1. N&N ARCHITECTURE PRODUCTS NEWS TRENDS SHOPS DESIGNER EXHIBITIONS
SOME STAR ARCHITECTS
And a developing new neighborhood BY ELLIOT KOTLYAR
52 Florida InsideOut
DCOTA’S NEW LOOK
Change is good; and so over the next four years DCOTA (the Design Center of the
Americas), a massive three-building campus in Dania Beach, Florida, is having a
makeover. Charles S. Cohen purchased DCOTA in 2005. He hopes the new land-scaping,
water features and architectural changes will bring new showrooms and
designers into the fold. The architectural firm Area Design will suspend brightly
colored geometric shapes in public spaces, with layered lighting by Kaplan,
Gehring, McCarroll. Landscaping will fall to Thomas Balsley and Associates and to
Mario Nievera Design. Pentagram, the New York graphics company, will work on
the logos on the outside of the buildings. DCOTA is at 1855 Griffin Road, Dania
Beach, 954 920-1997. www.dcota.com.
©ROBIN HILL
MIAMI’S NEW COURTHOUSE
What may be America’s boldest federal courthouse has arrived in downtown
Miami. The Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. U.S. Courthouse—the first ever named for
an African-American—is a standout. It has drawn acclaim for its architect,
Bernardo Fort-Brescia of Arquitectonica, and for its monumental features: a
45-foot-high gate aligning with the Fourth Street Promenade, and a tilting,
eight-story conical atrium sheathed in blue glass.
Sitting at the end of the promenade, the shiplike mass of bluish glass (a tri-umph
considering Miami’s tough hurricane codes) and smooth concrete rises
from a landscaped plaza of native plantings, meandering pathways and a
sculpted lawn of grassy waves by Maya Lin. In this heavily paved neighbor-hood,
the effect is as much public oasis as government bastion.
The project is part of the U.S. General Services Design Excellence program. But
for those not awaiting a felony trial, a glimpse from afar may be the closest we’ll
get. Because of security considerations, federal marshals are considering fenc-ing
in the whole site—a move that would retract a generous gift to the city.
Yet some government sources say the site is already among the safest
designed, and it’s clearly intended for public use. “The park itself functions
as a barricade, with its 100-foot setback, dense plantings and raised lawn
that form a natural and secure perimeter,” Fort-Brescia said.
OVERTOWN
Beginning in the 1920s, Overtown,
the area just north of downtown
Miami, was home to African-
American theaters, hotels and
nightclubs. After the community
was bisected in the ’60s by
Interstates 95 and 395, it became
notable for its desolation and
crime. But new construction in the
area—bounded on the south by
Northwest Fifth Street, on the
north by Northwest 20th Street,
and extending from Northwest
First Avenue to Northwest
Seventh Avenue—is making the
neighborhood’s future look
brighter. Renovations and expan-sions
are underway on the historic
Lyric Theater, at Eighth Street and
Northwest Second Avenue and a
Hilton hotel is said to be in the
works. There are plans for a 30-
story tower, MaxMiami, including
film studios and a hotel, nearby at
16th Street and Northeast First
Avenue.
ICE Development Group broke
ground on February 13 on the
first tower of Logik, a 31-story
condo office-retail project at
Northwest First Court and Fifth
Street. Tower I will have 134,000
square feet of office space and
10,000 square feet of retail space.
The Miami-based ICE Development
has hired Aaxis Architecture in Miami
to do the design. The area is expected
to be a new commercial hub in Miami.
All of the units are already committed,
so Logik Tower II will surely be on the
way soon. Logik is going up at 530
Northwest First Court, Miami,
www.logiktower.net.

2. N&N ARCHITECTURE PRODUCTS NEWS TRENDS SHOPS DESIGNER EXHIBITIONS
54 Florida InsideOut
GEHRY GOES SOBE
Frank Gehry’s New World Symphony building plans have been released. The
$200 million building, which will include performance space, rehearsal space,
learning zones and parking, will go up on land owned by the City of Miami
Beach just north of Lincoln Road, where the symphony is currently based, in the
Lincoln Theater.
Anyone expecting another Gehry building made of swoopy titanium might be
disappointed in the blocky white structure. But Gehry, who won the Pritzker
architecture prize in 1989, has added plenty of curved and wavy organic forms
inside the 95,000-square-foot building. The performance space will seat 738 in
wedge-shaped rows. An internal atrium will allow those outside to see sympho-ny
members practicing and performing.
The building will have space dedicated to recording and webcasting facilities,
allowing someone like Yo-Yo Ma to present a master class that is webcast to
music schools across the country. The project is expected to break ground this
summer and slated to open in 2010. The present home of the New World
Symphony is at 541 Lincoln Road, Miami Beach, 305 673-3330; www.nws.edu.
FORGET ST. BART’S
Here’s a new business scheme: buy an island and then get six tal-ented
architects to design buildings there, including private villas.
Dr. Cem Kinay, the Turkish travel entrepreneur, bought an uninhab-ited
mangrove swamp in Turks and Caicos called Dellis Cay, about
575 miles southeast of Miami. Dr. Kinay, who has a home in Miami,
will restrict his resort to 210 acres of the 560-acre island. A
Mandarin Oriental hotel, already underway (rendering at right), is
by the Italian architect Piero Lissoni with a 30,000-square-foot spa
by the Japanese architect Kengo Kuma; Zaha Hadid created a mas-ter
plan, a marina and a lighthouse.
But the real fireworks are reserved for the villas. Shigeru Ban
(Tokyo) is designing beach villas; the Singapore-based Carl
Ettensperger is designing villas on stilts over the water (something
common in the South Pacific but rare in the Caribbean). The British
minimalist David Chipperfield is creating a peninsula and then
designing homes to for it; Kuma is doing villas near the spa. Hadid
is creating villas around the marina and Lissoni has designed eight
beach villas, each with its own pool, and nine luxury villas facing
west over the ocean. The villas will sell for $1.5 million to $10 mil-lion.
For more information, see www.delliscay.com.
NOTICE: A JOB ZAHA HADID DOES NOT YET HAVE
A woman who apparently never sleeps, Zaha Hadid recently won a commission
for a new cultural center in Abu Dhabi, top left, and created an Ideal House for
the recent furniture fair in Cologne, bottom left. To make the conceptual house,
which some compare to Saarinen’s Pan Am terminal, Hadid started with a big
red cube and then hollowed out spaces inside, including a cavelike staircase but
no roof. Visitors to the fair, in January, found inspection a little complicated by
the uneven floor, which occasionally rose up into pieces of furniture. Her Abu
Dhabi performing arts center, which will hold 6,300 people in five theaters (a
music hall, a concert hall, an opera house, a legitimate theater and a flexible the-ater
space) is many years off. The performing arts center will be just one element
of a larger cultural district on Saadiyat Island, being developed by the Solomon
R. Guggenheim Foundation on behalf of Abu Dhabi tourism and development.
The other buildings will be a contemporary arts museum by Frank Gehry, a clas-sical
art museum by Jean Nouvel and a maritime museum by Tadao Ando.
Attention Rem Koolhaas and Herzog & de Meuron: No architect has yet been
announced for the Sheikh Zayed National Museum.
Hadid said at a news conference in Abu Dhabi that her performing arts center
is “a sculptural form that emerges from a linear intersection of pedestrian paths
within the cultural district.” One thing is clear. It is on the water. Hadid’s other
project in Abu Dhabi, the Sheikh Zayed Bridge, is already under construction.