Sun, sea and skyscrapers: new towers rise over downtown Miami

Argentinian property developer Carlos Rosso is completely transparent in his devotion to Miami, hailing the ‘tremendous growth of its cultural institutions, public parks and retail and entertainment offerings.’ This, he says, was the impetus for the aggressive output of ‘top-tier residential projects’ by his company Related Group – projects like the Philippe Starck-designed SLS Brickell, 11o0 Millecento and One Ocean.

Rosso’s latest gambit is Brickell Heights, twin residential towers in the midst of, well, Brickell, for which he tapped the wonder team of Arquitectonica and interior designer David Rockwell.

Lead architect Bernardo Fort-Brescia found inspiration for the towers’ soft-angular shape in the sharp edges of the immediate surroundings. Indeed the financial district might feel sterile were it not unaccountably heaving with some of Miami’s best restaurants, retail and street art. With Brickell Heights, The Related Group boosted the lively factor by commissioning a 35,000-square-foot series of hand-painted colour-block murals by Argentine artist Fabián Burgos along the base of the tower.

‘This is an intensely urban site,’ says Fort-Brescia, by way of explaining why the organic shapes of the towers ‘fade into the sky asymmetrically and taper to the side to create southeast-facing terraces toward Biscayne Bay.’

David Rockwell counterposed interiors for the one- to four-bedroom units and two rooftop pools, on the 47th and 49th floors, with views over the new Frost Museum of Science and Miami Beach. They layer mid-century design with judicious lashings of stone, wood and metal, while orienting the eye outward towards Miami’s winning trifecta of skyscrapers, sky and sea.

The facilities are equally impressive, ranging from a screening room, spa, and community vegetable gardens to a putting green, SoulCycle studio and a sprawling outpost of the Equinox gym.