A few months ago, on a sunny drive through Miami, acclaimed movie producer Michael Mann was taken aback by a gated rock house in the exclusive Coconut Grove neighborhood. He called the location scout assigned to his impending blockbuster, Miami Vice, and demanded he line-up a first-hand tour. A drastic departure from the city’s bright white and pastel colored stucco buildings, the house’s muted earth-toned stone exterior caught Mann’s attention. He considered it the perfect site for several of the movie’s scenes.

Max Strang, architect, owner and resident of the Strang Residence, was delighted, but not surprised. Strang strives to maintain an area’s architectural and cultural history, while incorporating modern sensibilities. He has coined this design philosophy as “environmental modernism.”

The Strang Residence, which Strang built for his family, boasts simplistic, modern design features. With an exterior made of oolitic limestone, the house stands 150 feet long, 25 feet wide, and occupies one acre of land.

Max Strang made a name for himself in Florida. Recently recognized with a Merit Award from the Florida AIA for his design of the Strang Residence, Strang also focuses his talents commercially, with a neighborhood-friendly, but controversial Home Depot store in Coconut Grove. He’s completed a commercial loft project in the Grove, and has commissions for The Kampong, a National Tropical Botanical Garden: a multi-family condominium in Hollywood, FL; an eco-friendly resort in Costa Rica; and several private homes.

Architect: Geoffrey Warner

Warner is a registered architect in St. Paul, Minnesota. He lives with his wife, Dawn De Keyser, and two girls, Laurel and Alexandra.  Warner and partner Marc Asmus have established three design companies: Warner+Asmus Architects, weeHouse, and Hive Development.

Alchemy architects is an architecture and interiors office. It also maintains an integrated collaborative workshop that facilitates experimentation and the production of key design elements.

Warner produces furnishings, lighting and fabrications. He uses a wide range of materials: Hand, machine, and CAD-based processes.  He holds an architecture degree with high honors from the University of Minnesota (1988), where he taught Design / Build until 1999.  He received the Dinkeloo Traveling Fellow Award, and did research at the American Academy in Rome (1989), where he studied the detailing work of Italian architect Carlo Scarpa.  Early work was produced in AnArch, an experimental, wholly non-hierarchical collaborative architecture studio.

Warner’s work concentrates on art and industry, and maximizes the impact of modest budgets through creative construction technologies. His work has been published in Dwell, House Beautiful, Interior Design, Metropolitan Home, and many other books and magazines.

Featured Project: weeHouse

weeHouse is a line of prefabricated housing modules that may be adapted and changed to meet a user’s diverse needs. They can function as cabins, houses, offices, rooftops, or developments.

Each weeHouse comes ready made: just add water (and a couple of other things). Base models include: windows and patio doors, Corn Crib wood rain screen siding, EPDM cold roof (with overhangs), tongue and groove pine flooring and perimeter walls, white painted gypsum board ceilings and walls, and Ikea kitchens, cabinets, sinks. WeeOne and weeTwo bedroom doors are five-foot wide “loft-type” surface-mounted birch sliding doors. WeeHouses include module design, rough site layout, and approval drawings.

The smaller the home the bigger the ambition. At least that’s true for Gregg Flieshman. His futuristic, practical dwellings have a variety of uses–creative storage space, one of a kind modern home, homeless shelter.

And they’re just pretty damn cool, too.

The designs are based on geometric research. Flieshman considers geometry’s similar forms, its smaller and familiar parts as an architectural advantage. Employing these methods, Flieshman attains structural efficiency, an economic manufacturing process, lower costs and a less specialized work force. This approach is environmentally sound and produces creative, efficient structures. His is an important, relevant approach to contemporary architecture.

The weather is chilly. The days are short. Bring some light and warmth into your modern home with these stylish contemporary fireplaces.

This suspended fireplace from Focus will complement any modern home.

Fireorb’s fireplace radiates 360 degrees of heat. It is the antidote to the typical wood-burning fireplace, making it a contemporary centerpiece for any room.

This suspended fireplace from Brisach allows you to gaze into the fire from any location in the room. Its open air feature generates plenty of warmth, and is visually attractive.

It’s tough to overcome your reputation. For Boston–a city steeped in history and parochialism–the task is even tougher. The city’s architecture is diverse, but much of it is based on standard 19th and early 20th century techniques. Older structures like churches, libraries, and commercial property date back even further–all the way to the 1700’s.

The New Old South Church, located in Copley Square, is a prime example of Boston’s older Venetian Architecture. It was built by architects Cummings & Sears in 1874.

Boston is as much an historic city as it is an innovative one. Over the years, contemporary architecture has flourished, showing itself proudly, but always in the shadow of its grand forebears.

In the 1970’s, Boston and nearby Cambridge experienced a minor Postmodernism movement, with architects constructing numerous skyscrapers and buildings designed with strong angles, muted colors, and unique designs.

Constructed in 1973, Harvard’s Science Center is a Postmodern jewel.

Creative contemporary architecture has surged in recent years–a sign that Boston is eager to share its historic past with an equally rich present–and neighborhoods are being recognized as homes to unique individual structures.

In Cambridge, MIT hired architect Frank Gehry to construct a modern academic complex. The project, which included funding from Bill Gates and the building’s namesake, Frank Stata, among others, made a considerable splash in Boston’s architectural world.

MIT’s Stata Center

The building was completed in 2004. Here’s a snippet of the Boston Globe’s review.

