North Beach Oceanside Park

Miami Beach issued a simple request: to re-design a park. Specifically, the Request for Qualifications stated that the work products for the North Beach Oceanside Park would include conceptual drawing(s), surveying, geotechnical, design development, estimate(s) of probable construction cost, construction documents, permitting, bidding/award, and construction administration services. Embedded within the expectations of the City was a critical design component – the final design must define a new identity for the North Beach community by tapping into and revealing established values and qualities present in the site.

The resultant design took the densely-vegetated, 30-acre park and conceived it as a series of carefully orchestrated thresholds where park users will never feel secluded, inactive or unengaged. The design resulted in a necklace of ‘pods’ that operate as a spine to the project and serve to protect habitat and increase the City’s management of these natural resources. The walkways are scaled so that they foster continuous activities in potentially endless configurable ways and augments the opportunities for resiliency design by strengthening the dune, utilizing passive green infrastructure and LID stormwater management strategies. The project also incorporated a rebranding of the City’s established beachfront with an on-grade beachwalk destined to be a terminus to the City’s overall transportation infrastructure. The product developed for the park is one that will provide an immediate transformative quality for the North Beach Community, it will enhance cultural celebration, and it embodies the City’s values of good, environmental design and access to great public spaces.