ECO-AGORA

Eco-Agora Cut Sheet

The vision for this concept is to connect the vibrant street life of Wilton Drive, to the tradition of the marketplace/mercado/bazaar with a uniquely Florida experience and focus on resilient solutions. Eco-Agora is grounded by City Hall and comprised of a large outdoor civic space, a boutique hotel, ground floor retail and affordable housing addressing the housing crisis in South Florida. Sustainable building strategies include elevated ground floors, pervious paving, large, shaded landscape areas, sustainable materials, increased ventilation, shade, elimination of use of concrete and its inherent large carbon footprint, with the use of Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) as a sustainable structural system among other approaches. CLT inspires the concept to be one that belongs to the land and creates an arbor for a horizontal shade structure for the two shorter exposures on the east and west side of the site.  Repetitious volumetric modular hotel rooms and apartments are fabricated offsite in warehouses to reduce cost and construction time.  The building is porous by omitting modules, allowing for visual and physical connections of the site with Wilton Drive and City Hall, promoting breezes, providing shade and outdoor connectivity to Wilton Drive and the plaza. CLT structural members together with the use of native landscaping (Cypress Trees, Florida Oaks, Native Palms) provide shade and subtle varied topography; creating the “agora” or marketplace that nods at the hardwood hammocks not too far west from the site at the Big Cypress National Preserve, engendering habitat.  CLT structures can potentially be successful in hot humid climates if certain guidelines are followed during fabrication and erection. The concept we present seeks to spark a discussion into the use of CLT in our masonry dependent region.