Gems Sty

A new 400-foot cheese grater is due to be up in the Miami Design District!

Designed by Miami-OPPENheim architecture + design, it will add an interesting icon in Miami’s skyline. The key merit of $40-million, 25-storey building is the emphasis on the “green” factors:

COR extracts power from its environment by utilizing the latest developments in wind turbines, photovoltaic panels, and solar hot water generation. A hyper-efficient exoskeleton shell simultaneously provides building structure, thermal mass for insulation, shading for natural cooking, enclosure for terraces, armatures for turbines, and loggias for congregating on the ground. The incorporation of all of these elements into one building represents a major breakthrough in design and engineering.

This building actually reminded me of Centre Pompidou, in the way that they showed off their design intent and utilitarian vision through explicit, external structures. Although on first sight I thought the external grater appearance was just the whim of a cheese-obsessed architect, I was pleasantly surprised when I learnt that it is a lot more, being the platform for the multitude of green architectural details to achieve their green objectives (did you notice the brilliantly integrated wind turbine on the roof?)

[via Onsite@Archiseek]