North Beach Youth Center

LOCATION: Miami, FL

PROGRAM Civic Centers

STATUS: Proposal

TEAM: Maria Cadena, Shane Jezowski

The North Beach Youth Center is an open-air, civic building that aims to promote a communal atmosphere for the residents of North Miami Beach. The building integrates ecological systems that create a space that can benefit from the site conditions – decreasing the energy required to power active cooling systems and increasing the comfort of those utilizing the building.

NBYC’s ecologically inspired systems include bio-swale planters that work as a barrier for the bike lane, oyster filtration ponds at the north and south of each plot, open air and fan cooled multipurpose recreational spaces, solar panels, onsite communal farms and native grassland parks for recreation and contemplation.

NBYC is divided into an underline (the lower level), and the overline (two upper levels) that act as a bridge from master-plot to master-plot, keeping pedestrian traffic above the cars. Designed for future sea level rise, the bridge will allow for all the programming to be raised up to 12 feet above the current mean sea level, taking into consideration possible 100 year flood levels.