Miami Beach Soundscape by Design 8 architects

Cutting-edge architectural design by West 8 defines New Miami Beach Cultural Venue and ExoStage Provides Unique Outdoor Arts Experience. West 8 has delivered on its mission of a green park, not a plaza, a park that feels intimate, shady, and soft was created; a park that will support the world-class attraction of the New World Symphony Building. Lincoln Park reflects the spirit and vitality of Miami Beach and will support a multitude of day and night uses, either under the shade of the trees or a starlit sky.

• Prime Consultant/ Lead Landscape Architect: West 8, New York, NY
• Completion year: 2011
• Team: Adriaan Geuze, design director/principal; Jamie Maslyn Larson, principal/project manager; Blair Guppy, job captain; Claire Agre; Blair
• Guppy; Rachel Laszlo Tait, Karsten Buchholz; Joris Weijts; Gaspard Estourgie; Perry Maas
• Civil Engineer: Coastal Systems International: Tim Blankenship, principal; Andres Perez; Adriana Cabrera
• Development Manager: Hines
• Projection Design: Prosound and Video: Rod Sintow, principal” for projection design.
• Structural Engineering: Wood/O’Donnell & Naccarato; Marcos R. Perez, project manager
• MEP Engineering: Cosentini Associates: Scott Ceasar, principal; John Hayletts, project manager; Paul Bunchareon, Mario Lara
• Local Landscape Rosenberg Gardner Design: Bill Rosenberg, principal;
• Architect: Ken Gardner, principal
• Local Architect: Leo A Daly: J Beattie, project manager

The Lincoln Park site is a small – slightly larger than 1 hectare in size – urban site located at Washington Avenue and 17th Street in South Florida that strives to establish a new precedent for parks in the City of Miami Beach. While an urban park this size might often receive a design that has more hard surface than soft, Lincoln Park’s site-specific conditions, context and program elicited a unique response. A decision was made early in the design process for this public space to feel ‘green’ and more like a park.

Lincoln Park will also have the wonder of some totally unique features that are one of a kind. First, several pergolas embrace the park edges; their shape inspired by the puffy cumulous clouds inherent in South Florida’s tropical climate. The hand-fabricated painted aluminium structures not only provide shade but will support the spectacular blooms of bougainvillea vines; highlighting a threshold of colour at the parks points of entry.

High quality artwork is equally important here, and the projection wall of the adjacent Symphony Hall building is an ideal ‘canvas’ for video projection artists – an emerging and exciting discipline within the art world. West 8 has designed a projection tower and ‘Ballet Bar’ to house the extensive multimedia equipment provided within the park. These elements provide a consistent language among the park’s unique architectural elements, providing a wide range number of possibilities for both local and international artists to present an ever-changing exhibit that would occur outside the confines of a traditional museum experience.

Soft, undulating topography is reinforced visually by a white concrete mosaic of meandering pathways, and white concrete seating walls that providing options for informal seating. These two critical elements of the park design allow Lincoln Park to convey the illusion of a park larger than its humble inherent size. ‘Veils’ of palm and specimen tree planting conceal and reveal views further reinforcing the experience of being within an oasis that is much larger.

Cutting-edge Architectural Design Defines New Miami Beach Cultural Venue — ExoStage Provides Unique Outdoor Arts Experience — Miami Beach, FL – Already one of the world’s great cultural, vacation destinations and a wonderful community to live, work and play, the City of Miami Beach is now home to the newest cultural destination in the greater Miami area. Emblematic of the City’s ongoing investment in the arts is the emergence of a new cultural venue opening in the City Center of Miami Beach – Miami Beach SoundScape.

“This world-class venue, together with the Frank Gehry-designed new campus for the New World Symphony next door, will capture the spirit and vitality of Miami Beach and serve as a geographical and cultural hub for the city,” said Miami Beach City Manager Jorge M. Gonzalez. “There is no other venue like it in the area, and we know that SoundScape will become synonymous with great cultural locations and experiences for residents and visitors alike.”

The Miami Beach SoundScape is framed by the vibrant Lincoln Road Mall, the Fillmore Miami Beach at the Jackie Gleason Theater, the Miami Beach Convention Center, and the New World Symphony’s New World Center campus. This flexible, outdoor multi-use space is everything but ordinary. As its name implies, this public area is about music, sound, art, culture, landscape and people.

The two-and-a-half acre Miami Beach SoundScape contains unique features in its design. One-of-a-kind steel pergolas inspired by the puffy cumulous clouds of the tropical climate join seat walls in an undulating landscape and “veils” of palm tree plantings that conceal and reveal views. A mosaic of meandering pathways connects all corners of the space.

By far one of SoundScape’s most anticipated features is the ExoStage @ the Miami Beach SoundScape. The open, grassy viewing area faces a 7,000 square foot projection wall on the eastern front of the New World Center building. Complete with a world-class audio system, ExoStage after dark will provide a canvas for video art, music, film and simulcasts of concerts playing inside New World Center.

Miami Beach SoundScape opens in conjunction with the New World Center, an extraordinary environment for education and performance that is the first purpose-built home of New World Symphony, America’s Orchestral Academy. Designed by Frank Gehry, in close collaboration with New World Symphony’s founder and artistic director Michael Tilson Thomas, the dynamic and flexible building is conceived as a laboratory for

generating new ways to teach, present and experience music. The 100,641-square-foot building lies to the west of Miami Beach SoundScape, into which it will extend its programming.

The $13 million SoundScape project broke ground in summer 2010 and was completed on time and on budget. Additional improvements were also made to the surrounding infrastructure and street, including Lincoln Lane North.

As an added convenience for area visitors, the Frank Gehry-designed Pennsylvania Avenue public parking garage just west of New World Center is, open. This fully self-serve garage features 550 parking spaces and approximately 8,000 square feet of first class retail space. The garage provides access to the campus via a third floor covered walkway and is illuminated with LED lights at night.

Tags: Florida, Miami Beach

Category: Public Landscapes

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