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A beachside installation made of 3D-printed concrete stars by artist Carlos Betancourt and a series of giant jewellery by designer Nicole Nomsa Moyo will be on view as part of Miami art week 2024. More
Design firm Studio Collective has created a boutique hotel inside The Moore building in Miami Design District, completing the landmark’s transformation into a multi-functional hospitality venue.
Recently opened, The Hotel at The Moore occupies the building’s fourth floor and includes 13 suites designed by Studio Collective to feel like private residences.
“The hotel suites are a new addition to the fourth floor, but were designed to fit the building’s original footprint within its historic interior,” said the hotel team.
Each room inside The Hotel at The Moore has a unique design conceptThe rooms range from 700 to 1,000 square feet (65 to 93 square metres) and each is designed differently to create a unique experience for guests.
One suite is decorated primarily in light neutral tones, where textured plaster walls allow walnut bed frames and furniture to stand out.
Another features wood-panelled walls and woven textured ceilings, complemented by details like rattan lampshades, while colour is introduced through rugs and throw pillows.
One suite features wood-panelled walls and a woven ceilingThe rooms include art and custom furnishings by makers such as Dallas-based furniture brand Mous and sustainably-focused Brazilian company Sossego.
The Moore building’s central atrium features a sculptural installation by architect Zaha Hadid, titled Elastika, which was added in 2005 when the space was used as an events venue.
Colour is subtly introduced through rugs and other detailsThe artwork has lent its name to a public restaurant that now occupies the space, where diners can enjoy a menu by chef Joe Anthony beneath the sinuous white forms that span across and up the four-level void.
Interiors for the Elastika restaurant were created collaboratively by operators Woodhouse and design firm Icrave, and include velvet banquette seating and an 18-cover bar.
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Constructed in 1921 to as a showroom for Moore and Sons furniture, the neoclassical-style building now also accommodates a private members club, which has its own restaurant and dining room.
Members also have access to a karaoke room, hidden cocktail lounges, game rooms, a library, various dining rooms with distinct themed decor, a photo booth, sun room and a late-night speakeasy called The Rabbit Hole.
The Moore building’s lobby is outfitted with black and white flooring, and contrasting colourful furnitureThe Club spaces are populated with furniture and accessories in muted red, blue and green hues, and many have rounded shapes that echo the architectural details through the building.
Lower levels have terracotta floor tiles, which are swapped for wooden planks on the upper storeys.
The building’s Elastika restaurant sits within an atrium housing a Zaha Hadid-designed sculpture of the same nameBolder colours are used in the lobby area, where black and white marble flooring contrasts the bold tones of paintings and furniture.
A grand black and honey-toned stone staircase connects the ground level with the open balconies that overlook the atrium and Elastika.
Many of the furniture pieces in the building’s private members club are rounded to echo the architectural featuresMiami Design District continues to add distinctive architecture and retail interiors as it develops, from a sculptural block of buildings planned by Kengo Kuma to a Louis Vuitton store wrapped in a diamond-patterned facade completed by Marcel Wanders.
Boutiques that have recently opened in the area include a Nodaleto shoe store, a Diesel store, and locations for PatBo and Cult Gaia.
The photography is by Kris Tamburello.
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A hand-painted tile mural covers the front of this Miami Design District boutique designed by New York studio Sugarhouse Design and Architecture for fashion brand Cult Gaia.
Sugarhouse Design and Architecture designers Jess and Jonathan Nahon followed up their New York City store for Cult Gaia founder Jasmin Larian Hekmat with a flagship in Miami intended to align with the brand and the location.
The gabled front of the Cult Gaia boutique in Miami is covered in a hand-painted tile muralThe duo “sought inspiration from temple architecture, Larian Hekmat’s Persian heritage and iconic historical archetypes” for the 1,502-square-foot (140-square-metre) retail space, and also modelled the building on local casitas.
To cover the gabled front facade, Design and Architecture commissioned artist Michael Chandler to create a mural using ceramic tiles.
