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Berenblum Busch Architects Designs The New Puerto Rican Chamber of Commerce

Berenblum Busch Architects is designing the new Puerto Rican Chamber of Commerce and County Office Building in Wynwood.  Developed by Moishe Mana, construction of the three-story, 35,410-square-foot building at 2900 NW Fifth Ave will begin this fall.
According to the firm’s Founding Principal Gustavo Berenblum, the building will include a ground floor café, retail and meeting spaces, and 6,800 square feet of ground-floor parking. The second floor will host offices for the chamber and county. The third floor will have additional offices as well as a 6,800-square-foot terrace facing south toward 29th Street.
The design of the building draws inspiration from Wynwood’s industrial nature, the mostly one-story warehouses that define the neighborhood’s character, along with the popular murals that have become a tourist destination.
Claudia Busch, BBA’s Founding Principal,  said “It’s an opportunity for the Puerto Rican community to have a place of its own. You already have many Puerto Rican institutions that are there contributing to the health of the local economy there.”
Construction is slated to begin in September. The chamber, currently at 3550 Biscayne Blvd., is expected to relocate by November 2021.
Developer Mana added  that the Wynwood neighborhood was one of the first areas settled by Puerto Rican immigrants who moved to Miami in the 1950s. “It’s important to have the chamber in Wynwood because we don’t want to lose this part of the community,” he said. “We want to keep the culture.”
For more information visit Miami Herald.

CHOEFF LEVY FISCHMAN TROPICAL MODERN STUNNER FEATURED ON DEXIGNER

Our client, Choeff Levy Fischman, designed a recently completed two-story home on Miami Beach’s exclusive Palm Island. The residence leaves you in awe the moment you step onto its lavish motor court as many of their homes do. However, this one boasts a colossal cascading water feature and a British-made automobile rotating turntable – one of two found in Miami. The private driveway also includes an outdoor stairway and a three-car garage with lift capacity concealed by rich Timura wood. The home’s exterior façade also features gray limestone to create a warmer aesthetic.
Designed in the architect’s famed Tropical Modern style, this abode provides large living spaces in an open-concept format. The residence’s first floor features a seamless transition from room to room with large living spaces in an open-concept format. It includes floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors that open up to the rear deck, blending the indoors with the outdoors. A custom Italian-made wall panel conceals a built-in television and grand wood louvers subtly denote the living room entrance.
A focal point of the home’s interior is a stunning 460 square foot open-air atrium with floating concrete steps that take you across a shallow pool of water. Additional soul-soothing reflecting ponds and cascading water features are spread throughout the property on all four sides of the residence to emphasize its waterfront location.
The master suite boasts a midnight kitchen, a sitting lounge, and a fireplace. Two spacious bathrooms feature exotic floor-to-ceiling marble, and each comes with a seamless glass zero-edge spa shower with steam and scent ventilation. One of the master suite bathrooms also includes a bespoke vanity and a standalone floating Boffi tub.
The home’s second level also includes an atrium-facing pajama lounge where the family can relax in a private setting away from the traffic of the ground level.
For more information, visit Dexigner.

Rap Star Lil Wayne Buys Choeff Levy Fischman Design for $17M

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One of Choeff Levy Fischman’s Tropical Modern luxury homes has caught the attention of another celebrity seeking an indoor-outdoor lifestyle. Lil Wayne recently purchased an Allison Island residence for almost $17 million. The Grammy Award-winning rapper is privy to Choeff Levy Fischman’s designs. His previous waterfront residence on La Gorce Circle was also designed by the award-winning architects.

The rapper’s new home sits right in the middle of the waterway leading to Biscayne Bay and the ocean. It features an atrium, living walls, and numerous water features.

The entire design for this home is to make it feel as though it is floating on water.
It begins with the pond that feels like a moat you have to cross to get to the front door—across slab steps that appear to rise up from the blue depths—and once indoors the moveable walls make it hard to tell where the outdoors starts and the indoors end. The seven-bedroom, ten-bathroom house, which sold for $16.75 million, is 10,472 square feet with 110 feet of water frontage. The picture above is a close up of the backyard to orient you into the ways of the floating concept the architect was going for.

To read more details on the home and see photos, read Forbes most recent feature here.

