainment and convention.  The dramatic change in a short period of time has created social and cultural richness, which coexists in dynamic equilibrium. These conditions are defined by the ephemeral quality of media and tourism against  the permanence of the traditional community, the historical preservation, the diverse cultures and values.

At the northern edge of South Miami Beach, between  22nd Street and Collins Avenue a new cultural heart is developing. Several new projects are being planned such as the extension of the Bass Museum by Isozaki, a dancing school by Arquitectonica, the repositioning of the old branch library by Stern and a public park by Martha Schwarz. The studio will address this South Miami Beach area from 21st to 24th Streets, between the Beach and Collins Avenue. Each student has to choose his own site within the given area.

The studio will further develop the edge of this new urban hub by proposing a mixed-used high-rise complex. The specifics of the program are open for discussion and will be individually defined by the student through the discourse of the 21st century metropolis. The proposal should explore the dynamic of the urban place, the existing framework and an architecture, which will allow for new urban spectacle to happen.

Objectives
1. To understand different realities of a site as part of the design process: economic environment, income, resident and tourist market population, traffic and parking projections, comparable attractions, city codes and ownership status.

2. Posing a critical investigation of social, technological, economical and cultural change through the design of a multi use building in a culturally distinct urban area.

3. To investigate the idea of public space and the status of the community.

4. To explore the dynamic coexistence and communication of different programs within a vertical structure such as, leisure, entertainment, working and living

5. To explore the friction between different movements and speeds, the car, the residence, the tourist, the flaneur, the voyeur, etc.

Process
1.Development of a thesis defining program and the specific location of the site, analyzing the metropolis in terms of contemporary American culture, marketability, investment opportunities, tourism, leisure and pleasure architecture
2. Investigating the relation between the urban scale and the tectonic, the rapport between the interior and the exterior.
3. Design of the activity of each programmatic element supporting the larger scale thesis.
 

Scale
Extra large Miami and its global connection
Large  urban strategy for the chosen area
Medium  urban tectonic element (min 30,000sf, max 300,000sf)
Small  urban activity cell (min 100sf, max 5,000sf)
 

Media
The studio will also be directed to use extensively hybrid (paper and digital) media to develop design ideas. We will use digital technologies to model and explore the new conditions of the 22nd St/Collins sites. Through physical and digital model we will also explore and present the studio proposals.
 

Suggested Bibliography

1. Andrea Branzi,The Fourth Metropolis, Design and Environmental Culture, Domus Academy Edition, 1990.
2. Alejandro Portes, Alex Stepick.  City on the Edge : The Transformation of Miamiî
 Univ California Press, 1994
3. Ann Armbruster.  ìThe Life and Times of Miami Beach.î
4. Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce. 1998 Gross County Product Report
5. Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce. One Community One Goal (OCOG) Executive Summary Industries Blueprint
6.  Report:  U.S. Census of Population, State Employment Security Department
7. D. Shillingburg, "Entertainment Drives Retail", Architectural Record, August, 1994, p. 82-85.
8. K. Himmel. ìEntertainent Enhanced Retail: fuels new development", Urban Land, Feb. 1998.
9. J. Dobrian, "Urban Entertainment Centers: Searching for Winning Formulas", Real Estate Forum, May 1998.
10. Tadashi Hirimoto.  "Destination-Concept and Development"
11. Joseph De Chiara.  Time-Saver Standard for Building Types, McGraw-Hill Publishers.
12. S. Roulac   "Shape of things to come : Retail Real Estate in the twenty-first Century".
13. US Bureau of Census.  The Monthly Retail Trade.
14. Alva Moore Park, Miami, The Magic City.
15. Beatrice Colomina.  ìThe cityî, Privacy and Publicity, Modern Architecture as Mass Media, MIT Press, 1994
16. Walter Benjamin,  Reflections.
17. Derossi, Pietro, ìRock Technologyî, Lotus Electa 79, Milan1993, p89-101
18. ìEntertainment,î Ottagono 99, CO.P.IN.A., Milan, 1991
19. Michael Sorkin. Local Code, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 1993
20. Michael Sorkin. Variations on a Theme Park, Hill and Wang, New York, 1992
21. MVRDV, El Croquis, No. 86, 1997.
22. Rem Koolhaas.  Delirious New York, The Monacelli Press, New York, 1994
23. Rem Koolhaas.  SLMXL, The Monacelli press. Inc, New York, 1995.

Suggested Web Links

Thematic maps from USGS  http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/gazetteer.
Aerial photographs from Microsoft: ¡Error! Marcador no definido..
Miami Beach chamber of commerce : ¡Error! Marcador no definido..