New SpaceMarch 10, 2020
New home to Oolite Arts
On Wednesday February 19th, Oolite formerly known as Art Center/ South Florida, announced the first step in realizing its new 35,000-square-foot building in Little Haiti ( Miami), which its adjacent to the train tracks of Florida East Coast Railway’s east-west spur. Oolite hired a firm run by two young, up-and-coming Barcelona-based architects to design a new $30 million complex of artists’ studios and more.
“Our selection committee (…) wanted a couple of things (…) First, a firm that would create a signature building that was going to be responsive to the neighborhood. Each of their projects is different, and they all seemed to be in harmony with their neighborhoods. You have to look for that kind of firm (…) And wanted a firm that had done a lot of cultural buildings”, said the group’s president and CEO, Dennis Scholl.
It will be the first U.S. building by Barozzi Veiga, a firm led by principals Fabrizio Barozzi and Alberto Veiga, whose designs for cultural facilities have made well known in Europe. They were recently hired by the Art Institute of Chicago to design a new master plan for the modernization of the museum.
The overlapping Little River-Little Haiti neighborhoods have become home to numerous art galleries and arts groups looking for affordable warehouses and commercial buildings, including several pushed out of Wynwood area by rising rents and land prices.
Oolite’s planned new site in Miami would replace the Beach building the organization sold. Oolite retains, for now, a second Lincoln Road building that has artists’ studios, small exhibitions spaces and the group’s offices. Oolite has also asked its new architects to develop a garden or community space to integrate the new buildings with the outdoors. The organization hopes to open the building in 2022.
The existing warehouse on the 56,000-square-foot property, at 75 NW 72nd St., will be demolished.
For more information visit: https://oolitearts.org/
Source: Miami New Herald “ A Miami arts group hires rising stars from Spain to design its new Little Haiti home” by Andres Viglucci.
“Our selection committee (…) wanted a couple of things (…) First, a firm that would create a signature building that was going to be responsive to the neighborhood. Each of their projects is different, and they all seemed to be in harmony with their neighborhoods. You have to look for that kind of firm (…) And wanted a firm that had done a lot of cultural buildings”, said the group’s president and CEO, Dennis Scholl.
It will be the first U.S. building by Barozzi Veiga, a firm led by principals Fabrizio Barozzi and Alberto Veiga, whose designs for cultural facilities have made well known in Europe. They were recently hired by the Art Institute of Chicago to design a new master plan for the modernization of the museum.
The overlapping Little River-Little Haiti neighborhoods have become home to numerous art galleries and arts groups looking for affordable warehouses and commercial buildings, including several pushed out of Wynwood area by rising rents and land prices.
Oolite’s planned new site in Miami would replace the Beach building the organization sold. Oolite retains, for now, a second Lincoln Road building that has artists’ studios, small exhibitions spaces and the group’s offices. Oolite has also asked its new architects to develop a garden or community space to integrate the new buildings with the outdoors. The organization hopes to open the building in 2022.
The existing warehouse on the 56,000-square-foot property, at 75 NW 72nd St., will be demolished.
For more information visit: https://oolitearts.org/
Source: Miami New Herald “ A Miami arts group hires rising stars from Spain to design its new Little Haiti home” by Andres Viglucci.