Choeff Levy Fischman is featured on PROFILE Miami

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Award-winning architecture and design firm Choeff Levy Fischman has completed another home on Miami Beach’s star-studded North Bay Road. The highly sought-after architects known for designing ultra-luxury single-family residences for the rich and famous have created a residential oasis for the ultimate indoor-outdoor living experience. The fully-furnished manse is on the market for $32M.

Miami Beach’s newest mega-mansion has been unveiled by EWM Realty International top-producer and Senior Vice President Nelson Gonzalez and designed by Choeff Levy Fischman, offering the ultimate in waterfront living and year-round entertainment.

“This is one of the most notable residences to enter Miami Beach’s prime real estate market,” said Gonzalez. “The attention to detail and expert craftsmanship within the estate is unparalleled, complemented by some of the best water views South Florida has to offer. The level of privacy and the number of high-end amenities being presented here cannot be overstated.”

Priced at $32 million, the residence comprises an eight-bedroom eight-bath main house, a four-bedroom four-bath guesthouse, and a cabana house. The ultra-luxe modern home was designed to blend the outdoors with inside with floor-to-ceiling glass sliding walls. The mansion is spread over 13,381 SF with 2,700 SF of covered outdoor space and a 3,000 SF rooftop deck which offers sweeping panoramas of Biscayne Bay and sunsets over the water.

 

To read more on this turnkey-ready home, visit PROFILE Miami’s online feature.

Stantec’s Design Expert, Jon Cardello, In INDULGE Miami Magazine

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From Miami’s urban core to the shoreline, Stantec’s Jon Cardello has helped reshape the South Florida skyline with many high-profile development projects. Drawing from over 20 years of planning and design expertise, Jon organizes building forms, building uses, and sustainable design techniques to create dynamic, multi-faceted spaces, which promote enjoyment, wellness, and productivity.

Jon Cardello develops the overall corporate strategy, business development and marketing of Stantec’s growing commercial sector practice in South Florida and throughout the U.S. Cardello’s planning and design expertise in high-profile residential, mixed-use, hospitality and workspace project spans more than 20 years. Projects include Solitair Brickell, Luma at Miami World Center, Eve at the District, Midtown 29, Midtown 8, The Ritz-Carlton Residences, Miami Beach and Atelier in Dallas. Cardello and his team have also helped to reshape the famed Collins Avenue in Miami Beach with the restoration of seven historic Art Deco hotels.

Check out the article to read his interview with INDULGE Magazine.

 

Local Architects Aim to Bring Diversity to the Industry

blog-10-15-2Over the years, the U.S. has produced few African American architects. Noticing the lack of diversity, architect and co-owner of MC Harry & Associates, Craig Aquart, launched Black Architects in the Making to introduce African American youth to the field.

CBS 4 News visited Aquart’s firm to learn more about BAM and meet the students.

Craig Aquart is a veteran architect and co-owner of M C Harry & Associates headquartered in Miami.

Even though he has dozens of projects in development, he is on a mission to spread what he calls the gospel of Architecture.

CBS4 recently visited Aquart while he and his staff hosted a group of students from the community to expose them to various career opportunities in the field.

“I did some research and found out that of the 113-thousand registered architects in the United States, less than two-thousand architects were actually black and the statistics were even worse when you look at black females. There were only 430 in the field. I realized there was a disparity there and one of the reasons for that is the awareness in the black community is severely lacking,” said Aquart.

In response, Aquart created BAM, which stands for Black Architects in the Making with the support of the Miami Center for Architecture & Design (MCAD).

For the last two years he and his staff have hosted workshops for students in Overtown, Liberty City and Richmond Heights just to name a few.

“We encourage students to sketch regularly, and like everything else practice makes perfect,” said Aquart. He advises students to at least sketch one image per day.

Aquart says BAM has reached more than 300 students in two years.

To read more, visit CBS4 here.

 

Choeff Levy Fischman Design Featured in Ocean Home Magazine

screen-shot-2018-10-08-at-1-44-40-pmChoeff Levy Fischman has designed countless of luxury Tropical Modern homes throughout South Florida and beyond. Principals Ralph Choeff, Raphael Levy, and Paul Fischman have elevated the firm’s quality of design to garner the attention of global entrepreneurs, C-suite executives, NFL players, MLB players, and Hollywood celebrities. Their designs have been recognized for combining indoor-outdoor living and environmentally conscious elements into their designs.

Most recently, the firm was recognized in Ocean Home Magazine where they were included in the magazine’s November issue for a home they designed in Miami Beach for racing legend Eddie Irvine. Ocean Home has also recognized CLF as one of the country’s Top 50 Coastal Architects for the past three years.

