In the latest bid to reinvent the concept of the parking garage on Miami Beach, London-based Zaha Hadid Architects has designed a structure that, like the lauded 1111 Lincoln Road, is as much a place to admire or gather as it is to park.
Architects with the prominent design firm unveiled updated details of the Beach’s $18.5 million building in the Collins Park neighborhood last week, and revealed images of a garage of swooping bare concrete parking decks seemingly pierced by slanted metal columns.
And, for the first time, they disclosed plans to create a public plaza beneath the shadow of the structure and close Liberty Avenue where it cuts between the Miami City Ballet and the Miami Beach Regional Library and through the footprint of the garage, located in the heart of the city’s parking-starved cultural campus.
The design remains in the “early, early days,” stressed Chris Lépine, a Zaha Hadid associate.
But the concept behind the design is definitive.
“We saw this as more than an opportunity to develop a parking structure, but also an active participant in the area that participates with and contributes to the Collins Park area, the cultural district,” Lépine said.
The project was initially envisioned as a $12.5 million garage located behind the ballet.
But an expanded 489-space structure shown during a Sept. 5 community meeting at City Hall boasts five parking levels, three of which extend east from the base of the structure behind the ballet and tower over a closed and spruced-up Liberty Avenue and the space behind the library.
The parking levels, spaced to allow for natural light and views, are adorned with alternating solid and cable balustrades that vary in elevation and in places hide the presence of cars from view.
On the west side of the garage, 20,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space is expected to draw in crowds. And to the east, behind the library, a plaza of swirling grass patterns and curving concrete benches stretches around a glass elevator shaft surrounded by a swirling walkway that descends from the upper parking levels.
Lépine said the plaza was inspired by the Beach’s “undulating sand dunes” and “the tension between vegetation growing between ‘hardscaping’ patterns.”
“I see this as a potential sculpture park. I see this as a potential events venue,” Lépine said. “I see the library wall as a participant or maybe backdrop to arts displays.”
The garage is to be the newest addition to a growing collection of cutting-edge parking structures on Miami Beach.
Other dazzling garages include the Ballet Valet on Collins and Seventh Street — known by some as the Chia Pet garage for the thick plantings that cover its upper stories — and the under-construction municipal garage in Sunset Harbour that boasts colored metal panels arranged in a shimmering trapezoidal shape. Both were designed by the Miami firm Arquitectonica.
The Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron has contributed by designing the origami-like 1111 Lincoln Road, which has become a popular venue for parties and even weddings. Frank Gehry’s glowing garage next to the New World Center and Enrique Norten’s minimalist structure south of the Lincoln Road Mall also dot the South Beach landscape.
Fernando Vazquez, director of capital improvements for the city, described the trend as combining “cutting edge architecture with the practicalities we need in our city for parking.”
But the design of the latest garage must be vetted further before contractors break ground.
Several city boards, including the City Commission, must approve the design. A first presentation before the Historic Preservation Board could come as early as November. Construction is expected to begin in fall of 2014.
During the meeting, some residents questioned whether the plaza would become a gathering space for the homeless and a park for skateboarders.
But the larger issue with the design is undoubtedly the 56-foot height of the structure, which exceeds the acceptable 50-foot limit of the properties to be built-out, according to Assistant City Manager Jorge Gomez.
Gomez explained that the City Commission will need to decide whether to allow a zoning variance for the height.
If not, he said the garage will need to be redesigned with one less parking level and about 90 fewer spaces.
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