“The Stata is always going to look unfinished. It also looks as if it’s about to collapse. Columns tilt at scary angles. Walls teeter, swerve, and collide in random curves and angles. Materials change wherever you look: brick, mirror-surface steel, brushed aluminum, brightly colored paint, corrugated metal. Everything looks improvised, as if thrown up at the last moment. That’s the point. The Stata’s appearance is a metaphor for the freedom, daring, and creativity of the research that’s supposed to occur inside it.” Read More from the review and about Contemporary Boston Architecture.

View from a Window in the Stata Center

But not all of the critics doled praise.

Former Boston University president John Silber noted that the Stata Center “is really a disaster.” He cited the building’s excessive use of glass as diminishing privacy, as well as saying that the building was not constructed with its inhabitants in mind.

On October 31, 2007, MIT sued architect Frank Gehry and the construction company, Skanska USA Building Inc., for “providing deficient design services and drawings” which caused leaks to spring, masonry to crack, mold to grow, drainage to back up, and falling ice and debris to block emergency exits. A Skanska spokesperson said that prior to construction Gehry ignored warnings from Skanska and a consulting company regarding flaws in his design of the amphitheater, and rejected a formal request from Skanska to modify the design.

Gehry said MIT was after his firm’s money, not reconciling issues with his approach to modern architecture.

This spat aside, Boston has become a safe haven for enterprising architects. The city’s landscape is evolving, and builders are taking note.

Below are more samples of recently completed structures.

The Apple Building

The Institute of Contemporary Art

Known as the Fishbowl; An office building outside of Boston.

The sultry climate and vibrant light have something to do with it. The convergence of Latin, Cuban, Spanish, and American cultures do, too.

Architecturally, Miami is peerless. It burns like a furnace from the bottom of the country. It emerged as a fresh face in the middle of the 20th century, securing its place among the more innovative architectural places in the world. Virtuoso architects like Morris Lapidus, Norman M. Giller, Igor B. Polevitzky, Melvin Grossman, and Kenneth Triester contributed to the city’s many residences, hotels, and public landscapes.

These architects–artists, really–incorporated ultra-modern, highly stylized concepts into their designs. Hotels with curved surfaces, sloping homes splashed with bright colors, concrete cantilevers, and tall, skinny buildings with holes in their walls. These elements belong to an architectural movement now known as MiMo (pronounced My-moe). First termed in 1998 as a way to revitalize the city’s real estate market, MiMo is a Miami-centric approach that uses more, not less, to express the area’s diverse influences and tastes.

MiMo is a vital part of the city’s character. But in recent years, with Miami’s wealth surging, MiMo, and its entire architectural prowess, experienced renewed interest. Couple this with Miami’s growing population and the need for newer, riskier living spaces shot into the sky like silver, gleaming fireworks.

The Bacardi Building, Built in 1963

The COR Building, Estimated Completion, 2009

DawnTown 2008: Waterworks, an international architecture competition for a new waterworks building in Downtown Miami recently announced its winner. The competition focused on a pumping station in Bicentennial Park, an area in the heart of downtown, and asked contestants to rethink the space, drawing on Miami’s ecelctic, ambitous attitude for inspiration. Contestants from the Netherlands, Greece, and South Korea, as well as numerous other places, registered. The contest sought to redevelop the area and the pumping station itself into a pedestrian friendly region that reflected the city’s demographics and culture.

This is the conceptual layout by winning architect, Helen Pierce, of San Antonio. It’s titled PULSE.

See the bright orange, koosh ball type structure? That’s the former Pumping Station.

As it does with so much of its architecture, Miami proves modern, daring, and unique. Along with commercial and public spaces, Miami is flush with modern homes, located in demographically diverse neighborhoods.

Architects Trevor McIvor and Tony Round of Altius Architecture are spearheading an interesting project near Lake Rousseau, in Ontario.

Altius Architects received 2007’s Award for Environmental Excellence in Architecture, as well as 2007’s Best Emerging Firm, from the Ontario Association of Architects.

Projects are underway on area cottages, landscapes, houses, and within Ontario’s commercial sector.

Altius Archtiecture approaches each project with sustainability in mind. The design projects optimize passive solar gains and optimize summer shading.

A current project is situated on a cliff that overlooks a private lake near Lake Rosseau. The landowner cherishes the area, and wanted a dwelling to compliment the natural landscape. The result is a sustainable cottage, designed with sharp, descending rooftop levels, as well as large glass windows that overlook the lake.

Despite steady snowfall, the architects and construction team managed to pour the foundation walls and begin the process of standing the steel structures.

The cliff house will boast nice environmental amenities, including radiant heating, solar hot water systems, and green roof systems.

Sell Modern will keep track of their progress. Good Luck Altius Architecture!

Business evolves. Where we do it. How we do it. When we do it. Conducting business in the early 21st century is not like conducting business in the early 20th century. In fact, it’s vastly different than it was 10 years ago. So it’s no surprise that our version of the workplace is changing at a break neck speed too.

As more people stay at home to work, architects and designers are enriching the marketplace with exciting, modern, and well made alternatives to the traditional home office.

Some of these projects are interior amenities produced to simplify and improve business–all in one printers/fax/copiers, sleek chairs with tailored contours and state of the art fibers–but other projects create an aesthetic environment, a space that reflects a state of mind, philosophy, and work ethic.

Buildings for the Future, a design team that offers fast, affordable, and reliable residential and commercial dwellings, recently unveiled their “Work Life Balance” home office space.

The design is visually appealing, striking a balance between rustic charm and urban sophistication. The facilities provide a home office alternative, while maintaining the proximate comfort that the domestic experience presents.