FORMA's Miami beachfront concept home named 2022 'Best Future House of the Year'

A concept for a Miami beachfront residence designed by FORMA has been named the 2022 "Best Future House of the Year" by The Chicago Athenaeum and Global Design News. The award recognizes honors with a "vision to present pioneering architectural projects that define the present and shape the future of residential design globally." The award win represents a first for the 4-year-old New York-based studio in terms of major residential awards recognition for environmentally sensitive and vulnerable sites.

The Future House of the Year winner was joined by three other superlative designs from Lake|Flato, New York atelier Karim Rashid, and Barcelona’s Peris+Toral Arquitectes. FORMA first conceived their residential design for the Arch Out Loud HOME Competition in 2019 and received an honorable mention for the concept. The design team explained the 1,550-square-foot residence is a "catalyst for collective encounters and proactive response to the environment."

"As we emerge from the pandemic, our conception of domestic living and working has inexorably shifted," FORMA explained in a press statement. "The demand for flexibility and the desire to live 'where we want' rather than where our jobs are located has led to new forms of living and co-living. These new predilections, when combined with the continued looming presence of rising sea levels, make Miami House more relevant than ever."

Featuring a roof deck as its social condenser focal point, the home is designed to invert the traditional single-family habitation model as the hypothetical client was a group of individuals who had pooled their resources towards the commission, which included provisions for a pool, outdoor dining area, and small garden.

Per the architects: "The entire structure is lifted above the ground to avoid rising sea levels, coastal erosion and allow nature to run uninterrupted below. The house volumes are suspended from the elevated roof plane and contain compact bedrooms, generous bathrooms, and communal living and kitchen area. A central unifying outdoor stair bifurcates the house into two clusters, separating the intimate bedroom spaces at the rear of the house from the social kitchen and living spaces on the ocean side of the building. Two sets of bedrooms on every level each share a generous bathroom and a terrace space, encouraging casual encounters between the inhabitants."

Materials from their winning design will be exhibited at The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies Contemporary Space in Athens, Greece, between September 30th and October 23rd. Additional information about the concept design can be found here.