This project introduces a simple yet innovative building type for infill residential development in the Biscayne Beach section. Located in North Beach, this neighborhood has seen little new construction in the past forty years or so yet has quite a few things going for it. Besides being close to denser areas that are going to receive a lot of growth and attention, as part of the new town center, it has good parks, beach access, and a good public Elementary School. It does share, however, one big shortcoming with the city of Miami Beach at large: a sore lack of proper housing for growing families. Most of its housing stock is either studios or small one-bedroom apartments, so when people move on in life, get married, and have children, the kind of housing they need proves scarce and very pricey if they want to stick around. In reality, that forces many to cross the bridge and reluctantly move to the mainland.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 2017 saw the largest number of new multifamily units come into existence in the country for any given year since 1989. Nevertheless, the largest share of those new apartments has increasingly come in larger and larger buildings, whereas the two-to-nine dwelling unit ones have become less frequent. There are many reasons for that, ranging from the cost of land, labor, and construction _subject to the vagaries of markets and political circumstances_, to the excruciating process of negotiating with local authorities, neighbors, and other stakeholders to secure approvals and permits. In the end, it takes almost as much “brain damage” to erect a small building as it does a large one. Creeping development costs raise the threshold project size needed for turning out a profit as well, so consolidated groups with a strong financial muscle have come to undertake the bulk of these new large multifamily projects. Notwithstanding that, small-scale multifamily development has vast potential to increase the housing stock gradually, diluting its local impact on well-established neighborhoods while achieving a finer-grade urban fabric, walkable street frontages, and better place-making in the end. Traditional examples providing the desired amount of density in a great setting abound, with the two-to-four bay, three-to-five story attached buildings of Nyhavn, Copenhagen, and their somewhat detached cousins of Stockholm being a preeminent inspiration.

With these relevant precedents in mind, we set out to retool them to satisfy our needs in present-day Miami Beach. The resulting parti derived in an efficient fourplex with large single-story dwelling units with enclosed mezzanines. The Ground Floor features two parking spots per unit, as an arrangement of four two-car lifts, a discrete vestibule, elevator, and the central stairway in front, prominently displayed to incentivize its use. There is a small swimming pool in the back yard. On the Second Floor, the typical dwelling unit has a single social space that functions as living, dining and kitchen, with a secluded powder room and laundry on one side of a corridor leading to the back. The second bedroom and a bathroom complete the main level, together with a den that could legally become a third bedroom, given its window, yet also be used as a nursery or home office. A large terrace in front grants reasonable outdoor living space, daylight, and ventilation. The upstairs level master bedroom suite faces the front, with a balcony of its own, and completes the program for each apartment. This layout is then mirrored and repeated on the Third Floor.

When looking for an outward expression of the building design, we came to think of what makes this city unique and defines its character.  If we want to establish a new vernacular architecture for Miami Beach, what is the ethos of the place? Other than the weather, tourism, and all the wonderful things it has, art has become quintessential to its identity. This is evidenced by the world-famous Art Basel show it holds every December, the lingering effects of which go far and wide. Nowhere has the frontier between architecture and painting been more diffuse as in the work of Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, as they would deconstruct spaces and their representation into the unique faceted geometry that gave birth to Cubism. That aesthetic soon translated into architecture in the 1920s, through the work of Josef Chochol and Josef Gočár in then Czechoslovakia. The result is simple to build yet visually striking and dynamic. Beyond their stimulating buildings, we also found unsuspected inspiration in a simple golden candleholder that came our way, the geometry of which exemplified this connection between higher artistic principles and the most mundane of objects.

The applied result is the three-bay, five-level modern, tropical Miami Beach equivalent of the traditional precedents we saw, providing flexible housing for growing families in a tight lot and with a distinctive expression. The North-facing front façade moves back and forth, as determined by the floor plan and the amount of permitted floor area ratio. Recessed volumes are visually compensated by flying balconies above, the angles of which draw the eye to the middle stair volume and seamlessly continue into the faceted deconstruction of it. The two singularly crenelated stairway shear walls hold the building together, while supporting the perforated golden metal screen defining the stair envelope on the sides and front, allowing a great degree of transparency. The white stucco palette and simple fenestration are not just cost-effective, but provide a sober background to the very dynamic composition.