Florida International University
Envisioning Life on the Edge
On
November 6 -8 2018, Landscape Forms, North America's
leading designer and manufacturer of high-design site furniture and advanced LED lighting, sponsored its tenth
Xtreme Landscape Architecture (XTLA) challenge at Miami Beach
Urban Studios (MBUS), the innovation hub on Lincoln Road of Florida International University's CARTA.
As in previous Xtreme LA events, the challenge for this
fast-paced charrette focused on an issue in landscape and the
built environment critical to the local community. XTLA 2018 was funded by Landscape Forms and co-hosted by
Kirt Martin, Landscape Forms Vice President of Design and Marketing;
David Rifkind, Chair, Department of Landscape Architecture at the College of Communications, Architecture + The
Arts, FIU; and Barbara Deutsch, Executive Director of the
Landscape Architecture Foundation.
The
Challenge
The focus of the fast-paced charrette was the design of resilient landscape solutions for a culturally,
architecturally and economically significant part of Miami
Beach. While a much smaller area of interest was considered in early planning, the project was expanded to
encompass a site bounded by the intersection of Washington
Avenue, a central north/south artery between the ocean and the city, and Lincoln Road, an east/west
connector between beach and bay, and extending two full city blocks
down Lincoln to the beachfront.
We asked our participants to:
- Design a resilient landscape with the capacity to respond to both immediate and incremental effects of
extreme weather events
- Develop a culturally-inclusive plan that creates a sense of place, draws on the distinctive qualities
of the neighborhood, and provides
resiliency for the immediate area as longer-term municipal strategies are developed and implemented
-
Propose concepts for innovative site furniture elements that can withstand and adapt to extreme climate
conditions and weather events
-
Offer educational opportunities to expand public understanding of extreme weather and resilient
response.
The 36-hour event, designed to foster
creative thinking, team building, and facility of
expression, brought fresh thinking to an issue of critical importance to the local community. Fifteen young
design professionals identified by their firms as
potential leaders and sixteen students from FIU’s landscape architecture graduate program worked in two teams
under the mentorship of two distinguished landscape
architects: Roberto Rovira, Principal of Studio Roberto Rovira, and Associate Professor in the Department of
Landscape Architecture + Environmental and Urban Design
at FIU; and Richard Hindle, ASLA, Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning at
the University of California, Berkeley.