The Miami Beach House is constructed as a series of platformed spaces that continuously step upward within a tropically climatized shell. Continuing the structural experiments of the Metabolist movement, thirteen modular concrete platforms branch from two vertical cores at the front and back of the site, providing the owner with the freedom to change the functions of each space over time. At the center, a double-height library anchors the spiraling flow of the platforms, serving as the conceptual and spatial core of the home.
The structure is built with pigmented concrete commonly used in public spaces throughout Miami and is finished with wood steps, floors, and integral storage. Concealed beams within cable-suspended breezeblock shells support the platforms, while an outer layer of breezeblock screens shades the glass façade, softening the harsh Miami sun and expressing the building's modular internal structure. Elevated above the ground for flood resilience, the house combines structural experimentation with a proactive awareness of the future climate challenges facing Miami Beach.
PROGRAM: Home & Studio
CONTEXT: Miami Beach, Florida, USA
SITE: South Beach
TEAM: Bryan Maddock, Grace Infante
Architizer Special Mention
From above, the Miami Beach House reads as a vertical landscape of stacked platforms, open-air rooms, and structural rhythms. The aerial view clarifies the house as both an object and a terrain—lifted from the street, porous to light and air, and organized as a sequence of living surfaces rather than a conventional enclosed volume. It emphasizes the project’s tension between privacy and openness, urban frontage and garden retreat, structure and atmosphere.
