Archinect - News

Arquitectonica reveals designs for new $1 billion mixed-use project in Miami's Medical District

2023-09-26T19:36:00-04:00

Arquitectonica has been selected as the master planners and designers of a new $1 billion mixed-use healthcare development in Miami, the firm announced via a press release today.

Site preparations will begin this year on the seven-acre Highland Park Miami development in the city’s Medical District. The plan for clients The Allen Morris Company and Black Salmon will increase the district’s total area by approximately ten percent, transforming it into the second largest such development in the country.

Rendering courtesy Arquitectonica

Arquitectonica says the scheme will also include space for 1,000 residential units delivered by Oppenheim Architecture in addition to 500,000 square feet of medical offices and a new 150-room hotel. Local firm Naturalficial will also deliver a landscaped corridor at a previously underutilized area abutting the site, which is located within 400 feet of the nearest Metrorail station.

Rendering courtesy Arquitectonica

“With Highland Park, we’re creating a n...

Arquitectonica's 8850 Sunset development gets a revised look

2023-05-10T16:47:00-04:00

Arquitectonica has released an update to its previously proposed redevelopment project at 8850 Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood.

The former site of the notorious Viper Room will now feature an increased number of affordable housing units and market-rate condos while retaining its planned 5-star hotel component, which has been reduced from 113 to 90 rooms.

8850 Sunset Boulevard. Image courtesy Arquitectonica

The revised concept also comes in a new envelope with curved balcony decks and one less full story. The Viper Room itself will be revised and expanded to meet “today’s entertainment standards” with a memorabilia display, upgraded stage, better soundproofing, and a recording studio all included inside. LED mesh window coverings appear also to have been removed from the updated facade.

8850 Sunset Boulevard. Image courtesy Arquitectonica

Also part of the update is an added public plaza at street level and breezeway connected to a new “park-like” interior courtyard at the center of ...

HOK and Arquitectonica will design a new football operations complex for the University of Miami

2023-01-17T11:54:00-05:00

HOK has announced plans for a new seven-story football operations center to be located at the heart of the University of Miami's campus in Coral Gables, Florida.

Working alongside local mainstays Arquitectonica, the pair will deliver a new 172,000-square-foot facility beset with amenities for student-athletes and connected to the school’s existing Carol Soffer Indoor practice field that was completed five years ago. The school is trying to market itself as an elite national powerhouse to recruits and will do so with the new performance-driven Hurricanes complex, which rivals others designed recently for its in-state rival Florida Gators, LSU, and the new national champion Georgia Bulldogs.

Image courtesy HOK

The first floor of the building will feature a public lobby, locker rooms, nutrition center, and dining hall. It will be followed by an “immersive digital experience” aimed at wooing prospective athletes on the second floor, while the next three contain a wellness center, spa, t...

North America’s largest cruise terminal begins construction, designed by Arquitectonica

2022-03-21T13:39:00-04:00

Construction has begun on the largest cruise terminal in North America. Located in Port Miami, and designed by Miami-based Arquitectonica, the MSC Cruises Terminal will be capable of hosting three cruise ships simultaneously as well as 36,000 daily passengers, upon its completion at the end of 2023.

Image courtesy of Arquitectonica

The $350 million, 492,000-square-foot scheme adopts a long, thin footprint in response to site constraints, while a flowing form allows for embarking and debarking functions to be overlapped across four levels. The flowing roof profile is also visible in the terminal’s interior, accentuated by parallel lighting and supported by colonnades to gently divide the vast space.

Image courtesy of Arquitectonica

“The design maximizes the limited footprint by creating a layered embark and debark experience, allowing both processes to overlap seamlessly,” said Arquitectonica in a statement. “The form of the building expresses this layering visually, highlighting th...

Arquitectonica replaces Morphosis on the former 'Viper Room' Sunset Strip redevelopment

2022-03-04T15:10:00-05:00

A significant change has been made in the redevelopment of West Hollywood's landmark Viper Room as an originally-planned design from Morphosis has been nixed in favor of a more conservative scheme from Miami-based Arquitectonica.

The previous design team had originally anticipated breaking ground on a much-maligned twin-volume scheme this year with an end date expected for 2025. As of now, there is no word as to a cause for the change in direction from Silver Creek Development Co. available to the press.

Rendering of the previously proposed 8850 Sunset Boulevard development. Image courtesy of Morphosis/Kilograph.

Updated plans reveal a more colorful, pared-down design that is more in keeping with other commercial and residential developments located along WeHo's 8- and 9000 blocks of Sunset Boulevard. The new 12-story building features a lively rooftop space atop a mixed-used program defined by a south-facing setback and terraced facade with LED-lit mesh window coverings and a host o...

Downtown LA skyscraper with cantilevered glass-bottom swimming pools gets thumbs-up from city planning commission

2019-09-13T15:02:00-04:00

Plans for what could become one of Downtown’s most unique-looking skyscrapers received unanimous approval today from the city’s planning commission. With cantilevered swimming pools jutting out of its upper floors, the tower proposed for across the street from Pershing Square has been said to look like an in-progress game of Jenga. Commissioner Samantha Millman called it an “ambitious and audacious project.”

The Arquitectonica-designed 53-story hotel and condo tower with its precariously cantilevering glass-bottom swimming pools (hey, it's LA!) first appeared on Archinect last fall and quickly became the subject of much debate.

Additional renderings were released in May this year.

Image courtesy of Arquitectonica

If all goes as planned, JMF Development Co. aims to have the 784-foot tower completed by 2023.