The mural by artist Michael Chandler is titled Tree of Life and references Henri Rousseau’s painting The DreamThe resulting 1,800-piece Tree of Life mural is based on French post-impressionist artist Henri Rousseau’s painting The Dream.
“The hand-painted ceramic mural depicts a silhouetted tree with its branches extending across the storefront, featuring stylised vegetation, birds and flower-crowned nymphs,” said Sugarhouse Design and Architecture.
In the centre of the store’s first space is a concrete sculpture by Angela LarianPainted in blue “lapis lazuli” hues, similar to those that decorate Persian mosques, the artwork references everything from Indian textiles to botanical illustrations.
A trio of arched openings in the facade contain windows and a larger, recessed entryway that holds wood-framed glass doors and aligns with the store’s central axis.
The 12-foot sculpture of the Greek goddess Gaia stands below an oculusThe first in a series of interiors spaces is an open room decorated in creamy Bianco Avorio limestone and Bianco Santa Caterina travertine.
Unlacquered brass rods, designed to mimic Cult Gaia’s jewellery, drop from behind ceiling coves to display garments and custom amorphous mirrors by New Vernacular Studio hang on the walls.
BoND’s PatBo Miami boutique features soft curves and floral touches
On both sides of the central axis, sandstone blocks are stacked into vertical checkerboard grids that allows accessories to be displayed in the gaps.
These partitions enclose the fitting rooms, which can be illuminated from within so that light glows through a translucent membrane and the grid holes.
“Designed to reference rock-cut cave temples, the structures provide privacy while also allowing merchandise to be displayed within their illuminated niches,” said the team.
In the second space is a banyan tree that grows from a pale-green sofaA second space identical to the first is reached past the threshold created by the fitting rooms, and a bar is hidden beyond a brass door on the far wall.
Over each of the two main rooms presides a domed ceiling and a seven-foot-wide oculus, based on the roof of the Pantheon in Rome.
Brass rods drop from behind ceiling coves to display garments and custom amorphous mirrors hang on the wallBelow the first is a 12-foot-tall concrete sculpture of the Greek goddess Gaia – after whom the brand is named – by Larian Hekmat’s mother, artist Angela Larian.
“An elongated, Giacometti-like female nude that soars toward the heavens, the work is a foil to the nymphs from the facade and her angularity is intentional: like the brand, this is a fully composed, confident, and in control Gaia,” said the team.
The banyan tree also sits below a domed ceiling and oculus, which are based on the roof of the Pantheon in RomeIn the second room, a large banyan tree reminiscent of the facade decoration is planted within a serpentine sofa designed by Brandi Howe.
“Like the sacred tree from Buddhism, it invites visitors to sit and achieve their own awakening within this temple of fashion,” the team added.
Sandstone blocks are stacked around the fitting rooms, which glow from within, and are used to display accessoriesMiami Design District is home to a host of luxury fashion brands, which have each taken a unique approach to designing their stores both inside and out.
Brazilian brand PatBo recently opened a flagship in the neighbourhood with a pink slatted facade by BoND, while Kengo Kuma and Associates is set to create a sculptural block of buildings nearby that will also serve as retail locations.
The photography is by Kris Tamburello.
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New York studio BoND has created a “feminine, organic” interior for Brazilian brand PatBo’s store in Miami Design District, complete with a dramatic sweeping staircase.
The two-level retail space was designed by BoND following the studio’s work on the PatBo headquarters in Manhattan, which opened last year.
The ground floor space at PatBo’s Miami store features tall ceilings, terrazzo flooring and sculptural displaysThe team took a similarly soft, feminine approach in the Miami flagship, pairing white and pale pink with rich woods and brass accents.
“The new store is an artful and site-specific reinterpretation of the feminine, organic aesthetic that is synonymous with the brand’s stores in Brazil,” said BoND.
A ribbon-like balustrade follows the staircase up through the store, circling oversized silk flowers by Hana FormEntering under a dramatic arched canopy, customers find themselves within a tall, bright space featuring terrazzo flooring, geometric wooden display plinths and brass rails.
