Housing Development
South Miami, Florida, US
The aim of the project is to propose a redevelopment of South Miami Gardens public housing community. The project focused on innovative practice methods in urban design which aimed at improving the built environment while safeguarding human scale, health, and cultural heritage with architectural and urban revitalization.
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The criteria provided for the proposal was based on making certain modifications to the existing block pattern. The design proposal had to maintain the current density pattern on site and hence the target was low to medium density with mixed income - inclusive housing.
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This neighborhood falls under the category of Transit Oriented Development District (TOD) which implies the focus on public transportation and walkability with reduction in privately owned cars. Therefore, the design worked with a parking requirement of minimum 80% instead of a 100%.
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In the 1950’s, the streets were well connected all the way across SW 62nd Ave. However, due to communal issues and regards to safety concerns, in the 1980’s, this neighborhood was cut off from the main streets and cul-de-sacs were formed that contained the public houses within. It has been the same ever since. The core idea to the proposal was to revive this block pattern as it was in the 1950’s and reconnect the street network.
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Upon reconnecting the streets, the site was divided into 4 individual blocks that visually open to the exiting civic structures on site and have the arterial roads well connected to the Metro line. This also enabled the design to have more walkable blocks that are visually appealing. There is an existing Marshal Williamson Park to the west of the site and since the streets were reconnected, SW 61st court cuts through this park. So, the idea was to propose a park that is equivalent or more on the current design project and the aim was to give back the park with better usability, connectivity, and infrastructure.
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The design highly responds to the existing site conditions and the housing types proposed were derived based on that. It consisted of 4 typologies, garden apartments, townhouses, shop houses and mixed-use buildings with a total of 222 units and 256 parking spaces. Each block is roughly about 254’ wide by 298’. The Park is around 500’ by 135’. The heights of each typology were based on where they were planned on site, hence the mixed-use buildings are 6 floors tall. The shop houses are 3 floors that reciprocates with the surrounding heights. The townhouses are 2 floors, and the garden apartments are 4 floors.