Miami, Florida, USA
Wynwood 25 represents the beginning of a revolution in this Miami neighborhood by strengthening the relationship between community and modern architecture–taking the surrounding environment as a source of inspiration for spatial planning while designing for conservation and progress of the Wynwood neighborhood.
Wynwood 25 won a recent 2021 Green Good Design® Award from The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies and The Chicago Athenaeum.
With hundreds of residents, Wynwood 25 will activate the neighborhood at all hours. One of the most significant changes this project brings is that people will be able to call Wynwood a home.
It was important to give residents privacy, safety, being able to detach themselves from a busy neighborhood to a place of retreat and rest — soundproofing windows and a programmatic layout that distributes residents’ spaces from public spaces made for a responsive project to all its inhabitants.
In place of the dynamic transformation of the Wynwood district, local business owners argued that the neighborhood should adapt to become more livable and walkable, but the city’s outdated, industrial zoning restricted future development. Wynwood represents the first Neighborhood Revitalization District in Miami. As a result, New Re-Zoning legislation was passed (NRD-1) to address the lack of residential housing in the area providing developers with an opportunity to pioneer contemporary mixed-use developments capable of embracing the prevailing artistic movement. With this, Wynwood 25 was born.
The project needed to resolve the varied scales of its surroundings and balance these responses with the human scale. The design forms a symbiotic relationship between the building and the Mural art, nightlife, and cultural happening in the area. Wynwood 25 was opened in June 2019 and is the latest residential project developed in the neighborhood since it was rezoned.
The building includes 289 residential units and 31,000-square-foot of ground-floor retail space. The project focuses on maintaining the character and culture with its design, appeal, and public spaces.
The project has 61,000 square feet of lot area and faces both 25th street on the north and 24th street on the south. On the West side of the project, a cross-block walkway is open to the public, providing ample mural space for local artists’ work to be exposed, appreciated, making a more pedestrian-friendly neighborhood giving direct access from 24th to 25th street.
Two rectangular volumes sit on each side of the street with retail spaces on the ground level, connected by a Zen garden on the second floor, which is only for residents and tenants. This area aims to give privacy and calmness from the hectic street life.
Wynwood 25 offers a balanced, inventive, and sustainable response to a multifaceted architectural challenge. Each elevation is designed differently to respond to the context of its surroundings. The North facade stands tall at its maximum height to preserve the panoramic views of the city skyline and Biscayne Bay. The south elevation steps down three stories to allow for sunlight to penetrate to the Zen garden and provide views of downtown Miami.
The project’s unification is achieved by the sleek black and gray pattern and the vertical extruded aluminum windows that give the mass volumes a certain sense of movement and direction.
Wynwood 25 has become a reference point for visitors and a cultural statement in a growing neighborhood of designers and artists. The concept of Wynwood 25 was to preserve unique street art and industrial characteristics while creating a framework for a dense, walkable urban development with new housing, retail, and open space.
It is LEED Silver certified by U.S. Green Building Council. It adheres to Miami 21 zoning planning Smart Growth movement through the application of principles and strategies that support residential developments that are environmentally conscious, economically viable, community-oriented, and sustainable.
Wynwood 25 fosters environmental sustainability and energy conservation using energy-efficient HVAC and lighting system controls and sensors. It embraces the change and focuses on maintaining the neighborhood’s identity and cultural flair with its programmatic design, appeal, and inviting public spaces, incorporating extensive open space, views, and local natural flora. The number one reduction of our carbon footprint and air quality is to reduce the vehicle miles traveled.
Project: Wynwood 25
Architects: Kobi Karp Architecture & Interior Design
Developers: The Related Group and East End Capital
Photographers: KKAID