12.18.2017a bi-weekly e-newsletter from the University of Miami School of Architecturealumni storiesMiami-based, PlusUrbia Design, comprised almost entirely of U-SOA Alums, is HonoredPlusUrbia, an “extended University of Miami School of Architecture studio” has enjoyed an historic year. Juan Mullerat and Megan McLaughlin – Directors of PlusUrbia Design and U-SoA professor team teaching a studio on resiliency and transportation solutions – have led their Miami-based urban design studio to multiple major awards this year. They have also lectured on Resiliency, Transit Oriented Development and Complete Districts while leading several major, context-sensitive master planning efforts. PlusUrbia Design, an urban and architectural design atelier, features U-SoA graduates Maria Bendfeldt, Manuel de Lemos, Bo Li, Sofia Villanueva, Mullerat and McLaughlin on its design team. Recent highlights of the Miami-based studio include:The American Planning Association (APA) 2017 National Economic Development Plan Award, for the Wynwood Neighborhood Revitalization Plan.The APA 2017 Florida Award of Merit for the Hialeah Transit Oriented Development.The Dade Heritage Trust 2017 Annual Preservation Award for preservation and master plan work in Little Havana.A Coconut Grove Master Plan for its Business Improvement District.Little Havana Me Importa, a master plan.The Miami-Dade County SMART Plan, ongoing Rapid Transit Urban Design and Land Use Planning.Resiliency and Adaptation in Existing Urban Cores – presentation at Florida APA conference.Transit Oriented Development – lecture, Miami-Dade Beacon Council.Complete Districts and TOD – speaker, South Florida Regional Transportation Authority.PlusUrbia, honored by the City of Miami and Miami-Dade County for its community-based work, is actively working with a broad base of leaders in San Juan to help with the rebuilding and restoration of Puerto Rico. Follow news of this initiative at www.plusurbia.com/blog. We congratulate our U-SoA Team @ PlusUrbia, for this well-deserved recognition.
Juan Mullerat and Megan McLaughlin are teaching a studio to introduce architecture students to urban design at the University of Miami School of Architecture this semester. While it is not their first time teaching at UM, it is a first teaching a studio that centers around resilience and transportation solutions in Miami, more specifically on the re-emerging Little River neighborhood in Northeast Miami. Juan and Megan's team teaching effort in helping to prepare future architects to find solutions to the imminent problems Miami faces matches their commitment to community shown continuously through their firm's projects.
East-West CorridorStudy Advisory Committee MeetingWe are looking forward to being a part of the team envisioning the new era of transportation for Miami-Dade County.For more information:http://mdtpo.org/smartplan-land-use-planning-visioning.asp
Thank you to the 50+ community members who shared their vision for Coconut Grove’s future at the workshop PlusUrbia Design hosted with the Coconut Grove BID and Perkins+Will on Saturday, July 29th.We were excited to hear all the different ideas to improve the neighborhood from Coconut Grove residents, old and new. Our design team is working on mapping the big ideas shared at the workshop to make a map of the study area.For additional information, please visit grovevision.plusurbia.com If you did not get a chance to attend, please complete this survey to share your views on Coconut Grove and your vision for its future.
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PlusUrbia’s Juan Mullerat presented “Complete Districts – a New Placemaking Practice” to the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority’s Planning Technical Advisory Committee. SFRTA is the agency that operates Tri-Rail.The concept focuses on a network of clean, safe, but unique streets that together create a Complete District. Simply put, cities are a balance between public and private land, entities, enterprises and services. This balance is symbiotic where all elements are part of a system and they depend on each other to function. It is only when all are well-tuned and calibrated that they make great places.The concept of Complete Districts creates this balanced equation by taking a holistic approach that couples the public with the private realms. It was conceived and formulated by PlusUrbia Design’s team while working through workshops and design exercises for a number of Transit Oriented Developments (TOD) and award-winning District Revitalization projects that created compact, mixed-use, vibrant districts.For more information on Complete Districts, please visit: https://plusurbia.com/project/complete-districts/
Juan Mullerat participated in a live radio show about Creativity in the Public Realm on Fresh Art International. The show explored Miami’s Public Space Challenge, an annual grant opportunity that invites residents to propose creative projects for public spaces in their neighborhoods. You’ll hear how art installations, architectural interventions, and inventive public performance projects can transform a parking space, a building, a park, and more!In the studio: The Miami Foundation’s Stuart Kennedy, Principal of Plusurbia Design Juan Mullerat, Buskerfest Miami founders Amy C. San Pedro and Justin Trieger. Call-in: NEWT co-founder, Dejha Carrington.Listen to the interview below:Link to radio interview on Fresh Art International: http://www.freshartinternational.com/2017/03/22/live-radio-creativity-public-realm/
Plusurbia with residents of the Municipality of Cataño and Mayor Félix Delgado in Puerto Rico in their revitalization efforts.
The historic Village of El Portal adopted a visual and user-friendly zoning document known as a form-based code. Created by Miami’s PlusUrbia Design, the code will preserve El Portal’s picturesque residential enclave while creating room for economic development on land annexed to the Village. The development site, east of the FEC railroad tracks near Biscayne Boulevard, is slated for properly-scaled mixed-use development that will create jobs, services and tax base.The Village Council voted unanimously to approve the form-based code. PlusUrbia, which also serves as the Village’s consultant planning and zoning department, translated the vision created by the Village during its 2013 Charrette into a predictable code. The new code takes a holistic and contextual approach toward zoning in the village of 2,300.Major investors are considering development plans for the 12-acre site on the eastern edge of the Village that is a former trailer park. PlusUrbia’s code will ensure that the major development does not encroach on the single family residential portion of the village. That leafy enclave has long been sought after for its tranquility and small town character.PlusUrbia will improve the Village by creating standards that will make the NE 2nd Avenue corridor more walkable with incremental mixed-use redevelopment. The top priority is to encourage moderate growth while protecting the peaceful residential neighborhoods on either side of the corridor. For more information, please visit: https://plusurbia.com/project/village-of-el-portal/
PlusUrbia Design is proud to contribute transportation & mobility policy strategies to Active Design Miami.From Miami Today: Below, the cover and Plusurbia's contribution to the Active Design Miami book.