Hints of green marble can be spied in custom furniture pieces, as well as the stair treads and risers hidden behind a solid, ribbon-like guardrail.
An arched opening leads through to bright coral-coloured fitting roomsAn arched opening beside the register leads into a bright, coral-coloured changing area, where terracotta tiles cover the floor.
The staircase glides up the curved back wall of the store, and rises through a gap in the upper floor plate, around which the balustrade circles back on itself.
Darker woods and carpet create a more intimate atmosphere on the upper level”A winding white and green marble staircase serves as a focal point of the space connecting visitors to the second-floor salon and dressing area,” said the studio.
Curved wood panels and caramel-coloured carpet provide a more intimate atmosphere upstairs, exaggerated by the lower ceiling height.
The warmly lit fitting rooms on the upper level are lined with curved wood panelsThe brass railings continue, whereas the coral fitting rooms are swapped for wood-lined chambers with curved corners and warm lighting.
“An overarching geometry of soft curves is a running thread that ties all spaces together,” the studio said.
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Furniture pieces including Frank Gehry’s Wiggle chair, a green marble coffee table and a curved grey sofa form a seating area for customers to relax while they shop.
Overhead are a pair of oversized silk flowers by artist Hana Form, which also appear on the ground floor suspended through the staircase void.
Green marble appears behind the facade, as well as on the staircase and custom furniture insideBoND also created a facade of pale pink wooden slats to help the building to stand out in the Miami Design District, where brands are encouraged to get creative with their frontages.
A Louis Vuitton store wrapped in a diamond-patterned facade by Marcel Wanders and a Kengo Kuma-designed block of sculptural buildings are among other examples.
BoND wrapped the store exterior in pale pink wood slats to help it stand out in the Miami Design DistrictBoND was founded by Noam Dvir and Daniel Rauchwerger, whose studio has also completed a bold yellow scheme for a men’s apparel store in New York.
The firm’s other projects include the renovation of a mid-century Sears Catalog kit house in Fire Island Pines and a Manhattan hair salon featuring wooden frames and moveable styling stations.
The photography is by Studio Pyg.
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Fashion brand Diesel has debuted a retail design concept at its store in the Miami Design District, featuring raw metal surfaces and a red lacquered spiral staircase.
Designed under the creative direction of Glenn Martens, who joined the brand in 2020, the industrial-style store is intended to reflect “the brand’s signature bold attitude”.
Diesel’s new store in Miami Design District debuts an industrial-style retail concept”Envisioned as a fresh, powerful expression of Diesel’s design edge and identity, the store is anchored by a glass facade framed in signature Diesel red with the brand’s red-and-white Biscotto logo,” said the design team.
Red was also applied selectively to interior elements, including a statement spiral staircase and a wall behind at the back of the store.
The store’s focal point is a red lacquered-metal spiral staircaseThe helical lacquered-metal form has solid balustrades and steps with a diamond-plate texture for added grip.
It leads up to a second level where another red wall with floating shelves is used for product displays.
The staircase has solid balustrades and steps with diamond-plate texture for added gripAcross the two floors, the 1,900-square-foot (177-square-metre) store presents the full Diesel collection.
Bags, shoes, accessories and fragrances are presented on the lower level, while areas dedicated to denim, ready-to-wear apparel and footwear can be found upstairs.
The upper level also has a red display wall that stands out against the concrete and metallic surfacesExposed concrete floors and ceilings, and walls covered in riveted raw metal panels and mirrors create a monochromatic backdrop that allows the red elements to stand out.
“Throughout the space, minimalist red leather couches and streamlined silver fixtures create a strong sense of structure with a touch of softness,” said the team.
Space-age design informs Nodaleto shoe store by Rafael de Cárdenas
Vitrines for displaying accessories on the ground floor sit atop crinkled metal bases, though the sales counter opposite is flat and sleek.
Both levels have floor-to-ceiling glass across the street facade, and at night, fluorescent lighting throughout the store gives off a harsh white glow.
