Climate Ribbon

Rendering of Solar Data Downtown Miami's 5.4-million-gross-square-foot mixed-use Brickell City Centre, slated to open in phases at the end of 2015 into 2016, wanted an innovative design - an open-air feel for its shoppers, despite Miami's heat and rain. Anne Cotter (A'86) brought in Carnegie Mellon University to help consult on its environmental and sustainable design. Cotter is vice president at Arquitectonica, the architecture firm that designed Brickell City Centre and the thousand-foot long Climate Ribbon™ made of glass, steel and fabric, which flows along the top of the retail concourse to keep pedestrians comfortable. "It provides shading from the sun while also allowing views of the sky; it is glazed to protect pedestrians from rain and designed to collect an estimated 5 million gallons of rain water annually that sheets off into cisterns to irrigate all the landscaping. It is shaped as if lifted by a breeze while modeled to encourage Miami's prevailing breezes to flow through the concourse," Cotter said. The analysis and detailed design was done in collaboration with Paris-based Hugh Dutton Associates, one of a few international partners on this project. And as the project moved from concept to approval in 2011, Swire Properties, the owner and developer, asked Arquitectonica to reach out to a university that focused on sustainability design.