One Thousand Museum

One Thousand Museum (OTM) is a 62-storey residential tower opposite Museum Park in Miami. With views across Biscayne Bay, this popular 30-acre park was redeveloped in 2013 as one of downtown Miami’s primary public spaces and includes the city’s new art and science museums.

The tower’s design continues ZHA’s research into high-rise construction that defines a fluid architectural expression consistent with the engineering for the entire height of a structure.

OTM’s concrete exoskeleton structures its perimeter in a web of flowing lines that integrates lateral bracing with structural support.

Reading from top to bottom as one continuous frame, columns at its base fan out as the tower rises to meet at the corners, forming a rigid tube highly resistant to Miami’s demanding wind loads; its curved supports creating hurricane resistant diagonal bracketing.

The design expresses a fluidity that is both structural and architectural. The structure gets thicker and thinner as required, bringing a continuity between the architecture and engineering.

OTM incorporates glass fibre reinforced concrete form-work which remains in place as construction progresses up the tower. This permanent concrete form-work also provides the architectural finish that requires minimal maintenance. Behind the exoskeleton, the faceted, crystal-like façade contrasts with the solidity of the structure.

With its frame at the perimeter, the tower’s interior floor plates are almost column free; the exoskeleton’s curvature creating slightly different plans on each floor. On the lower floors, terraces cantilever from the corners, while on the upper floors, the terraces are incorporated behind the structure.