Wednesday, October 17, 2012 at 7:13PM Renderings Revealed for BIG Project in Fort Lauderdale
Image by BIG via Curbed MiamiBjarke Ingels Group, which couldn’t stay out of the architecture news earlier in 2012, is back at it, this time with a massive unfunded project in Florida. The Marina Lofts in Fort Lauderdale would build a 1,072-unit condo complex comprised of two 36-story buildings. Each of the buildings resembles stacked containers (or, as Architizer described them, LEGOs), with one of the buildings rent from the bottom up, while unfinished notches in the second building indicate either ongoing addition or absence by subtraction (depending on your proclivities, apparently). All in all, the design resembles a game of Tetris nearing its terminus.
Projects of this market and design ambition have been rare in recent years, so the recent designs provoked no small measure of commentary on Twitter. Pedigreed freelancer Mark Lamster searched for creative comparisons to the project: “the fontaineblown? the eden crack? so very many options.” LA Times Architecture Critic Christopher Hawthorne tweeted more practical concerns: “it's like the crisis never happened. So 2006.”
The project would be located on Fort Lauderdale’s New River, and the renderings indicate that the project will afford a lot of space for public gathering areas and balconies amidst all the condo dwellings.
Image by BIG via Curbed MiamiThe project, of course, must still overcome a $250 million obstacle before it can begin construction--the expected cost of the project has yet to be funded.
Image by BIG via Curbed Miami