Oolite Arts, the Miami-based nonprofit arts hub that hosts exhibitions and provides resident artists with free studio space, is planning a massive, green new headquarters in Miami’s Little River neighbourhood. Designed by Barcelona-based architecture firm Barozzi Veiga and expected to cost $30m, the new space is scheduled to open in 2024.
The complex will feature environmentally-conscious strategies including harvesting rainwater, using vegetation to cool the space, using skylights to illuminate it, and incorporating solar chimneys and wind catchers to mitigate energy use. The compound is expected to be LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified.
“The climate-responsive concept for Oolite Arts focuses on the integration of passive and active strategies that mitigate Miami’s hot summers and take advantage of its mild climate during the winter months,” the firm’s founders Alberto Veiga and Fabrizio Barozzi say. “The project aims to introduce nature into the urban context [by] proposing a process of ‘re-tropicalisation’. Respecting the local constructive and climatic restrictions transforms them into architectural tools. Under this aspect, the vivid sunlight, the rainwater or the wind orientation are considered as important as the usual high temperatures, the presence of humidity and the restrictive level of the underground water horizon.”
