Florida: The Latest Architecture and News

The new Norton Museum of Art expansion by Foster + Partners will celebrate its grand opening this weekend in West Palm Beach, Florida. Two years after the ceremonial groundbreaking, the museum will open its doors to the public and showcase a new street frontage with a transparent entrance lobby. The plan preserves the institution's original 1941 east wing and the logic of architect Marion Sims Wyeth's initial plan. The project aimed to transform the existing buildings into a world-class cultural destination within a sub-tropical garden.

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David Beckham's Freedom Park and Soccer Village proposal for Miami has received the public vote supporting the project. Designed by Arquitectonica, the proposal to bring a soccer club to the city has been under development for over five and a half years. The Miami public voted in favor of building the 25,000-seat stadium, community park and public soccer facilities. While negotiation with city officials is still needed, if approved, the project would create a home for the new Internaćional de Fútbol Miami soccer club.

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Work is set to begin on the Miami “Underline” project, a 10-mile-long park and trail under Miami’s elevated Metrorail tracks. Designed by James Corner Field Operations, the team behind the acclaimed Manhattan High Line, along with a team of volunteers and entrepreneurs led by Meg Daly and “Friends of the Underline,” the scheme has recently broken ground, set for completion by the summer of 2020.

As reported by the Miami Herald, the scheme will extend from downtown Miami to Dadeland, with an initial segment in the Brickell district measuring half a mile.

Arquitectonica's SkyRise Miami vertical theme park is set to become Florida’s tallest tower. Scheduled to begin construction early next year, SkyRise Miami will stand as a 1,000-foot tower with numerous mixed-use entertainment facilities from a prime location in the heart of Miami’s downtown core. Operated by the sports and entertainment management company Legends, the tower will redefine the Miami skyline with views across Biscayne Bay.

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With the aim to create the self-proclaimed “Central Park of Lakeland,” global design firm Sasaki is converting Bonnet Springs Park in Central Florida from a former CSX railyards property to an ecological hub. Initially, a vacant brownfield, the site is currently undergoing environmental remediation to tackle the years of industrial damage, with plans to be open to the public by 2020.

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New drone footage and photographs have been released of the One Thousand Museum, designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, as work progresses in Miami, Florida. Having topped out in February 2018, the 62-story residential tower is due for completion later in the year.

The new imagery showcases the 700-foot-high (210-meter-high) tower’s curved structural exoskeleton, comprising 5,000 pieces of glass-fiber-reinforced concrete. The photo gallery also offers some of the first images of the scheme’s interior spaces, still under construction, showing the influence of the exoskeleton on the internal environment.

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Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture (AS+GG) have been appointed as designers for the “Una” tower in Miami, Florida, a 47-story scheme set to contain 135 condominiums. Inspired by the iconic Riva yacht, the scheme is defined by a sculptured façade of “clear modern lines and ribbon-like curves.” AS+GG’s most notable achievement to date has been the design of the Jeddah Tower in Saudi Arabia, set to be the world’s tallest building.

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Construction is well underway on Disney’s much anticipated Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge theme parks planned for both Disney World in Florida and Disneyland, California.

A new drone video released by Disney Parks shows that many of the California park’s landscape and architectural elements – including mountains spires, towers and domes – are already in place. Inspired by the real-world land- and cityscapes of Istanbul and Morocco, the park will evoke the Outer Rim planet of Batuu, a remote trade outpost located along old sub-lightspeed trade routes.

Foster + Partners has revealed designs for the new headquarters of the PGA TOUR to be located in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. Located on a large freshwater lake at the TPC at Sawgrass resort, the 187,000-square-foot building will create an “uplifting and inspiring” environment for employees and visitors through its transparent walls, lush greenery and all-encompassing roof structure.

New construction photos capture the progress of OMA’s Miami development, “Park Grove,” as the project’s details and finish begin to emerge.

Located next to the twisting towers of BIG’s recently completed “Grove at Grand Bay,” OMA’s trio of towers will consist of 1,000,000 square feet of luxury residential spaces with panoramic views of Florida’s Biscayne Bay.

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Adjaye Associates has revealed the design of the latest building, a new public library and events center located in the city of Winter Park, Florida, as the project has been granted unanimous approval from the city commission.

The $30 million project will replace existing, dated library and civic center structures with a series of three red-hued pavilions described by the architects as a “micro-village.” Each pavilion will house a different program element, but will share a common formal language including structural arches inspired by local fauna and the region’s vernacular architecture, vaulted roof lines, and sweeping windows. These elements will allow natural light to penetrate deep into the buildings and create a sense of a unified local civic center.

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The Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida has announced plans for the first-ever public garden designed by Foster + Partners as part of their $100 million expansion project. To feature a variety of native sub-tropical plantings and gathering spaces, the garden is envisioned as “a new social space for the community.”

“From the beginning, we have conceived of the Norton expansion as an opportunity to create a New Norton—one that embraces its original design, while also creating a more welcoming and inviting campus,” said Lord Norman Foster.

“In our masterplan, it was important for us to define the Norton’s sense of place—in this case Florida’s lush subtropics. To do so, we conceptualized a museum within a garden. We are creating verdant spaces for art and programming that extends the museum beyond its walls.”

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Developer Strategic Property Partners has announced plans for a new $3 billion 50-acre mixed-use neighborhood in Tampa, Florida. To be known as Water Street Tampa, the multi-phase project will create 9 million square feet of commercial, residential, educational, cultural and entertainment space on a site currently underused and occupied by highways and surface parking.

The centerpiece of the Malaysian Timber Council’s exhibition at this year’s AIA Conference on Architecture in Orlando, Florida was a completely dismantlable four-walled enclosure constructed entirely of Meranti timber. Designed by Eleena Jamil Architect, the wholly modular structure showcased the strength and adaptability of this sustainably sourced Southeast Asian hardwood.

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Adjaye Associates have announced the design of a new 50,000 square foot library and event center in Winter Park, Florida, which will serve as a new civic hub and will compliment the nearby Martin Luther King Jr. Park. The $30 million building also includes an 8,500 square foot civic center, combining as a manifestation of the city’s aspirations for library services.

“Winter Park’s vision for this project truly embraces the continued evolution of the library in the 21st century,” said Sir David Adjaye. “With a diverse program that recognizes it as a critical piece of cultural infrastructure, this will be a dynamic space for shared education, recreation, and interaction.”