A proposed ultra-luxurious condominium in contemporary condominium development for Palm Beach's South End was sent back to the drawing board by the city's architectural commission after a controversial meeting at the end of May.
The newly designed plans seemed to be a step backwards for the Oko Group based in Miami and the private private equity company Cain based in London, since most commissioners admitted to the original plans that they had checked at their meeting on March 26.
During the session on May 28, the commissioners voted 6-1, with the deputy chair Richard Sammons being opposition to postpone their review of the session of July 23 in order to give the developers time to significantly redesign the proposal.
During the meeting of the architecture commission on May 28th, representatives of the OKO Group and Cairn International presented their latest designs for three five-story buildings that were to replace the ambassador hotel and the edgewater building. The above presentation shows the facade of the proposal from the Atlantic coast.
Commissioner Betsy Shiverick said that the youngest proposal had failed the “Wow” factor, which was seen in the designs of the Aman Group Resorts, a sister company of the OKO Group. Both companies are owned by the developer Vlad Doronin.
The plans require to replace the aging ambassador by the sea and the residences by the sea with two five -story buildings and to replace an adjacent residential building on the lake, which is known for years as an editor house with a single five -story building. Each location has an underground garage.
During the meeting on May 28th, some members of the architecture commission admitted that they preferred the proposed original design, the above image above, to the redesigned redesign.
After a meeting of the city council on May 14, the commission was checked, in which the officers gave to most of the 21 deviations of the project, including an inquiry to exaggerate the maximum amount of “filling material”, which was allowed to increase the building of the building to increase the building.
The design architect Jason Long from Grandma, a prominent international architecture company, told the Commission that the changes should appeal to the criticism of the board that the original design was similar to an office building and was too uniform.
The changes included the redesign of the project balcony, which were originally proposed to extend the entirety of the closest facades of the three buildings.
The revised plans had balconies of different sizes at the corners of the three buildings. The balcony layout would then be turned 90 degrees for the next floor, so that the buildings “read as a number of stacked villas,” Long told the Commission.
Only the penthouses on the fifth floor would keep the facade long balconies, which has long said that the visual “mass” of the building, an architectural concept that refers to how bulky a building for observers seems to be.
The criticism of the Commissioner Claudia Visconti on the curved travertine pillars of the original design had caused the design team to replace them with claned columns that were packed with glazed terracotta, said Long.
However, chairman Jeff Smith said that the proposed columns make the condominiums look even more like office buildings than the previous design.
A significant change in the redesign was to replace the curved terracotta details on the balcony with flat coral stone. The above rendering shows the updated balcony design.
The design team had also followed Visconti's recommendation to include Coral Stone, which Long said to replace the curved terracotta food on the edges and balcony roofs of the building.
This change has not suppressed little about the use of the Commission on the use of heavy stone tiles, which were anchored as roof panels by stainless steel cables.
“This ocean taps with salt every day and corrodes stainless steel; it will corrode marine stainless steel,” said Smith. “These plates are just waiting to fall off the ceiling.”
He said it was “a boat that doesn't hover”.
Visconti said that the redesign made little to locate the style of the building for Palm Beach.
“They keep saying that they don't want to be Miami, but Miami screams,” she said.
The designers of the project should spend some time to travel through the city so that they can “understand what Palm Beach, Palm Beach is doing,” she said
Although the zoning code can be restrictive, the designers have to think “outside the box” in order to provide a condominium with a less box -shaped appearance.
The hardest criticism came from the deputy chairman Richard Sammon, who said that the project was not inspired and was missing a clear design intention.
However, his criticism went beyond the project and found that the city's zoning code was created to contain the “mistake”, which enabled intensive development of condominiums at the southern end in the 1970s.
Just like these developments, this project is a mistake, he said and added that he doubted that the design would ever look “exhausted”.
Diego Diaz Lasa is a journalist on Palm Beach Daily NewsPart of the USA Today Florida Network. You can reach him dlasa@pbdailynews.com.
This article originally appeared in Palm Beach Daily News: Palm Beach Board Send Ultra-Luxe Condo proposal for changes back