Marina Lofts | BIG

Designed by Bjarke Ingels, and developer Asi Cymbal, Marina Lofts is South Florida’s most anticipated new rental and mixed-use development. The project is broken into three phases and features 1,000 rental apartments, 10,000 sq ft of restaurants and 25,000 sq ft of retail. The fabulous insanity of the project’s design, with that canyon rupture down the middle, the riverwalk echoing the building’s lego-like facade, and the preservation of the marina itself (thus giving the project its name) all comes with quite regular unit floor plans which, for an apartment building, is probably a good thing.

Courtesy of BIG

Situated in an industrial gap in Fort Lauderdale’s Riverwalk park, Marina Lofts stitches together the final arm of the currently fragmented public space along the New River. BIG’s design frames the space with a generous public promenade bounded towards south by a 3-phase series of residential towers, creating public life along the riverfront while maintaining the existing marine activities of Fort Lauderdale. The two initial housing towers are treated as one continuous building “breaking” at the center to form an opening which allows maximum pedestrian activity to flow between the buildings and extends the city life out to the waterfront.

“The project fills the gap in the waterfront of Downtown Fort Lauderdale stitching the existing fragments of promenade together into a new and revitalized river park adding density and life to the scenic setting. The two buildings are torn open to form  a cave and a canyon –opening up for the neighborhood to reach the river . A design made through subtraction rather than addition. ” Bjarke Ingels, Founding Partner, BIG.

Courtesy of BIG

As both towers ascend, the crack between them allows for flexibility in apartment sizes by liberating the units from the structural grid and enabling living spaces to scale up or down as desired. The solid infill of the void maintains privacy between units by directing the windows in carefully-orchestrated locations.

Courtesy of BIG

Architects: BIG
Location: Fort Lauderdale, FL, USA
Partners In Charge: Bjarke Ingels, Thomas Christoffersen
Contributors: Chris Falla, Suemin Jeon, Andreia Teixeira, Jenny Shen, Marcella Martinez, Michael Zhang
Project Leader: Daniel Kidd

Courtesy of BIG