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Plusurbia hopes to complete a final draft of the master plan by JulyMarch 14, 2017 12:45PMBy Francisco AlvaradoAs new development creeps into Little Havana, a master plan is in the works aimed at preserving the historic character and the pre-World War II architecture in Miami’s most famous neighborhood.On Saturday morning, more than 100 residents and merchants participated in a community workshop at Miami Senior High School to formulate big picture ideas for the master plan, which is being developed by urban planning firm Plusurbia Design in conjunction with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Dade Heritage Trust and Live Healthy Little Havana.A majority of the participants reached consensus on restoring and reusing historic buildings, ensuring new construction is contextual and compatible with Little Havana, creating more affordable housing, community and cultural centers and making the neighborhood more pedestrian and bicycle-friendly.“At the end of the morning, we asked each table to give us their big ideas,” Megan McLaughlin, the project planning leader for Plusurbia, said. “We are going to use those to guide our reports and our suggestions to the city.”Plusurbia hopes to complete a final draft of the master plan by July, McLaughlin said. “We would present it to the city for them to consider,” she said. “The goal is to come up with heights, density, setbacks and floor lot ratios that matches what is there and is respectful of what is there.”More than a year ago, the national trust began efforts to designate Little Havana a national treasure, an honor that was officially bestowed in late January, McLaughlin said. At the time the designation was made, Live Healthy Little Havana awarded grants for the Plusurbia master plan and a streets plan being developed by Urban Health Partnerships. “The grant allows us to look at what zoning could be that is compatible with the existing neighborhood and allows healthy new development,” she said.Little Havana’s proximity to the urban core is making the neighborhood an attractive alternative for investors and developers, many buoyed by Greystar’s $89 million purchase late last year of the InTown apartment complex developed by Astor Companies. Nearby, a company controlled by Ana V. and Pedro O. Rodriguez has been approved to build a 12-story, 96-unit residential building at 45 Southwest Eighth Avenue that will also include 44,525 square feet of commercial space, 311 parking spaces and 15 bicycle parking spaces.During the workshop, PlusUrbia founder and director Juan Mullerat told attendees Little Havana hasn’t experienced the level of real estate development seen in Brickell, Edgewater and Wynwood because of the city’s zoning code, Miami 21.“Unfortunately, it has not led to much improvement in Little Havana,” Mullerat said. “We haven’t seen much investment in Little Havana, yet it is the second most dense neighborhood in Miami-Dade County.”The master plan would strike a balance between encouraging new development while giving property owners and developers incentives to preserve and renovate Little Havana’s signature three-story apartment buildings from the 1920s. “They are very unique,” Mulleret said. “You can’t find them anywhere else.”Lee Hernandez, a Little Havana homeowner since 1977, said the neighborhood needs an infusion of urbanism from Flagler Street to Northwest Fifth Street, between Northwest Fifth Avenue and Northwest 12th Avenue. “That area needs to be revitalized,” she said. “We need more greenery, we need more open spaces, and we need more places where people feel safe.”Hernandez said she would welcome rational development in Little Havana. “Developers are investing slowly, but surely,” she said. “I would like to see urbanization with consciousness. We don’t want skyscrapers. We need to keep the flavor.” Link to article: The Real DealMore information about the workshop: Little Havana Me Importa
Thank you to the 100+ community members who shared the vision for Little Havana's future at the workshop PlusUrbia Design hosted with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Dade Heritage Trust, and Live Healthy Little Havana. We were gratified to get the input of Little Havana residents -- including senior citizens, families and young people -- as well as business owners, activists and city officials. Our design team is working on the input, mapping big ideas shared at the workshop to a map of the study area.Thanks again to all the volunteers and stakeholders who filled the library at historic Miami Senior High School Saturday March 11.
Certified Planner Will Serve Public and Private Sector Clients on Key ProjectsVeteran urban planner Megan McLaughlin, AICP, has joined PlusUrbia Design as its Planning Leader. She has extensive public and private sector experience in city planning and historic preservation. “The focus of my career has been to promote memorable places and historical resources as catalysts for revitalization. This experience gives me a unique ability to leverage contextual urban design and preservation as economic development tools for cities,” McLaughlin said.McLaughlin's professional experience as the City Planner for the City of Coral Gables, the Preservation Officer for the City of Miami, and as a planning consultant for cities and towns across the United States have put her in a strong position to oversee PlusUrbia's growing role as a leader in municipal planning as well as the firm's increasing Caribbean, Latin and Central American client portfolio.In keeping with PlusUrbia’s strong dedication to giving back to the community, McLaughlin will continue her civic involvement as a Board Member of Dade Heritage Trust and as a member of the Transportation Aesthetics Review Committee of the Miami-Dade MPO. Previously, she served as an Executive Board Member of the National Alliance of Preservation Commissions. “Megan’s addition is part of PlusUrbia’s strategic growth plan to provide high-quality contextual design to both private and public sector clients,” said Juan Mullerat, PlusUrbia’s founder and director. “We look forward to her collaborative approach to urban design and her expertise on comprehensive solutions for historic preservation, urban infill and neighborhood revitalization.”