The ground floor features vitrines atop crinkled metal basesFollowing the Miami store unveiling, the interior concept will be rolled out to global Diesel locations.
The brand was founded in 1978 by Italian entrepreneur Renzo Rosso, who still serves as its president.
The Diesel store joins many luxury fashion brands in Miami Design DistrictMiami Design District is home to the stores of many luxury fashion labels, each of which has exterior and interior treatments designed to reflect its distinct brand identity.
Other examples include Louis Vuitton’s menswear space, which Dutch studio Marcel Wanders wrapped in a patterned facade informed by the brand’s monogram, and a Christian Louboutin boutique that’s covered in tree bark.
The photography is courtesy of Diesel.
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French shoe brand Nodaleto has chosen Miami as the location of its first US store, which New York studio Rafael de Cárdenas designed with sci-fi-influenced red and chrome interiors.
The shop opened in Miami Design District during the city’s art week earlier this month, starting a two-year lease in the 1,000-square-metre space (10,764 feet).
Sculptural red seats run through the middle of the Nodaleto storeRafael de Cárdenas based the interior on mid-century French design, as a homage to the influence this movement had on sets created for sci-fi movies.
The studio also linked the shape of Nodaleto’s signature heels to chairs featured in Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The interiors pay homage to midcentury French design and space-age movie sets”The design, driven by the concept of ‘hyper-modern hospitality’, explores shapes and materials that echo the feel of a space station as well as an idea of a glamorous future,” said the Rafael de Cárdenas team.
“In many ways, midcentury French design defined the frontier of space as much as NASA; the interior reflects that.”
Shoes are displayed on white shelves in front of brushed chrome panelsSci-fi references can be seen across the store, which is fully carpeted in bright red and features brushed chrome panels divided by thin light strips along its walls.
“In cinematographic style, a warm satin velvet floor meets cold steel shelves,” the studio said. “The store space – in line with brand’s creative tone – strives to induce the experience of contemporary luxury.”
The shape of Nodaleto’s signature heel reminded Rafael de Cárdenas of the seats in 2001: A Space OdysseyShoe displays run the length of the narrow space, with white shelves suspended in front of the metallic panels.
Through the middle are a series of sculptural, undulating modular seats for shoppers to sit and try on the footwear.
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A large red volume right at the centre is emblazoned with the brand’s backlit logo, as well as three pairs of white mannequin legs that emerge from the vertical surface.
“The store serves as a moldable creative field for the brand and strives to offer an intimate immersion into Nodaleto’s mischievous personality,” said the studio.
White mannequin legs emerge from a wall under the Nodaleto logoRafael de Cárdenas was shortlisted for interior design studio of the year at the Dezeen Awards 2022. Named after its founder, the studio’s previous projects include a bar inside New York’s Nordstrom department store and the Manhattan offices of beauty brand Glossier.
Miami Design District is home to the stores of many luxury brands, with architecture and interiors by internationally renowned studios, including Louis Vuitton’s menswear store wrapped in a diamond-patterned facade by Marcel Wanders.
The brand’s first US store is located in Miami Design DistrictThe city, seen by some as the capital of Latin America, received an influx of creative talent during the Covid-19 pandemic and continues to grow as a cultural destination.
“Nodaleto chooses Miami because it’s a crossroad of cultures, a city permanently kissed by the sun, a hub for arts and design, because of its daring nerve and unapologetic energy,” said the studio.
Also during this year’s Miami Art Week, Kelly Wearstler debuted a collection of knotted marble furniture and Nike showcased hundreds of Virgil Abloh-designed sneakers.
The photography is by Kris Tamburello.
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Artist Sarah Coleman has added a psychedelic twist to Fendi’s distinctive double-F logo for a pop-up cafe she designed for the brand in the Miami Design District.
Stylised as the Fendi Caffe, the cafe designed for the Italian fashion house was located on the outdoor corridor of OTL restaurant in the heart of Miami’s Design District from May to early July.
