From the DIY City website: “Our cities today are relics from a time before the Internet.  Services and infrastructure, created and operated by the government, are centrally managed, non-participatory and closed.  What is needed right now is a new type of city: a city that is like the Internet in its openness, participation, distributed nature and rapid, organic evolution – a city that is not centrally operated, but that is created, operated and improved upon by all – a DIY City.”  Check out the website, and discuss if this would be good for Miami.

Sorry we are slow to report on another competition in Miami, this one produced by Arquitectum for its second foray into Miami (their first was last year’s Museum of Immigration competition).  The topic was a new “civic center”, basically an entirely new downtown waterfront, with eye-popping results.  Check out the entries and winners at the Arquitectum website.

From the latest Miami Dade College newsletter: “MDC’s Hospitality Management and Culinary Arts program is creating an environmentally sound setting from the ground up.  The new state-of-the-art building will be the first of its kind in the area to apply for LEED Silver status.”  More importantly, the project, currently topped off and being finished, may be the first true small-scale infill (two party walls) project in downtown Miami in decades.  Core and shell architecture by PBS&J, interior architecture by STA.  Let us know what you think in the comments.

The secret Jedi Council of the DawnTown topic committee has chosen the new topic!  DawnTown staff will now spend the next month preparing the brief and materials for launch in August.  We’re stoked for another year of innovative architecture in downtown Miami, and we hope you are too!

Here is a link to the final presentation of the AIA’s Miami River charrette (pdf), presented last week during the AIA’s annual national conference held this year in Miami.  Local government leaders were so impressed to have smart architects from around the country in Miami that, at the official opening reception, not a single mayor or commissioner showed up.  By the way, the most important finding of the Miami River charrette was that the river needs a single authority to simplify the current tangle of jurisdictions and implement a vision for the river.  Thoughts?

The Home Depot recently launched a website called the Sustainable Cities Institute, supposedly to offer tools for progressive planning to average communities.  They also announced a couple of million dollars of prizes for sustainable development.  Check out the website and let us know in the comments whether Home Depot’s efforts are a lot or a little.

Have you seen LEGO’s series of famous buildings?  The Empire State Building (above), Fallingwater, the Taj Mahal.  Check it out.  If I were a city planner, I would require models of all proposed projects made of LEGO.

Another first-rate Miami NGO, YoungArts, which provides mentoring and scholarships to high-school students across the nation who are extravagantly talented in a particular art (sometimes several), has also created a series of documentaries about the mentoring between world-renowned artists and young prodigies.  The series is called “Masterclass” and can be seen on HBO.  A few years ago the students in the graphic arts category were graced by the wisdom of Frank Gehry, and the documentary of that interaction will air this Wednesday, June 9 at 6:30 PM.  Tell us what you think of the episode in the comments.

Please consider subscribing to DawnTown, either in the email field on the right of the page, or by adding us to your RSS reader with our RSS feed link, also in the right sidebar.  We will continue to alert you to Miami architecture events and news throughout the year, as well as seasonal competition news.  Thanks for reading and supporting architecture in Miami!

Just a reminder that, during the AIA national conference, which is in Miami this year, this week, one of the events is a multi-day charrette on the Miami River, which AIA is calling its Miami River Catalyst Plan.  DawnTown attended the public visioning session today and was surprised at the civil discourse between marine industry and residential stakeholders, and the comprehensive visioning that took place.  Final recommendations of the charrette will be presented at a public meeting on Wednesday, June 9 at 6 PM at the Hyatt in downtown, 400 SE 2nd Avenue, in the Ashe Auditorium.  For more information, see original post below.

Miami Dade College, which is currently building a new culinary arts school in downtown, completed transformation of the theater at the same campus.  The architect was STA, led by Todd Tragash, and features a playful, faceted proscenium.  Check out photos from the first event.