Daily digest: Gehry Partners’ beach-adjacent Santa Monica complex, Raleigh development news, and more

Happy Tuesday, everyone. Between prizes and multi-hyphenate mixed-use developments, here’s what you need to know today courtesy of this late edition of the Daily digest:

Here are the four finalists for the Harvard Graduate School of Design’s Wheelwright Prize

Today the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) announced four finalists for the Wheelwright Prize, an annual award of $100,000 to an emerging architect with a research practice in the United States or abroad.

“The annual Wheelwright Prize is dedicated to fostering expansive, intensive design research that shows potential to make a significant impact on architectural discourse,” read a release announcing the finalists.

The four finalists are Curry J. Hackett, lecturer and adjunct assistant professor in the School of Architecture at University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and one of the lead organizers of the Dark Matter University, an anti-racist design justice school; Summer Islam, architect and founding director of Material Cultures, a nonprofit organization that “brings together design, research, and action towards a post carbon-built environment”; Marina Otero, an architect and researcher who previously served as Director of Research at Het Nieuwe Instituut and now heads the social design masters at Design Academy Eindhoven; and Feifei Zhou, an artist and architect whose work “explores spatial, cultural, and ecological impacts of the industrialized built environment.”

To be considered for the Wheelwright Prize, each participant had to submit a research proposal. The finalists’ proposals, and more information about their background and work, can be found here. The winner will be announced in late spring.

Arquitectonica to transform downtown Miami Hyatt into…a bigger Hyatt

Hyatt Hotels and Miami developer Gencom last week revealed a proposal to turn the Miami Hyatt Regency into a three-tower, mixed-use luxury development that includes a new Hyatt hotel with serviced apartments, as well as regular apartments. The project, at 400 SE Second Avenue near Brickell Avenue, replaces the existing Hyatt as well as the James L. Knight Center theater.

In addition to apartments, the Arquitectonica-designed structure would also feature retail, conference areas, coworking spaces, parking, plus a 50,000-square foot public park facing the Miami River.  In part because the land upon which it sits is leased from the city, the Miami City Commission, and then Miami voters, would have to approve the project before it can move forward.

H/t to Commercial Observer

Gehry Partners shares new renderings of its Ocean Avenue Project in Santa Monica

A proposed 317,000-square-foot Gehry Partners complex, pictured at top, would add 100 apartments, retail and dining space, and a 120-room hotel, as well as a 35,000-square-foot museum at the corner of Ocean Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard, about two blocks from the beach. The top of the buildings feature a maze of public terraces and an observation deck, while the ground level sports a public plaza. If approved by the Santa Monica planning commission at tomorrow’s meeting, the $350 million project could be completed in three years or fewer.

H/t to Archinect

Two big towers are coming to downtown Raleigh

Kane Realty Corp has tapped Raleigh’s Cline Design Associates and CallisonRTKL for two towers in Downtown South, a developing neighborhood that will eventually be home to entertainment venues and a soccer stadium. A 21-story apartment tower by the former firm would hold 375 units, while a neighboring 27-story tower by the latter would be devoted to offices.  Amenities for CallisonRTKL’s 375,000-square-foot office tower will include a “collaborative work space, a rooftop club room and a sprawling pool deck.” 

“We are looking to create an urban streetscape that accommodates multiple modes of transportation and ties in very well with the existing and future transit network,” Kane COO Bonner Gaylord told The News & Observer.

Construction is slated to begin early next year.

H/t to The News & Observer