CTBUH 2024 Americas Conference Summary Report
Miami, 22 & 23 February 2024
The CTBUH Americas Conference welcomed over 170 attendees to learn about resiliency and hear about the inaugural City Advocacy Program.
At the CTBUH 2024 Americas Conference, “Future Downtown: Density and Resiliency in Cities Across the Americas” in Miami at the AC Hotel Miami Brickell on 22 & 23 February 2024, there was an emphasis on building for resiliency, activating new areas to support polycentric cities, and reshaping spaces to increase density and inclusion to support the health of cities across the Americas region. It was also the launchpad for a new initiative, the City Advocacy Program, which kicked off the conference with planners from Miami, London and Singapore participating in a lively exchange on high-density living.
Traveling from as far away as Colombia and Peru, there were more than 170 attendees from 40 cities in nine countries throughout the Americas who joined CTBUH for thought-provoking presentations, stimulating conversation, astounding off-site tours, and networking opportunities. The conference brought together thought leaders, experts, policymakers, and industry representatives, forming a tapestry of voices representing various sectors and interests across the Americas region.
The presentations and discussions taking place throughout the day on Thursday, 22 February are detailed further in this summary report below, along with a summary of the site tours on Friday, 23 February which gave tangible examples of how some of the discussed topics were being implemented.
We’d like to thank the CTBUH Americas Steering Committee, the sponsors, and the partners who made this a successful event.
Platinum
Desimone Consulting Engineering
Glas, US
Swire Properties Ltd
IMEG Corp
Gold
Foster + Partners
Softwood Lumber Board
TK Elevator
Windtech
Silver
Baker Concrete Construction
Coastal Construction
Hill York
Keller
Vistaglass, by Wonwoo
Partners
Associated General Contractors of South Florida
City Advocacy Program
KPF
Summary of the CTBUH 2024 Americas Conference
Thursday 22 February 2024, Morning Sessions (8:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.)
CTBUH Chair Shonn Mills welcomed conference attendees and introduced the theme of resiliency and density.
CTBUH Americas Director Shelley Finnigan started the conference by welcoming and thanking everyone for joining in Miami and for the enthusiasm already recognizable in the room. This was followed by CTBUH Board Chair Shonn Mills, who answered the burning question of “Why Miami?” for the 2024 conference location. He placed the city at the center of issues such as climate change, resiliency, and increasing density and diversity. This led to the introduction for the opening panel where CTBUH Vice-Chair Steve Watts gave a background about the City Advocacy Program, a bold initiative, that aims to confront the critical issues facing our global cities today.
Opening session panelists (L to R) Francisco Garcia, Peter Murray, and Lay Bee Yap.
Watts proceeded to welcome the esteemed panelists of the opening session, Francisco Garcia, Principal, The Euclid Group (former Director of Planning and Zoning, Miami from 2010 to 2020); Lay Bee Yap, Group Director of Architecture & Urban Design Group, Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) in Singapore; and Peter Murray, Curator in Chief, New London Architecture in London.
Offering invaluable perspectives on the path forward, the panelists discussed how they approached the public about density and building vertically, each with a distinct perspective from their respective cities. Each experienced similar challenges for housing and growth but had unique ways and different strategies of how density can support a quality of life for the community, and how to present this. Murray spoke about the proclivity for heritage buildings in London and the dance around building new versus repurposing buildings, where central areas have been created for higher densities. Yap added to the discussion of quality of life, where Singapore plans to have every residence within a 10-minute walking distance to a park by 2030. This idea will enhance access to public spaces with the ever-increasing density and growth in the city-state, and support livability.
Garcia relayed Murray’s sentiments about central areas becoming dense hot spots and discussed the commercial development of increasing density and urban downtown centers in Miami, which had historically been about sprawl and resort living. The audience then asked the panelists questions about urban growth and comparable solutions to round out the discussion.
It's fair to say that Miami tends to look at quality of life in an aspirational lifestyle, living in a single-family residence… And to appreciate or understand even exactly what quality of life in a high-density urban context is, my approach has been to engage actively in an education process where everyone becomes familiarized with what the alternatives are.
- Francisco Garcia, Principal, The Euclid Group, in the opening panel, discussing density growth and the challenges in championing its merits.
The panelists in "Americas in Focus: Challenges, Opportunities, and the Downtown Vision" discussed the importance of the ground plane.
Next followed the session, “Americas in Focus: Challenges, Opportunities, and the Downtown Vision” where a short presentation and panel discussion were given on the topic. The panel consisted of speakers Kimberly Brown, Director, Resilience Planning and Implementation, Miami-Dade County Office of Resilience; Jason Long, Partner, OMA; James Parakh, Manager of Urban Design, City of Toronto Planning Department; Jen Weaver, President, Vivid Development; and moderator CTBUH Americas Director Shelley Finnigan. While each looked at different cities, the common consensus was that there needed to be an emphasis on how buildings interact at street level and connect with the public.
