Grove at Grand Bay

The motivation behind Grove at Grand Bay’s design was to essentially rebrand Coconut Grove for the 21st century and beyond. To achieve this, the property needed to be distinctive, yet still respectful and authentic to the character and spirit of Coconut Grove. The solution was to leverage the long-time favorite components of the Grove - the waterfront location, abundant parks and natural spaces, and a community culture that appreciates and celebrates art. The two twisting towers succeeded in giving the buildings an almost sculptural quality, while at the same time maximizing views and outdoor spaces, and creating more flexibility in the floor plan design.

The 57 units in the North Tower and 41 units in the South Tower co-exist side-by-side but never cross paths. This is achieved by rotating the floor plates three feet at every elevation between floors 3 through 17, with each tower appearing to “rotate” in the opposite direction of the other. As a result, the buildings interact with one another, yet maintain their individuality. A unique benefit of the groundbreaking design is that the overhanging floor plate creates an extended overhang on all sides, allowing for generous 12-foot-deep balconies with built-in shade for every unit. When added to large floor plans averaging 4,000 square feet and walls of floor-to-ceiling windows in each residence, Grove at Grand Bay residents enjoy unrivaled views stretching as far as downtown Miami, Key Biscayne, and Miami Beach.

Anchoring the dramatic structure is a multifaceted landscape plan created by the renowned Raymond Jungles, who opted to preserve as many of the existing giant fig and gumbo limbo trees as possible and to amplify the street-level natural environment with numerous water features, simple-yet-detailed hardscape, and nearly 500 additional trees and more than 15,000 plants. The lushly landscaped campus closely mirrors Coconut Grove’s original ecology, and promotes sustainability with native species perfectly adapted to the Miami tropical climate.

At the time Grove at Grand Bay was built, LEED certification had primarily been a focus of commercial developments in the area. Terra was a pioneer in bringing this globally recognized standard for sustainability and environmental stewardship front and center in the residential realm. Understanding that Coconut Grove residents almost unanimously advocate for preservation and conservation of natural resources, it made sense that Grove at Grand Bay should be the first LEED gold-certified residential building in Miami-Dade County.

Grove at Grand Bay is 20% more energy efficient than most buildings. 35% of the buildings’ ongoing power bills are sourced by renewable energy technologies that help avoid 4.5 million pounds of CO2 emissions per year. The buildings’ unique revolving design combined with the towers’ orientation maximizes daylight and views to Biscayne Bay, but does so with self-shading features that reduce the buildings’ overall heat gain. Low-solar-gain glass also helps lower energy usage, as do LED lighting and high-efficiency heating and cooling systems. The use of recycled materials and regionally sourced materials are other important contributing factors for attaining LEED Gold certification. 30% of Grove at Grand Bay materials are recycled including the structural steel, the gypsum board, and tile. More than 30% of the materials used in the construction of Grove at Grand Bay are local, including oolitic limestone. As well, 100% of the materials including sealants and paints in the building are low VOC (Volatile Organic Compounds), which eliminate harmful contaminants and improve air quality indoors and out.

Nasir Kassamali, the co-founder of award-winning furniture showroom Luminaire, was a key collaborator in the design and marketing of Grove at Grand Bay. He introduced the concept of total design and shared a wealth of knowledge that would shape the entire development process. Nasir carefully analyzed marketing psychographics for Grove at Grand Bay and determined that the property’s ultimate success would be in becoming an exclusive address for people who appreciate leading-edge architecture and design. It was that observation that led to the relationship with Bjarke Ingels, an international design superstar, rather than a tried-and-true local firm. Together, Bjarke, Nasir, and the Terra team agreed Grove at Grand Bay needed to be monumental, the landmark that would re-energize Coconut Grove for the next generation. Ingels came to Miami in February 2012 and presented his idea for two twisting structures that appeared to lean at 38-degree angles, quite unlike any of the rigid rectangular forms so dominant in traditional architecture, and destined to become a defining architectural destination for Coconut Grove.

Grove at Grand Bay’s iconic twisting towers were an instant architectural landmark for Coconut Grove, but did pose a number of structural challenges when bringing the unique design to life. The towers of Grove at Grand Bay don’t simply appear to twist; each floor is actually rotated at an angle to the floor beneath it. There is also a 38-degree shift between the center position of the lowest floors and the upper-most floors. This made the usual corner-column construction approach unsuitable for the design. It also meant construction and engineering had to resist torsion generated in the tower core due to the sloping column geometry. The horizontal component of the gravity load in the columns is resolved in the slabs by transferring it to the interior core shear walls, which are the only consistently vertical structural elements in the building. Column-free interiors were provided to allow for maximum flexibility of the unit layouts.

The innovative problem-solving for Grove at Grand Bay has been recognized with a number of honors and awards for achievements in development, construction quality, and engineering excellence. The design team was honored as an Outstanding Award Winner for Grove at Grand Bay in the 2015 NCSEA Annual Excellence in Structural Engineering Awards program under the Category of New Buildings over $100M. Other awards for the tower’s structural design include: Architects Newspaper Best of Design Awards for Building of the Year, Interior Design Best of Year Awards, AIA Miami Design Award, Architizer A+ Award, ULI Southeast Florida, SEAoNY Awards, Miami-Dade ASCE Project of the Year, CRSI Honors, ACEC National Engineering Excellence Awards and Concrete Industry Board Roger H. Corbetta Award for Quality Concrete Merit., including the National Council of Structural Engineers Association’s (NCSEA) 2015 Excellence in Structural Engineering Award, the Concrete Industry Board’s (CIB) 2015 Award of Merit, and the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) of New York’s 2016 Engineering Excellence Awards.

A shimmering infinite loop of crystal spheres seems to move and sway just like the Grove at Grand Bay towers, even though the piece and the towers are both completely stationary. The artistic illusion is the work of Olafur Eliasson, who created Your Forever Young Sunrise in 2014. Eliasson was born in Copenhagen in 1967. He grew up in Iceland and Denmark and studied, from 1989 to 1995, at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. In 1995, he moved to Berlin and founded Studio Olafur Eliasson, which today encompasses some seventy-five craftsmen, specialized technicians, architects, archivists, administrators, programmers, art historians, and cooks.

Olafur’s masterpieces are inspired by elemental materials in perception, color, movement, and the viewer’s interaction. Through a hand-silvering process, the spheres’ surfaces have been covered with a mirror finish over which black paint has been applied. Beginning with the fully transparent spheres at the top and bottom and traveling along with the work’s form, the mirrored area progressively decreases, gradually becoming engulfed by black paint until only a small aperture remains. As the viewer’s eye traces the infinite curve of the arrangement, one encounters distortions of their own reflection, of the surrounding space, and of the sphere’s infinitely replicated interior. Together, the spheres constitute an optical device in metamorphosis.