Miami - Day 2

Another exhausting and fulfilling day here in Miami. Woke up early and went for a 4 mile run with Glenn Kellogg, an urban economist from Washington DC. We saw some interesting residential neighborhoods with amazing Mediterranean architecture, and quite a bit of hurricane damage and debris. I feel like the situation down here is not adequately reported up north, especially after Katrina. The director of our program still doesn't have power and is staying with the fellows here in our hotel with his wife and 3 kids, and Kim, who works for the program, is still without power and living by candlelight and taking cold showers every day. Driving around the city we see piles of debris several feet high pretty much the length of every neighborhood street, and maybe one out of 10 traffic lights are still out. Very strange.

After the early run and breakfast, we headed out for a tour of Coral Gables given by Ari Millas, a local architect, who was charming with his interweaving of local history (Coral Gables was founded in the 1920s by Fred Merrick, from Boston), current politics, and his unique view of architecture. We met the mayor, who entertained us in City Hall for about 10 minutes before being pulled back into hurricane relief. Here's a picture of CIty Hall:


Coral Gables has a thing about designing parking garages to fit into the community. Taxpayers pay for garages like this:


Lunch at the local bookstore, followed by an extended roundtable back at the University where 5 of us presented what we're working on and thoughts for our reseearch over the course of the next year. My favorite part of the trip so far - a group of 12, including an architect, an urban designer, an engineer, a writer, an artist, a municipal planner, an urban housing representative, a city liason to one of Miami's poorest neighborhoods, a landscape architect, and a developer. Obviously, some thought went into the professional makeup and geographic mix of our fellowship class, and it was so fascinating to combine the different viewpoints when talking about specific projects and challenges.

Tomorrow includes a lecture from Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Dean of the Architecture School and one of the principal co-founders of the CNU, who just returned from awarding Prince Charles the Vincent Scully prize in community building for his work across the pond. Here's a link to a story about it, for some reason I can't directly link from my laptop right now: http://www.europaconcorsi.com/db/rec/inbox.php?id=7600. Then hands-on urban design drafting training, and a lecture about the massive CNU charrettes to help rebuild the Mississippi Gulf Coast following Katrina.

Ok, long past bedtime, I leave you with a picture of my new favorite building at night: