The site of the collapsed Surfside towers near Miami may soon be developed with new condominium units designed by the firm of late architect Zaha Hadid.
Damac Properties, a Dubai developer who acquired the 2-acre site last year for $120 million, on Tuesday released drawings for the proposed condos. The renderings include two proposed designs, each with curving balconies that are intended to mimic ocean waves. The drawings were submitted to a local planning board for approval.
Any new building constructed on the site must meet stringent local building code requirements approved after the June 2021 collapse that resulted in 98 deaths. The state of Florida also approved new inspection requirements for condos in the wake of the catastrophe.
The Surfside condo tower will be Damac’s first U.S. development when completed. The small beach town of Surfside, north of Miami Beach, has seen other recent luxury developments, including The Surf Club apartments.
The city of Surfside has held talks with Damac about including a memorial to the building collapse victims on the site of the new development. A representative from a group pursuing a memorial said the permanent memorial will be located nearby on 88th Street, but not on the condo development site, according to The Architect’s Newspaper.
“While no work of architecture can ever remove the pain of the past, nor should it, a truly ambitious work of architecture can respect such a significant site,” Chris Lepine, director of Zaha Hadid Architects, said in a statement.
Hadid, who died of a heart attack in 2016, was an Iraqi-British architect who in 2004 became the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize. Some of her work features designs that make a building appear as if it’s in motion, New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ourousoff wrote in 2018.
The motif of waves in motion is apparent in the design of the Surfside condo project, which Hadid’s firm described as “soft, cloud-like elements [that] stretch, pull and contract, emulating the ebb and flow of the ocean.” The design is also intended to reflect Miami’s midcentury-modern architecture.
Hadid designed one other building in South Florida, the One Thousand Museum condo tower in downtown Miami. The 62-story tower features curved external columns and was the first Miami residential tower to have a private helipad.