Coleman manipulated the traditional Fendi logoThe cafe was informed by the brand’s Summer Vertigo capsule collection, which New York artist Sarah Coleman designed in collaboration with Fendi’s creative director Silvia Venturini Fendi.
Defined by yellow and blue tones, the ready-to-wear collection features 90s streetwear references as well as shapes borrowed from 70s psychedelia.
The entrance to the cafe was on an outdoor corridorCentral to the cafe’s bold design was FF Vertigo, Fendi’s iconic FF logo that Coleman and Venturini Fendi warped for the capsule collection and repeated throughout the cafe in a series of bold colours.
The artist explained the influences that prompted her to explore the 70s in her design process.
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“When I first began brainstorming, I went straight to my bookshelf and dove into everything I have about the 1970s, a period of spontaneity and extreme self-expression,” Coleman told Dezeen.
“I think the 70s are the greatest fashion era of the 20th century. The spirit of disco, the flowing post-psychedelic art,” she added. “There were so many inspiring aesthetic references to draw upon.”
FF Vertigo was repeated throughout the spaceVisitors to the cafe were greeted with an expanse of bright yellow canopy that contrasted with green potted plants lining the permanent Fendi boutique that is located opposite the pop-up’s site.
FF Vertigo featured as a bold motif throughout, topping the space’s various tables and barstools while more abstract swirly shapes tumbled over the cafe’s yellow walls.
A permanent Fendi boutique is opposite where the pop-up wasOrb-style pendant lights and menus also included FF Vertigo in their design, while a more traditional version of the Fendi logo featured on the cafe’s edible items such as cappuccinos and toast.
Fendi is a luxury fashion house founded in 1925 by Adele and Edoardo Fendi.
Other previous projects by the brand that are informed by the past include a travelling installation for an edition of Design Miami featuring pastel 50s furniture.
The images are courtesy of Fendi.
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Fashion designer Virgil Abloh and AMO director Samir Bantal have designed the Off-White flagship store in Miami Design District to be a fulfilment centre and a multipurpose events space. Abloh, who owns the brand Off-White, and Bantal, director of architecture firm OMA’s research arm AMO, designed the store to rethink how physical shops should operate amid the growing popularity of digital shopping.
“We’re niche entities, AMO, Off-White, Samir and myself, so we’re able to sort of wear our heart on our sleeve or our brain on our sleeve,” Abloh told Dezeen. “The first slide that Samir sent for the development was like, is shopping relevant?”
“If we’re able to kind of fulfil our needs by ordering a lot of things online, what’s the role of a physical store?,” Bantal added.
The idea is that the store is flexible, according to Abloh, who citied the annual Art Basel and Design Miami events that take place in Miami as examples of when it could be used to host a variety of activities, like art and music events, and talks.
“There might be 1,000 people, you know, in key moments of that year where the shop can host a runway show, it can host a talk, it can host a cafe,” Abloh said.
“It’ll be a cafe that extends out into the street, it’ll be what the environment needs it to be rather than the betting on, hey, this square footage needs to be used for retail 24 seven,” he added.
“Who knows, by the time it opens I might turn it into like an Uber delivery of Off-White – that’s the freedom and the fun.”
In response, the store is stripped back to only provide storage space for apparel on sale so it could easily be used for a variety of activities and cultural events.
“We played with the idea of translating the store into a fulfilment center,” Bantal explained. “Fulfillment of not only the monetary transaction you do by buying a product, but also fulfilment in terms of like the engagement you have with a brand, or the aura of a brand.”
“This, of course, being in Miami Design District led to the idea of creating a space that is adjustable and transformable over time,” Bantal continued. “We should be able to kind of compress the retail parts to almost like a storage element in the store, and open the store to a kind of variety of cultural events.”
Located at 127 NE 41 Street, the two-storey store is fronted with an opaque polycarbonate wall on the ground floor that can be pushed back, squeezing the storage of the apparel to the rear and opening the front to the street.