The former Formula 1 driver for Ferrari and Jaguar – he won four Grand Prix races in 1999 – splits his time between Europe, the Bahamas, and Florida. He’s also building houses, and very nice ones at that.

“He builds really spectacular Tropical Moderns in Miami and Miami Beach,” says landscape architect Christopher Crawley. “He has impeccable taste.”

For his newest home in Hibiscus Island in Miami Beach, Irvine approached Ralph Choeff, principal with Choeff Levy Fischman. Known for cutting-edge design, the firm has come to redefine the midcentury modern style in Florida. And they’re acknowledged masters of the Tropical Modern idiom.

To read more, visit page 53 in Ocean Home Magazine’s digital version here.

CORE Design + Build Brings Luxury Modern Architecture to the Mid-Atlantic

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Miami-based architecture firm, Choeff Levy Fischman, is taking its talents to the Mid-Atlantic with the collaboration of a new partnership with Maryland-based builder, Aaron Feivelson. The new venture, known as CORE Design + Build combines Choeff Levy Fischman’s award-winning, tailored environmental designs with Feivelson’s premier experiential home building services.

If Greater Baltimore is going to attract big money talent, the region needs to deliver on the kind of lifestyle many of those individuals look for.

For Aaron Feivelson, that lifestyle begins quite literally at home.

Feivelson has launched a new company in partnership with a Miami architecture firm to bring a new, modern style of high-end home design to the mid-Atlantic.

While the Baltimore area does have its share of luxury mansions and homes, they are overwhelmingly in the traditional style, Feivelson said. And there aren’t many examples of good modern design in the area, he said.

The firm, CORE Design + Build, specializes in an architectural style known as environmental modern, a sleek look focused on natural materials, sharp lines and open spaces. This type of home is made for a more forward-thinking client, one that is looking not only for a place to live, but a place that also serves as a work of art.

CORE is a collaboration between Feivelson, who is also president of homebuilding firm Sunfire Homes in Stevenson, and Ralph Choeff, founding principal of Choeff Levy Fischman Architecture + Design in Miami. The idea for environmental modern stems from the tropical modern style, which Choeff is well-known for.

To read the full story, visit the Baltimore Business Journal.

Choeff Levy Fischman’s Hibiscus Island Gem Featured in Private Air

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The latest issue of Private Air Magazine features a recently completed Tropical Modern home in Miami Beach designed by Choeff Levy Fischman. Located on Hibiscus Island, the residence features Brazilian Oak wood floors, Calacatta marble accents and disappearing sliding glass doors that create a seamless transition between inside and out. With this property, Choeff Levy Fischman blended cutting-edge technology with custom millwork and high-quality finishings throughout the residence.

Known for their star-studded clientele, the inventive minds behind the award-winning Miami-based architectural firm, Choeff Levy Fischman, presents their new high-end Tropical Modern residence that offers the best of indoor-outdoor living where one can enjoy waterfront living, alfresco dining, fantastic city views, and much more.

Located on exclusive Hibiscus Island in Miami Beach, Florida, this jaw-dropping, waterfront contemporary residence boasts 6,000 sq. ft. of luxury overlooking the Miami skyline, with an impressive 80 feet of waterfront with private dockage for your yacht.

Meticulously designed by renowned architects Ralph Choeff & Paul Fischman, the two-story, five-bedroom, five and a half bath estate blends cutting-edge technology and the highest quality finishings in every room. Designed with disappearing sliding glass doors, one can seamlessly transition from indoors to the lush landscaped outdoors, enjoying all the residence has to offer.

The sexy modern fully-equipped chef ’s kitchen features exotic Italian millwork, Calacatta marble, and a designated bar made of stained Italian Oak with Sub-Zero wine coolers – one for red and one for whites. Soak in the bay views, from the floating master bedroom suite outfitted with Brazilian Oak wood floors, a spa-inspired master bath with large soaking tub, marble shower, balcony, and home office with unobstructed views.

Outside a 590 square foot pool sits beneath the suspended master. Across the floating steps, adjacent to the pool, lies a shallow wet lounge where homeowners can dip their feet, play with small children, or simply enjoy the sun. Colorful Brazilian Cumaru wood, lush foliage, including a Bamboo garden, adds life and color to the residence.

