Downtown Miami Skyline featuring the One Museum condominium development adjacent to Miami Art and Science Museums.
Zaha Hadid Architects Downtown Miami Skyline featuring the One Museum condominium development adjacent to Miami Art and Science Museums.

The work of the late Zaha Hadid, Hon. FAIA, is making its mark on the downtown Miami skyline with One Thousand Museum, a high-end residential skyscraper in the cultural center of the south Florida city.

The 83-unit luxury condominium tower, located on Biscayne Boulevard in Miami, was the Pritzker Prize-winning architect’s first residential skyscraper design concept in the Western Hemisphere.

The 62-story residential tower is encased in a white concrete exoskeleton with flowing lines that is not only aesthetically commanding but provides structural support to resist Miami’s heavy winds with lateral bracing. Placing a majority of the supports on the outside of the tower allows the interior floors to be virtually column free, lending to a wide variation of floor plan options. No layout is identical as each floor ebbs and flows along with the curvaceous exoskeleton of the tower, which Hadid's firm describes as “one continuous liquid frame” from top to bottom. Terraces occupy the corners of the lower floors while on the upper floors the terraces are tucked away from the edges.

“What you see is literally structure getting thicker and thinner, as needed," says Chris Lepine, Zaha Hadid Architects project director. "There’s a continuity between the disciplines, between the architecture and engineering, to create that impression.”

To contrast with the rigid exoskeleton, the architects have created a folded, faceted, crystal-like facade within the structural frame. The bright Miami sun will create dynamic plays of light on the glass to shine throughout the tower.

The tower will feature a range of units including a two-story duplex penthouse, four townhouses, eight full-floor residences and 70 half-floor units. Future residents will pay top dollar for a coveted ocean-side residence—the duplex penthouse is priced at $50 million with over 16,000 square feet; the 8,000-to-10,000-square-foot duplex townhome residences and full floor residences are priced from $10.9 million to over $20 million; half-floor units are priced from $6 million to over $8 million and range from 4,600 to 4,800 square feet.

Downtown Miami Skyline featuring the One Museum condominium development adjacent to Miami Art and Science Museums.
Zaha Hadid Architects Downtown Miami Skyline featuring the One Museum condominium development adjacent to Miami Art and Science Museums.

The building offers 30,000 square feet of amenity space, complete with a two-story Aquatic Center and Sky Lounge at the 61st floor, a Sun & Swim Terrace, a two-level Indoor-Outdoor Wellness & Spa center, and a private rooftop helipad.

The London-based architecture firm broke ground on the project in December 2014 and expects to complete the project in late 2018. The design was commissioned by developers Gregg Covin and Louis Birdman of One Thousand Museum Limited.