Portfolio

Leong Leong Facade

City View Garage, Miami Design District

Part of a sweeping development of the Buena Vista neighborhood in Miami envisioned by Craig Robins of Dacra, the Western facade for the City View Garage was designed by Leong Leong for Miami Design District, conceived by office director Christopher Leong.

The Miami City View Garage is a parking structure which brought together three unique facades all under one roof. Working with Brad Giresi and Vernon Jones of Tim Haas Architects + Engineers, the three facade teams are: Leong Leong (featured here), artist John Baldessari, and IwamotoScott Architects.

The teams met with Zahner and developed architectural models and mockups before moving into production. Each facade had its own design challenges, which is where Zahner’s engineering and fabrication team played a technical role.

Parking garage facade designed by artist John Baldessari using ImageWall and Angel Hair Stainless Steel.

Related Project

Baldessari Facade

Between Leong Leong's shimmering titanium-coated stainless steel facade, and IwamotoScott's undulating generative aluminum facade, lies a permanent John Baldessari art installation-as-facade. In certain light, this massive canvas of stainless steel reveals a vivid rendering, created by circular perforations.

Related Project

IwamotoScott

Sited along the Southern edge of the Miami Design District adjacent to I-195, the parking structure is part of a larger plan to bring arts, luxury, and culture into the new district. The main body of the building is a parking structure above a level of retail storefront and includes a small six story office block.

Leong Leong facade for the Miami City View Garage.

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A surface that simultaneously radiates and dissolves.

Chris LeongFounding Partner at Leong Leong

From inside the garage, the wave-like shapes of the openings create a patterned view of the city. The openings in the facade maintain natural light and ventilation in the parking structure. The pattern of openings transforms this functional requirement into an iconic urban object.

City View Garage in Miami’s Design District Features 3 Iconic Facades by Zahner

Zahner was brought on board by the lead architect, Tim Haas, to assist in the design engineering, fabrication, and installation of all three distinct facades on the City View Garage. We worked closely with the featured designers - Leong Leong, IwamotoScott Architecture, and renowned artist John Baldessari - to capture the essence of each unique design in a way that was both functional and impactful.

The prominent location of the City View Garage on the periphery of the Design District neighborhood and its adjacency to the I-195 freeway marks the building as a prominent landmark. From the freeway, the western façade appears as a shimmering mirage. At street level, folded fins generate textures that echo the forms of surrounding palms.

Leong Leong facade for the Miami City View Garage.

Photo © A. Zahner Co.

Developing the Design with architects at Leong Leong

Zahner worked with Leong Leong from the early stages of the project, making visits to their New York City office, as well as providing a Design Assist phase to properly detail the facade system. The process yielded multiple mockups, including a full-scale elevated mockup at the Kansas City facility.

Related System

Louvered ZIRA™

Louvered ZIRA is a versatile system to create unique perforated louvered panel systems.

The surface is composed of curvilinear shapes, punched and bent out of gold-colored, titanium-coated stainless steel. From a distance, they produce a texture that mimics the shimmering patterns of light on the surface of water. The variegated pattern absorbs the qualities of the environment and disrupts the legibility of the form.