The developers and builders behind Miami’s biggest mixed-use complex, the nearly complete, $1-billion-plus Brickell City Centre, have designed and engineered the project’s unconventional signature feature to provide a light aesthetic and environmental touch. Winding around and adorning the district’s elevated, open-air retail component, the so-called Climate Ribbon architectural element weaves a 150,000-sq-ft trail of tilting, fabric-wrapped steel blades underneath a fritted glazing system as it meanders around and throughout the urban center.
Installing the Climate Ribbon posed the project’s biggest challenge, says John Leete, executive vice president of John Moriarty & Associates. His company is half of the joint venture guiding the project. Leete describes this “green” ribbon as “an undulation of glass” that also at times “almost looks like a pyramid.” Tying together the development’s three main high-rise, mixed-use structures, or “blocks,” at the retail level, the Climate Ribbon is not just a pretty bow on top of the 5.4-million-sq-ft collection of buildings. It is a working machine that’s engineered to harness the wind and rain while at the same time managing the South Florida sun in such a way as to keep the open-air shopping environment comfortable.