1111 Lincoln Road - Urban Surface

1111 stands out amongst the design of other Miami Beach structures, it’s large skeletal frame a contrast to the heavy facade of the Art Deco. A series of floor plates, ramps and columns are arranged in a playful and expressive manner. Using but one material, concrete, the building assemblies a collection of elements. The buildings program includes: parking, retail, a restaurant, offices, a rebuilt bank, and a luxury apartment.  Rather than being a piece of monolithic infrastructure, the building wants to become a multipurpose complex, a reinvention the car park as a sculptural, flexible unit. Though the design was influenced by a number aspects, it doesn’t draw lines between its elements, and its surroundings. The building marks a shift from the design of enclosed objects to the design and manipulation of a larger urban surface.

Extension of Lincoln Road

View of Lincoln Road from central stair

The building as urban surface, refers to the inclusive ground plane of the site to the  greater “field” which accommodates buildings roads, utilities, open spaces, and neighborhoods. The way in which Lincoln Road informs the project is particularly interesting. Located at the end of this pedestrian friendly street, one of the few places in the city were people walk for pleasure. The building serves as a place were the two worlds meet, pedestrian and vehicular, a place were people switch from one mode to another. The extension of Lincoln Road to Aalto was an aspect fabricated by the architects with help from Ramond Jungles, who brought the reinvented Lapidus follies to the site, along with the bold street-scape.This extension allowed for pieces of Lincoln Road; its garden, retail and art instillations to stretch vertically through the project. The circulation of these spaces is experienced as a series of ramps and an unenclosed central stair. This is design as active surface, arranging the conditions for new relationships and interactions.

Sketch of changing geometry of column based on perspective

Unfolding of space around central stair

The design of 1111 not only serves as a connective unit, organizing roads, utilities and environments, but also the dynamic processes of events that move through them. The decks are designed as a series of spaces, rather than a typical stacking system. Some of the decks have extravagantly high ceilings and some overlook from mezzanines and balconies. Pillar and v’s shaped column allow for this playful gesture. This is primarily a ground structure organizing and supporting a broad range of fixed and changing activity of the city. The building encourages event, art instillation, fashion shoots and parties on its decks.This adaptability derives in part from the planer characteristic of the surface, the smooth and un-interruptive continuity of material, but also from the equipment and the services embedded within.

Program distributed vertically

Unprogrammed space

The goal when designing the urban surface is to diversify the activities and even accommodate activities that cannot be determined in advance. This is achieved in  Herzog & de Meuron’s design for the fixed program is arranged in a way that allows for the reinterpretation of spaces. As a result the project may feel disjointed, most off the retail occur on the first floor plate.The restaurant is located on the roof of the existing structure, completely separate from the parking access. These disconnections create a new type of space; a space unprogrammed, free to use and interpretation. When one moves through the project, they experience an unfolding of the space.  The expansion and compression on the floor plates creates a dynamic sequence and the shifting perspective allows for new interpretations. In this way the urban surface assumes different functions, geometries, arrangements and appearance as changing circumstances demand.