In addition to the home’s stunning design, architects included several sustainable features to help protect the home against Miami’s natural elements such as an onsite rainwater retention system, insulated glazing low-energy film on windows to minimize solar heat gain, glare and reduce energy costs, high Albedo roof membrane to reduce heating and cooling usage. The south facing waterfront home was created to resist hurricane winds, storm surges, and rising sea levels. At the time of the design, the seawall’s code requirements were 4.8 NGVD. However, this residence stands at 7.26 NGVD and sits 22 to 26 feet away from the seawall, allowing for additional barriers from storms.

“This home is unique because of its pie-shaped lot and connection to the open bay. We designed the residence to maximize waterfront views, while also creating a seamless transition between the interiors and exteriors with column-free, corner opening, sliding glass doors which disappear into pockets when opened,” notes Paul Fischman, principal at Choeff Levy Fischman.

 

Choeff Levy Fischman Design Lands Tropic Magazine Cover Story

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The latest issue of Tropic Magazine features a recently completed contemporary, waterfront home minutes away from Miami Beach designed by Choeff Levy Fischman. Located on Hibiscus Island, the residence features matte limestone floors, Cumaru wood and disappearing walls of glass that create a seamless transition between inside and out. With this property, Choeff Levy Fischman achieved an environmentally inspired, waterfront oasis that takes advantage of the natural aspects of its island location.

Turn north from the bustle of the MacArthur Causeway toward Palm Island and you enter an existence that might as well be half a continent away. Instead of the high-rises and cacophony that is South Beach, you cross a bridge into a world of twin islands, Palm and Hibiscus, dredged from nothing in the 1920s. These islands soon became home to both Al Capone and Lou Walters famous Latin Quarter nightclub. Boasting of one-road-on-and-off, these delicious bits of heaven have always attracted those who treasure Miami for its waterfront lifestyle. This held true for the first wave who built elegant, Mediterranean styled homes in the 1920s and still holds true today, although now, newcomers tend to prefer exceptional, contemporary homes.

One such home was recently completed under the watchful eye of its lead designer, Paul Fischman of Choeff Levy Fischman and might be best described as an environmentally inspired, waterfront sanctuary. At just under 6,000 square feet, the creation of this residence was no small feat, and always top of mind for Fischman was the home’s Hibiscus Island location. Materials such as matte limestone and Ipe wood appear again and again throughout the home. Lush, tropical foliage that surrounds the house seems to caress it at every turn, peeking in through windows by the kitchen or brushing up against a waterfall wall that splashes into the pool. This connection to nature is marvelous, but for us, what is of paramount importance about this home is its exceptional openness.

To attain this quality, Fischman specified stacking sliders for many rooms in the house, sliders that extend from floor to ceiling when closed, and hide away discreetly when opened. The entertaining rooms on the ground level face a courtyard in which a 590 square foot pool seems to slide out from under the shelter of the home’s sequestered courtyard. Upstairs, these same doors slide away in the master bedroom as well as the master bath, placing nothing between the home’s occupants and Biscayne Bay except for a warm breeze. These disappearing walls of glass create a seamless transition between inside and out, and the continuation of limestone flooring from inside to outside helps blur those lines as well.

On the main level, those covered patio accent walls sheathed in horizontal bands of Brazilian Cumaru wood act as the visual opposite to the board-formed concrete and stucco exterior. The swimming pool and separate shallow wading pool are separated by “floating” steps that lead out toward the bay. Here, the limestone platform ends, met by lawns that roll down toward the dock.

This house, of course, is outfitted with an energy efficient air conditioning system, but with the layout and connection to South Florida’s sub-tropical climate, the architect encourages owners – almost subliminally – to turn off the AC, open all the doors and revel in all that nature has to offer. The architect and his team pushed sustainability in this residence with features like a rainwater retention system that cleans and filters rainwater, storing it for use on the property. Low-E film was chosen to cover glazed surfaces, minimizing solar heat gain that in turn, reduces energy consumption. They’ve also installed a roof of high solar reflectivity, another way to minimize heat gain, always an issue in sun-drenched South Florida. In order to address sea level rise and potential storm surge, the home is lifted up on the site and set back over 20 feet from the dock and is protected by a sea wall almost three feet higher than what is currently required by code.

With this property, Fischman has succeeded in creating a sumptuous refuge literally minutes from the more urban aspects of Miami Beach, crafting a residence that takes great pleasure in the natural aspects of its island location. The island’s early 20th century developers would be proud.