“You almost push everything that is retail and compress it in the space behind and then of course, ultimately it ends up in storage,” said Bantal. “While the space in front of that facade is completely open and free and can be used for any function.”
Above the moveable wall is the word Shop with a red cross in front – a tongue-in-cheek nod to the concept behind the project.
“This is the first Off White store to have a facade you know, that street level so the expression, the signage, you know, as the words Shop is a shop, but then has like, an X through the middle, and it’s very, like monolithic,” said Abloh. “The face of the concept is expressed on the facade.”
Inside, the team aimed to continue to the theme of the fulfilment centre through a stripped-back industrial aesthetic – including floors rendered in lightly stained concrete, walls lined in corrugated metal and mesh ceiling panels.
Off-White apparel will be displayed on either stainless steel shelving or black marquina and white Carrara marble rails. All the furniture is placed on wheels or is collapsible so it can be moved about to accommodate events.
The pared-back style acts as a backdrop to a series of artworks that will be installed in the store and the bold electric blue stair that leads to the first floor. On this level, the brand intends to host more intimate events like dinner parties.
Abloh, who is also the artistic director of Louis Vuitton’s menswear collection, founded his Off-White brand as a ready-to-wear streetwear label in 2012. He previously teamed up with Bantal to design Figures of Speech, a retrospective exhibition of his career at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA).
The store joins a number of fashion flagships in Miami Design District, which Craig Robins transformed from a formerly neglected area into the hub for design boutiques, luxury fashion brands and art galleries.
Others include Joseph, which London firm Sybarite design with a spiral black staircase, Christian Louboutin, which is covered in tree bark, Dior, which has a boutique sheathed in curved white concrete panels, and Tom Ford, which is housed in a pleated concrete shop designed by ArandaLasch.
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London studio Sybarite has designed a store for fashion label Joseph in the Miami Design District to include round balconies, curved railings spiral stairs as a reference to the city’s seaside architecture. A black metal corkscrew staircase is among the details that takes cues from Miami’s seaside architecture dating back to the 1940s and 50s.
Featuring contrasting white polished-marble stair treads, it twists through a circular opening to lead from womenswear on the ground floor to menswear and accessories on the first floor.
Smoked-black glass wraps around the opening with a curved black balustrade adding to the decorative motifs. Sybarite said other details include the irregular wall cutouts that form windows.
Marking the fashion label’s largest store to date, the 243-square-metre Miami Design District space is among a number the British studio has designed for the fashion label.
In each, Sybarite follows the theme of opposites common in Joseph apparel with contrasting tones of black and white, and harsh and soft materials.
“Our designs for Joseph are based on opposites and the unexpected to provide a complete brand experience for the customer,” said Sybarite co-founder Simon Mitchell.
White-painted walls and concrete floors are a backdrop to black metalwork fitted with LED lighting that forms frames around clothing rails and extends up in an angular form to meet the ceiling.
Plinths for bags and shoes made from oriented-strand board (OSB), brass and Corian are arranged in groups on an area of the ground floor marked by a brass grid embedded in the concrete floor.
Tree bark covers Christian Louboutin boutique in Miami Design District
A pop of colour is provided by the till desk made of Italian green marble, following on from a recurring concept in Jospeph stores in which a different marble from around the world is used.
Sybarite has also used geometric shapes of softer carpeting, as and rich shearlings and velvet upholstery in the changing rooms, to add a more cosy elements.
The studio completed the Joseph store in 2018 making the latest addition to the Miami Design District, which property developer Craig Robins transformed from a formerly neglected area into the hub for design boutiques, luxury fashion brands and art galleries.
Other fashion brands that have opened up architecturally interesting shops in the area include Christian Louboutin, which has a flagship store covered in tree bark, Dior, which has a boutique sheathed in curved white concrete panels, and Tom Ford, which is housed in a pleated concrete shop designed by ArandaLasch.
Founded in 2002, Sybarite has completed a number of retail and hospitality interiors, including shops for fashion houses Alberta Ferretti and Marni.
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