SoundScape Analysis, Emily

Designed by the Dutch urban landscape architecture firm West 8, SoundScape is a new 3-acre urban park adjacent to Lincoln Road in Miami Beach’s Art District. The park acts as a courtyard space to the New World Symphony, Miami’s Orchestral Academy. Soundscape serves multiple functions. The park acts as transitional space, connecting urban zones but also as an event space, a place to gather and to meet. The park can easily be accessed from any of its three open edges. Pedestrians circulate the landscape through a series of interlacing pathways of varying widths and heights, designed to encourage different views and experiences. Each season the Symphony projects live concerts free and open to the public know as Walllcast’s.

On a recent visit, for a performance beginning at 7:30 PM, people were filling the park by late afternoon, bringing with them lawn chairs, blankets, picnics, family and friends. The topography allows for flexible programing during this event. A soft lawn creates a low incline used as an amphitheater. Pathways intersect this space and organize the arrangement of the viewers. The design of the park plays with the theme of inclusion and exclusion. Creating space for larger groups and more intimate gathering. Some seating is provided within the undulating walls of the berms. Because the space is primarily used for circulation the design is very careful with respect to the sight-lines of the viewers. Pedestrians move freely through and around the site during screenings. The event also draws attention from the street and welcomes new viewers. Some in passing stand at the edges of the site. 

Mechanical equipment is well integrated throughout the space, serving as an important design feature in the programing of the amphitheater. The large convex audio tubes frame the auditorium space. The lighting design of the park gives primacy to the lighting scheme of the New World Center adding to the hight of the spectacle. Slender poles are placed throughout the park at a distant far enough to prevent the interruption of viewing.  Lighting integrated with in the audio tubes creates a circulation space during the Wallcast event. The front facade is an important mediator between the public space of the park and the more private performance space within the building. An expansive glass curtain wall divides the facade but does not allow the viewer to engage with the event instead the event is projected on its stucco surface. The hardscape of the Mary and Howard Frank Plaza binds the building to the park, all paths eventually meet this space. The design is successful for creating strong a link between the community and the arts, landscape and technology.