Miami, Florida, USA
Barozzi/Veiga, together with Charles H. Benson & Associates, has released the design for Miami’s new home for Oolite Arts, which is both a community and a resource, providing artists with studio space and exhibition opportunities.
The design’s morphology echoes the idea of a village for artists through a collection of rooms and a rhythm of vertical structures.
The structure incorporates rich vegetation and strives to balance public and private, thus prioritizing both artists’ and community needs
The new cultural space will offer educational outreach to the wider community to help them better understand and create contemporary art and will contain Oolite Arts’ artist residency, cinematic arts programs, lecture series, and art classes, as well as 21 individual studio spaces, an exhibition gallery, a theatre, a community garden, and an accessible rooftop.
In an industrial area that has undergone a recent significant transformation, the proposal creates an oasis that is both a place of quiet and calm for artists and a space of encounter with the local community, highlighting the civic value of the institution.
The program is organized like a small village around an exuberant garden.
The design opens to the neighborhood in all directions, thus encouraging community engagement.
The balance between the intimacy of the interior garden and the openness towards the neighborhood is expressed by the hermetic urban plinth, which allows a glimpse of the garden from the entry passage, and by the landscape of towers which serve variously as skylights, wind catchers, solar chimneys and water tanks creating a highly efficient bioclimatic environment and expressing the importance of light and climate as elements of the project.
The project, created in collaboration with local firm Charles H. Benson & Associates, is set for completion in 2024.
Project: Oolite Arts
Architects: Barozzi/Veiga
Architects of Record: Charles H. Benson & Associates
Client: Oolite Arts
