Miami Produce Center will Include Linear Buildings Floating Above Spaces for Artists, Brewers
October 17, 2018Robert Wennett’s Miami Produce Center LLC submitted plans to Miami’s Urban Development Review Board last week, revealing more details of a plan to remake the Allapattah neighborhood.
Architect Bjarke Ingels’ vision includes a stack of linear building rising above restored warehouses in the site, which will be re purposed for use by artisans, brewers, light manufacturers, and other producers.
Miami Produce Center
NW 12th Ave, Miami, FL 33127
At the ground level, the restored warehouses will include retail, restaurant and other amenities surrounding remade “vibrant” pedestrian and public areas. A direct connection to the Santa Clara Metrorail station will be included, with signage and other design elements encouraging use of public transit.
Above the restored warehouses, a series of “floating” vertical structures will include residential, hotel, co-working offices, urban farming, and educational components. On top of each building, programmed roofscapes are being designed to extend the public realm vertically and capture views of downtown Miami.
August 2018: BIG reveals Miami Produce Center raised on stilts above former warehouses Architecture firm BIG has released plans to build a major complex in an industrial neighborhood of Miami, combining housing, offices, a school and urban farming.
BIG’s Miami Produce Center will be elevated on columns above a trio of warehouses in Allapattah – a district known for a large open-air produce and textile markets.
The 125,000-square-metre complex will comprise a stack of eight volumes, containing co-working offices, co-living apartments and a hotel. The three existing buildings traversing the site will also be transformed as part of the scheme into restaurants, shops and cafes, and a school.
Newly released renderings show ground-level spaces around each structure will be landscaped into gardens. A street will run through the middle of the site, which will include an educational campus. Large expanses of glazing will be added to front of the renovated low-rise warehouses to open up the interiors to the outdoor space.
“Between the warehouses, three public spaces will exhibit a variety of lush landscapes that create diverse micro climates and allow the buildings’ programmes to extend outdoors,” said a project description from BIG, which just completed a pair of skyscrapers in Shenzhen.
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Four long buildings will then be raised on slender stilts above the warehouses, and arranged around the perimeter of the site.
Each will host a different function – one for offices, another for a hotel and two for residences – with outdoor space on the rooftops. The images show sports courts, parkland and rows that suggest vegetable planting. BIG describes an aim of the project as to activate the site with “urban farming”.
Another four residential blocks will then be built above, bridging the gaps between the lower volumes. These will also be raised on stilts and feature rooftop gardens.
“Large industrial floor plates” will make up the levels in each new building, allowing for plenty of flexibility inside.
Zigzagging walls between the plates will create outdoor nooks, while their offset arrangement will produce patterns across the facades. These walls will be coloured pale pink, orange or blue, depending on their block.
An abundance of planting is planned for the development – from gardens and walkway canopies, to the car park, where greenery will drape through gaps in the ceiling. A night-time rendering of the garage also shows it transformed into a night club.
BIG designed the Miami Produce Center for local real-estate company UIA Management, with American planning, engineering and design consulting firm Kimley Horn.
The firm, founded by Danish architect Bjarke Ingels in 2005, is working on several projects across North America. In New York, where it has an office, these include a barrier system designed to protect Lower Manhattan from tidal surges and rising sea levels, and a pair of “dancing” towers beside the city’s High Line park.