Brown in her presentation and panel discussion spoke about the resiliency of Miami-Dade County and also emphasized what they are doing for sea level rise at the local level. She stated that it is not just about moving buildings to higher ground, but also having buildings within three miles of the coastline reviewed more frequently to ensure their structural integrity over time.
I think it's important to involve the public early and often, as the cliché goes, but also to help people understand what level of risk in resiliency and sea level rise is acceptable. For example, a solution that might be more favorable might offer a low level of protection, and is the community okay with that? Those are the important conversations to have.
- Kimberly Brown, Director, Resilience Planning and Implementation, Miami-Dade County Office of Resilience
Long looked at the impact of tall building designs on the ground plane, and the importance of having a positive effect. He pointed to several examples, including two towers in Brooklyn in New York, and the Avery in San Francisco, that sits on the former site of the Embarcadero freeway that created ground level activity. Parakh added to this discussion of how a city policy can improve the ground plane, specifically in Toronto which has an extensive POPS (privately owned publicly accessible space) program. He also talked about the need for more affordable housing, giving a case study of flooding an area alongside the Don River to create islands where more development could happen. At the very moment that Parakh was presenting, this exciting and new type of proposition and engineering feat was in the process of releasing the water to form those islands. He shared his excitement with the audience of this progress.
Finnigan posed the question to all the panelists asking “What is the vision that you have, and how we can achieve this balance in your cities?” Weaver, who had been an architect and became a developer based in the city of Austin, talked about how to make more walkable districts. She emphasized that while the urban design guidelines are a baseline, they must be expanded on, as the growth of the city continued to make them outdated. In her involvement as Chair of the Design Commission in Austin, she took the four current categories: buildings, plazas and public spaces, infrastructure, and streetscapes, and added a fifth chapter called the urban fabric. This brought more context for individual buildings and outlined 11 guidelines to help achieve a more complex and connected urban density.
Christopher Meyer, Assistant Professor, University of Miami discusses material research into using Mass Timber in Florida during the session "Future-Proof Cities: Environmental Resilience in Design for Urban Spaces."
After a short break, the next session gave presentations on the topic “Future-Proof Cities: Environmental Resilience in Design for Urban Spaces” chaired by Karl Pennings, Principal, IMEG Corp. The first to present was Roy Denoon, Senior Principal & Vice President, CPP Wind Engineering Consultants, who talked about resiliency and wind using two cases: extreme events, but also the more everyday social scenarios to consider. The social examples he gave were considerations such as keeping people from being blown away when they walk around a corner, or salad leaves staying on a plate at an outdoor restaurant. He discussed how outdoor spaces are influenced by breeze for comfort, to the importance of keeping furniture from flying off upper-story terraces, and emphasized that all regions and cities need to consider both sides of wind conditions when determining future design standards.
Next, Christopher Meyer, Assistant Professor, University of Miami presented slides about the future of “how we build” and his research at LU_Lab (Littoral Urbanism Lab) at the University of Miami. Working with students as well as independent partners in research, Meyer talked about creative possibilities, and testing materials to influence building policy that will help push for more sustainable building practices. Of note, he talked about his research on mass timber in Florida and the potential to use regionally grown woods like Southern Yellow Pine.
Kevin Davenport, Senior Vice President, Development, Swire Properties spoke about the transformation of Miami and development for the Brickell City Centre, where the ethos of placemaking was essential to its resiliency and success of the development. Forth Bagley, Managing Principal, KPF, who is working with Swire Properties on another project in Miami, talked about the looming environmental resiliency issues of designing a luxury residential and hotel building close to the water, while also incorporating areas for the public. Mark Atkinson, Partner, Foster + Partners, looked at an alternative thought of resiliency in reducing carbon emissions and shared examples of projects that show the potential to repurpose older buildings, like the renovation of the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco and the Ombú offices in a disused gas plant in Madrid. He also expressed the need to utilize new technology and materials to reduce carbon and provide vegetated and open spaces for healthy spaces.
Mark Atkinson, Partner, Foster + Partners in the session "Future-Proof Cities: Environmental Resilience in Design for Urban Spaces" answers a question from the audience on recycling concrete and other sustainable considerations in repurposing a building.
After the presentations, the audience was offered the opportunity to ask a few questions and further interrogated the panelists about recycling concrete and its use on projects, code restrictions for mass timber and how this is being addressed in Florida, and overall planning for higher resiliency standards.
Thursday 22 February 2024, Afternoon Sessions (1:45 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.)
Following lunch, the next session "Shared Skies: Inclusivity in Changing Cityscapes" featured the first all-woman panel in CTBUH history, moderated by Laura Jimenez, Senior Associate Principal, Krueck Sexton Partners. Centered on the theme of social resilience, the panelists confronted the pivotal challenge of cultivating inclusive and adaptable communities amidst evolving skylines. They looked at answering the question, "How do we drive the growth of shared values and inclusivity?"
Jessica Garcia, Principal and Co-managing Director, Gensler talks about Latin American cities and the importance of inclusion and diversity.
