SEAPLANE TERMINAL COMPETITION

Practice: Brillhart Architecture

Type: Transportation

Location: Miami, FL

Status: Completed, 2010

As both public art and aqueous architecture, the Miami SeaPlane Terminal is conceptually tethered to Miami’s memory of building and landscape in Biscayne Bay. In siting the seaplane and water taxi terminal in the water, the project accepts the inescapable realities of nature by giving the land back to Biscayne Bay. In doing so, the translucent terminal wing, propped up out of the water, is designed to offer a new model for an amphibious architecture, understood in the contemporary context of climate change and rising sea levels.

The building's luminous pink legs and Translucent Concrete shell, visible underneath a shallow depth of Miami’s azure blue sea, resurrects and completes the idea of the Surrounded Islands project. Not only does the layering of pink apply the true “color of Miami” to the one island that was previously too large to wrap, but it also completes the terminus of the axis of the original Christo design, which followed the chain of natural barrier islands. As Christo said, “the color also allows this project to be seen, approached and enjoyed from the land, the water, and the air.”

A land-based hangar building addresses the primary needs of the airport, including drop-off and pick-up, passenger screening, and storage. The Stilted Buoy serves as a main gate and observational tower. Like traditional terminals, it offers panoramic views of Miami’s green-blue waters and incoming seaplanes, but will also feature port commercial space, a restaurant and a ground control tower to provide additional security into Government Cut. The building will also serve as a water-taxi stop, so passengers arriving by plane can be delivered across the waters to the beach, the mainland, and beyond.