Zoi House (a.k.a. Cassa Grove) is a luxury rental building in an urban setting that benefits from being next to the SW 27th Avenue Metrorail station and engaging The Underline’s lineal park and trail.

Originally conceived as luxury condominia, the vision for which we were the Design Architect quickly evolved towards rental apartments with flexible layouts and numerous amenities, configured to attract creatives, young professionals, and University of Miami students willing to share in an urbane lifestyle at the gate of Coconut Grove and its nightlife, with easy access to public transit, and ready to engage phase 3 of the upcoming Miami equivalent of the vaunted New York High Line Park.

The roughly “L-shaped” parcel at the confluence of SW 27th and 28th Lanes has a major bundle of pre-existing underground utility runs and a subsequent dedication as an extension of the SW 28th Lane right-of-way. Because of this, the proposed building was circumscribed to the longer portion of the site, vacating its short leg within the dedication for a public space in service of the surrounding community. The Ground Floor level was liberated to provide as much permeability as possible between the neighborhood in front of the building and the urban trail and lineal park behind. Only the vestibule, minimal service areas, and vertical access to the apartments, pool level, and parking garage above were left, as well as the proposed Business center and Retail components of the project, both with enough transparency to allow comprehension of the space beyond, surrounded by arcades, and divided by a new breezeway connecting the new urban plaza in front and The Underline.

As their massing took shape, the podium strictly followed the contours of the buildable area to maximize space inside, whereas the recessed tower articulated to have a volume emerge and acknowledge the overall shape and orientation of the site, presenting the face of the building where it has the greatest visibility between surrounding buildings and trees from its most traveled access route. The Northeast portion of the podium is then retracted and kept in parallel with the new tower volume façade surface, to complete the vertical planes defining the urban plaza.

Besides the retail and co-working spaces on the tall Ground Floor, the mixed-use project program was meant to include a gym, a café, and a small convenience store on the same level. Upstairs, the podium allocated the parking garage towards the back, as a use unhindered by the close adjacency of the Metrorail tracks and sheltering the liner dwelling units enlivening the front. Atop the podium, the Fifth Floor has an expansive Pool deck with a roster of indoor and outdoor amenities overlooking Coconut Grove and Biscayne Bay beyond. All the purely residential floors above unfold up to the Twelfth Floor with a gamut of choices for dwelling unit size. Most layouts have a Den or flex room useful as a space to work from home or have an impromptu visitor crash and stay overnight. The very restrained facades bring as much daylight as possible into the apartments with an economy of means, punctuated by rather deep balconies, the recessed portion of which allows their private enjoyment. As it fronts the urban plaza, the volume with the large corner units featuring three-side exposure has a balcony wrapping around them with a changing profile on each floor, thus creating a dynamism that departs from the rigid rationality of the overall composition.