Photo by Marc Averette/Wikimedia Commons CC

London Design District bridge is falling down.

​As luxury retailers like Louis Vuitton and Hermes ready themselves for the move into Miami's Design District, Craig Robins and Dacra seem to have big plans in store for the area. The most shocking so far seems to be the removal of the iconic pedestrian bridge that connected two buildings on either side of Northeast Second Avenue.

"We wanted to remove the bridge for a while now," admits Hanna Johnson, special projects coordinator for Dacra. "The bridge promoted a point of entry to the area and its removal opens it to the neighborhood to the north."
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​Miami might actually get an art museum worthy of its visual art scene after all.  Despite recession hiccups and a tainted history of Miami development projects, the new Miami Art Museum at Museum Park is well underway. The foundation (above) was just completed for the new space, which will be three times the size of the current downtown art museum.More >>

​Forget Starbucks sales. One economic indicator that the economy is actually recovering is the number of ambitious, unreasonable, and expensive design projects popping up. Miami has a history of such lofty projects from tropical ski slops and spinning skyscrapers to the recent sovereign floating island. 

The ocean must be the new frontier, because we've spied another water-craft project: the world's first sustainable, tsunami-proof houseboat. Deemed the Pearl, it's perfect for anyone simultaneously terrified and protective of Mother Nature.
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​For over a decade, Miamians have watched and wondered about what's going to happen to the South Pointe Pier. It's tragically similar to the local Cuban situation: just sit and wait and see when they'll open the border and let us back in. Likewise, it has been so long that--for many of us at least--the energetic demand has dwindled to a simple, disillusioned curiosity.

As a matter of fact, nothing, in the last 15 years, has been more emblematic of the generation gap in Miami than the closing of the pier. If you walk through Concourse F of Miami International Airport, you'll see an exhibition of nostalgic, black-and-white--and not half-bad in this blog's opinion--photographs, dated by subject matter such as kids waiting to jump from the pier's railing. Now, with a whole generation soon getting ready for high school that has never set foot on it, we started to get curious again, and wanted to find out once and for all what the hell's going on with that thing.
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Michael E. Miller

The New World Center's performance hall

​By now, it's well established that the New World Center is a pretty kick-ass piece of architecture. Frank Gehry's latest work has enchanted critics the world over with its restrained exterior and bizarrely beautiful, white-washed interior.

But are we the only ones who think the concert hall itself is... um... a little tacky?
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The entrance.

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Phillip Pessar via flickr

The water tower needs help.

​The City of Coral Gables prides itself on its historic structures: the picturesque Country Club Prado, the recently renovated DeSoto Fountain, and the always fun Venetian Pool. Another iconic building is the Alhambra Water Tower. But unlike those structures, the water tower is in bad shape and the city is short on the money needed to restore the 1924 structure.

So what do city leaders do when they need more money for a capital improvement project? They have a party. And there's one scheduled today for 3:30 p.m. in front of the water tower itself - at the intersection of Alhambra Circle and Ferdinand Street in the Gables.More >>

via flickr

Go inside the Morris Lapidus' cheese holes with Deborah Desilets.

​When staying at the Eden Roc Hotel or rollerblading through Lincoln Road Mall, architect Morris Lapidus is probably the last person on your mind. Deborah Desilets aims to change that with her book, Morris Lapidus: An Architecture of Joy. Both heralded and reviled during his career, Lapidus first captured Desilets's imagination when she was a five-year-old visiting her mom in a building he designed. She went on to become an accomplished architect and designer, even designing key pieces of furniture currently used at the Fontainebleau Hotel (also designed by Lapidus).

Her admiration eventually turned into a labor of love when Desilets compiled over fifty years of the seminal architect's work in her book. Tonight, she will be giving a book presentation and signing copies at Books & Books in Bal Harbour. She will also be appearing at the Miami International Book Fair in November. Read on to hear what Desilets thinks about Miami architecture and about her three favorite buildings in the world.
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When a teapot is not just a teapot.

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Even a design Neanderthal knows the name Michael Graves, thanks to the designer's partnership with Target. For more than ten years, he's made such mundane errands as buying tea kettles and dish scrubbers into guilty pleasures -- at least for shoppers with an eye for design. But Graves is actually more known for his success as an architect. When he started designing buildings in the late '60s and early '70s, he rescued blueprints from stark, mid-century minimalism and gave our skylines a more playful aesthetic.

Locally, he was the architect behind Orlando's Dolphin and Swan resorts and Miami's UM School of Business, 1500 Ocean Drive condo, and Shake-a-Leg Residences. His designs reach much farther, however, as he's built hotels and centers from Egypt to Japan. Tomorrow night, he'll be in town to discuss good design at our own museum of thinkism, the Wolfsonian.More >>

via newyorkerhotelmiami.com

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The MiMo stretch of Biscayne Boulevard has seen its share of shootings and prostitution. It's not uncommon to find used condoms and crack vials on its sidewalk cracks, just outside dozens of by-the-hour motels.

Only a confused tourist with some lackluster web-research skills would book a Miami weekend in these seedy motels, until now. The slick redesign of one such MiMo motel could change the area's grimy reputation. The renovated New Yorker Boutique Hotel, on 65th Street and Biscayne, is shockingly booked to capacity every weekend.
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