Suburban Retrofit
Miami, Florida
University of Miami

The final three weeks of the Master of Urban Design program were divided into five short exercises called esquisses.  Individually, we were given a general problem in traditional suburban development along with two days to design a solution for the problem.  The five esquisses were as follows: urbanization of a highway interchange, school campus conversion, transportation hub reconstitution, shopping mall transformation, and golf course infill.  Students were instructed to choose any example, as long as it was located in Miami-Dade County.

Each of the five schemes were to be designed according to good design principles.  Where possible, I worked  to improve connectivity by improving the traffic grid and decreasing the size of super blocks.  Traditional building types were used to design the consistent street frontages and provide at least one public space as an amenity for the neighborhood.  All of these improvements were made with the goal of preserving the most pleasing aspects of each neighborhood.