WILTON MANORS, FLORIDA – Rene Gonzalez Architect and Urban Dynamic Communities (UDC) today unveiled designs for a new luxury residential project located on a five-acre property at NE 26th Street and NE 15th Avenue in Wilton Manors. Just north of Downtown Fort Lauderdale and within walking distance to shops, restaurants and transportation, the 100-residence project presents itself as a redevelopment that is both sensitive to its site and progressive in its design aesthetics.
With the intent to reimagine and revive the essence of the natural landscape condition, Rene Gonzalez Architect tapped into the disappearing Florida Hammock, which is so closely tied to the project’s site. Florida Hammocks are other-worldly, mysterious, and spatially complex vertical jungles indigenous to South Florida. In contrast to the wetlands, hammocks are hardwood forests that form ecological islands and grow in elevated areas.
“The inspiration for Wilton Manors has everything to do with the beauty of the buildings’ surroundings; we wanted to create a substantial and substantive piece of architecture that pays deference to its environment and urban condition,” says architect Rene Gonzalez.
This project reintroduces the hammocks literally, within the surrounding landscape, and implicitly, through its architectural interpretations. The siting of the project is carefully scaled in increments, from the lower scale of the two-story villas, which are closest to the nearby single-family residential neighborhood, and that sit within a hammock park on the ground in the southeast, to a long, low-lying building which is on columns on an elevated park and addresses the commercial and multi-family scaled homes towards the northwest of the site. The 100 units have amenities including a level dedicated to wellness with a gym, yoga room, multiple types of spas, lap pool, and running track, while the roof level will serve as a passive recreational area with swimming pool, lounge seating, and cabanas.
The building’s cladding, a perforated screen of high-performance, lightweight concrete hung like a curtain and lightly articulated, interprets the vertical and organic elements of the hammock – the tall Florida pine and cypress trees and the patterning of coral stone. Like sunlight through canopy trees, the quality of light filtered through this screen is meant to capture in its essence, the experience of the light in the hammocks as it changes throughout the day. Single-loaded corridors with vegetation are located at various levels and the design of open-air breezeways, which are utilized to access the units, allows for the movement of light and air, while perforated screens on different planes veil gardens and private spaces.
The project will be LEED certified by the U.S. Green Building Council, as a result of it being environmentally friendly, using less water and energy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It will be the first LEED certified building in Wilton Manors.
About Rene Gonzalez Architect
Founded in 1997 in Miami, Rene Gonzalez Architect (RGA) believes that a building is inexorably linked to the cultural and natural environment beyond its physical footprint. The work intentionally blurs traditional lines and creates an active “design conversation” with a site’s ambient elements. Detail-oriented and contemporary, the award-winning firm specializes in the design of museum and gallery spaces, hospitality, commercial, retail and residential projects. RGA strives to shift perceptions of design and open up a dialogue with the spaces we occupy. Gonzalez is the first Miami architect in 50 years to be honored twice by the National AIA for projects in Miami – suggesting that he is having a profound impact on the quality of the built environment of his hometown. For more information, visit www.renegonzalezarchitect.com.