Arquitectonica's Babylon in Miami to be demolished

2019-06-13T15:38:00-04:00

Fifteen months ago the Miami City Commission shot down a recommendation to make the Babylon, the first multifamily building designed by renowned Miami firm Arquitectonica (and its second project ever), a historically protected building. As a result, the 37-year-old Babylon [...] will be demolished sometime before July.

Telling the history of the building and Miami's Brickell neighborhood, Biscayne Times senior writer Erik Bojnansky explains that "in 1978, Arquitectonica was still an up-and-coming Coral Gables firm. Babylon was its second building, the first being the 6900-square-foot single-family home known as Pink House, on the Miami Shores waterfront, created for Spear’s parents. Even before Babylon was completed in 1982, Progressive Architecture, a respected architecture and design magazine, bestowed an award on the design renderings, which alluded to the ancient Hanging Gardens of Babylon."

New renders of a tower planned across the Pershing Square

2019-05-15T13:54:00-04:00

The 5th and Hill development, slated for an L-shaped property wrapping the historic Pershing Square Building, is a product of real estate investment firm JMF Development Co. Plans call for the construction of a 53-story, 784-foot-tall building which could feature either 1) 160 condominiums or 2) a combination of 31 condominiums and a 190-room hotel. Both use options include a mix of restaurant space and amenities, with parking to be located in a five-level podium and two subterranean levels.

The Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council's Planning and Land Use Committee is holding a public meeting on the 21st of May, where one of the projects discussed will be the proposed 53-story tower, new images of which have recently been made public.

The mixed-use structure is designed by Arquitectonica and features an array of protruding masses that begin as balconies, and increase in size to become cantilevered glass-bottom pools toward the top of the tower.

Image courtesy of Arquitectonica

The project is estimated to be completed in 2023.

Arquitectonica unveils new design laboratory for University of Miami School of Architecture

2018-11-16T19:53:00-05:00

In their latest project in their Miami home base, Arquitectonica designed the new Thomas P. Murphy Studio Building for the University of Miami School of Architecture. Opening on November 29, the 20,000 square-foot building will serve as a design laboratory and collaborative space for students, providing digital fabrication facilities, exhibition areas, and plenty of space for social and public functions.

Photo: Robin Hill.

Located at the center of an intersection, the building creates a plaza and pathway that links the campus to the Miami Metrorail. Topped by a warped concrete roof, the building was designed like an oversized shed, Arquitectonica describes. “The curve of the roof interacts with the curve at the entrance to demonstrate the plasticity of concrete.”

Photo: Miami In Focus.

Photo: Robin Hill.

The building can operate without any artificial light during the daytime and it also features 18-foot-high hurricane-resistant glass panels. The main entrance le...

Arquitectonica designs a 53-story Jenga-like tower near LA's Pershing Square

2018-11-05T13:49:00-05:00

JMF Development Co. [...] hopes to construct a 53-story tower on the vacant, L-shaped lot which wraps the historic structure. [...] Arquitectonica is designing the proposed 784-foot-tall glass-and-steel tower, which is highlighted by a collection of cantilevered, glass-bottom pools for residents on the building's upper levels. While some of the protrusions would extend over the Pershing Square Building, none would hover above the public right-of-way.

Image: JMF Development Co., via urbanize.la.

A rather dramatic example of the stacked-boxes scheme might go up at 5th and Hill, near Pershing Square, in Downtown Los Angeles soon.

Designed by Arquitectonica, JMF Development Co. proposes the 53-story tower with its fiercely protruding glass-bottom swimming pools as two potential options: few condominiums + hotel/restaurant if signs of a lurking next recession became clearer vs. plenty of condos + ground-floor retail space if the economic outlook stays strong.

How Arquitectonica shaped Miami

2018-09-10T15:32:00-04:00

In Miami, Arquitectonica took up these newfound freedoms with gusto, and did it differently than almost anyone else, deploying architectural elements in evocative, surreal, and highly charismatic ways that might have had little to do with the threadbare functionalist arguments of late Modernism, but functioned brilliantly upon the imagination of the press, Miamians, and clients alike.

Adam Nathaniel Furman takes a closer look at the meteoric rise of Laurinda Spear and Bernardo Fort-Brescia's firm Arquitectonica and the undeniable influence it has had on Miami's architecture since the late 1970s. Although the founders rejected the 'Postmodern' label, "these buildings came to represent an ebullient, hopeful, confident, and creative version of a Postmodernism that was coming to seem suspiciously reactionary—regressive, classicizing, and gloomy in many of its more northerly manifestations," Furman writes.

Fendi Launches First Luxury Residential Project

2014-07-29T15:23:00-04:00

The trend of Italian fashion firms co-developing luxury condominiums continues, with Fendi on July 28 becoming the latest brand to announce its first foray into a branded real estate project — partnering with the Château Group to develop Fendi Château Residences, a new and exclusive 12-story waterfront condominium building located in Miami, Florida two blocks south of The Bal Harbour Shops.

Arquitectonica branches out into fashion

2012-12-06T20:06:00-05:00

Laurinda Spear and Marisa Fort have launched the new ArquitectonicaSHOP website in a move to expand their new design venture, ArquitectonciaSHOP, to include other fashion accessories and furniture. Striving for total integration between architecture and product, Arquitectonica’s collection rethinks everyday objects by bringing thoughtful design to every daily life. The new website and step into social media outlets is the first step in evolving current offerings into new echelons of functional and accessible design. Their shift into fashion stems from their view that “buildings are only a part of the built environment, which can be experienced at different scales.” Whether it is fashion, interiors, furniture design, graphics, this mother-daughter duo does it all.

Spear, a founding principal of Arquitectonica, is the recipient of the AIA Silver Medal and the Rome Prize in Architecture. Arquitectonica, an architecture, interior design, and planning firm, that began in Miami in 197...