Projects

Creating a Welcoming Water's Edge

Maurice A. Ferré ParkMiami, FL—USA

When the City of Miami was motivated to transform a neglected area into useful and attractive space for residents and visitors, Civitas teamed up with Cooper Robertson to design a place that integrates multiple cultural and recreational elements, links to other parts of the city, and offers great public spaces at the water’s edge.

Formerly known as Museum Park, this 32-acre waterfront park creates a new cultural district that playfully integrates the Miami Art Museum and Miami Science Museum with multiple gardens, recreation and event spaces, and welcomes visitors to Miami arriving on cruise ships in Biscayne Bay.

Year
2014
Client
City of Miami
Services
Urban Design, Landscape Architecture
Project type/category
Arts & Cultural/Museum, Civic/Municipal, Public Realm, Waterfront
Awards
ASLA Florida Design Award

The design of Maurice A. Ferré Park—formerly known as Museum Park—is inspired by the Miami culture: bold, sophisticated, progressive and complex. The 32-acre park links the Miami Museum of Art, designed by Herzog and DeMeuron, with the Miami Science Museum, designed by Grimshaw, creating a cultural destination for the city and the first introduction of Miami to visitors arriving on cruise ships in Biscayne Bay.

The park also features the longest waterfront bay walk in Miami and provides pedestrian access between the museums and the bay. Providing the right balance of visitor services to the park as well as dealing with the intense sunny climate were addressed through distributing water features, kiosks, shade structures, palms and trees throughout the park.

 

A broad lawn accommodates civic events while a series of gardens along the slip provide a smaller scale experience:

  • A culture garden that will be developed with the Botanic Garden displays culturally significant native and exotic flora.
  • The Children’s Garden provides an interactive focus on play and learning linked to the Science Museum.
  • The Palm Garden is the park’s grand display of native and exotic palms.
  • And the Coastal Prairie Garden is an artistic adaptation of native coastal ecosystem.

Museum Park is designed to become the place where people experience the nature of Miami: the water, the air, the sky, the earth.