JAIME CORREA
and Associates
NEW MIAMI PALM TREES
Team: Jaime Correa
The current anti-gravity “Raise or Raze” discourse only serves to exacerbate the ecological problems associated with climate change and, as a consequence, further increase the conditions that have caused sea-level-rise in the first place. Now that we know that the building industry is one of the main causes of climate change, both the “raising” and “razing” of existing buildings/infrastructure will only contribute to problems of a larger scale. This project takes the anti-gravity discourse to its extreme by elevating five complete city blocks 375 feet up on the air while providing an array of shared civic functions at the base of the structures.
Inspired by the regional landscape of South Florida, these five 375 feet high structures are designed as metaphors of the type of palm tree adorning every vernacular image of Florida. This is a monumental project at the scale of the Chicago Tribune column by Adolf Loos; and, in the same manner, its classical composition structure has a base, a shaft, and a head. The base holds public functions; the metallic structure in the middle is the container of a vertical circulation shaft and a public observation deck; the head includes a neighborhood center, a small convenience store, and housing of various dimensions.
The project is not a pseudo-futurist intervention but a rationalist undertaking for the reconstruction of the city. These small Palm Tree Skyscrapers are embedded in a historic time in which the transformation of the city is more relevant than the project for its own expansion. As a fictional project, they provide a sharp device to examine our current urban reality; the visual and narrative forms of the project are not only a rich source of inspiration but also a key to redefine a revolutionary project for the New American City