Jessica Garcia, Principal and Co-managing Director, Gensler talked about understanding how urban environments and urban life are being categorized by residents and visitors. She gave an example of how she has worked on producing surveys that look at these specific focuses, eventually getting a database of about 26,000 respondents in 53 cities across the globe and starting to quantify what is important in designing future projects. She cited safety as one of the highest ratings that both residents and visitors care about. Susel Biondi, Director, Poggione+Biondi added that is also about scale and how you respond to this.
Panelist Geeti Silwal, Principal, Perkins & Will, brought the example of looking at infill practices, where you can foster social cohesion and enable a community so that you can make places for people of all incomes, all beliefs, all genders, and all kinds of abilities, citing the City of Austin and their People Connect project.
Looking at transit as a spine, to build communities around it and have them completely integrated so that we are, by default, enabling shared experiences and are making sure that we are looking out for all income groups, all generations, all genders, and people of all physical abilities to make sure that you're providing equity and equitable access. It's not just about bringing people close to transit and maximizing density.
- Danielle Tillman, Managing Principal, bKL Architecture in "Shared Skies: Inclusivity in Changing Cityscapes"
Danielle Tillman, Managing Principal, bKL Architecture added to this by relating to the transformation of Chicago's urban landscape and a new rail line that will bring more community access to transit as well as looking at how to create and develop around those nodes. She emphasized that these areas can spur additional growth, adding value accessibility, that has not been afforded to that swath of the city in the same way as it has for others. It was an incredible discussion that captivated the audience on the highlights of community engagement to understand needs and better urban spaces.
Tony Rofail, Principal, Managing Director, Windtech Consultants started the session with a presentation on designing resilience for wind considerations.
After a short break, the last large session of the day was “Reimagining Density for Urban Resilience” with presentations from Jon Clarine, Head of Digital Services, TK Elevator GmbH; Stephen DeSimone, President & CEO, DeSimone Consulting Engineering; Pablo Forero, Creative Director - Co-founder, TALLER Architects; Tony Rofail, Principal, Managing Director, Windtech Consultants; and Victor Montero-Dien, Chief Executive Officer & President, REGENBE as chair.
The presentations looked at more specific elements of vertical density for resilience. First presenting, Rofail gave examples of urban resilience in his role as a wind engineer. He stated that to create more resilience in design for storms and climate change, it is important to sit down with the architect at the concept design stage and provide some guidance in terms of what could be done to the building form. This he emphasized makes a big difference in terms of the error data or the dynamic response to the building, and how to look forward in form-making.
Next Clarine gave the audience a look into the world of mobility, with elevators connected to the Internet of Things (IoT), robots, and their ability to adapt and grow with changing urban environments. He expressed the challenges that have come since the pandemic, specifically with commercial office space and the changing dynamics of conversions. With connected elevator systems, changing traffic patterns of elevator traffic could be more strategic. He elaborated on the interests in converting existing high-rise buildings by sharing a case study in Dallas that increased its height.
Desimone looked at a different angle in the structures of buildings and resiliency. He too addressed the current conversion of buildings and its role in resiliency. He also asked the audience to think differently, not looking at optimization just in terms of material, but looking at the complete package such as how the foundations contribute. He expressed that by examining real-world case studies, he aimed to provide insight into how cities can optimize their density, ensuring that every square foot not only accommodates growth but also contributes to the city's robustness against challenges and disruptions, and adds to the value proposition for performance-based design.
Offering a different view of resiliency in urban spaces, Forero discussed the Engineering Laboratories at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogota, Colombia that he designed. This project added value by creating more density for the university and also helped connect further into the surrounding community. This building which won the 2023 CTBUH Best Tall Building, Americas award, also demonstrates adaptability and how to creatively rethink vertical density.
Miami needs density because people are moving here. We're limited by the ocean on one side and the Everglades on the other and these are the geographic and natural forces that you need to think up new things and how to deal with it... You've got to get creative... high-rises are the future because it's the only way to accommodate [the growth of] people.”
-Bernardo Fort-Brescia, Principal, Arquitectonica during his closing keynote presentation in discussing the history and future of Miami.
(L to R) Bernardo Fort-Brescia, Principal, Arquitectonica, and CTBUH CEO Javier Quintana de Uña discuss the energy and growth of Miami and its possibilities for innovation and creativity.
To close the conference, architect Bernardo Fort-Brescia, Principal, Arquitectonica gave an engaging presentation on the history of Miami’s development, from the days of it being a quiet resort area to the growth and diversity that it is today. He shared the work from his firm that was a part of the transformation including the iconic Atlantis, a post-modern apartment block with funky primary-colored elements, The Palace, a residential tower with colorful stepped terraces at its base to his recent work with Brickell City Centre.
CTBUH CEO Javier Quintana de Uña sat down with Fort-Brescia and had a conversation about his views on the city’s growth, the changing development, and the influences that inform the design of his firm’s architecture in the increased density.
Attendees enjoyed a networking reception after the conference on the fitth-floor sky garden.
Following the end of the conference was a networking reception at "Quinto" on the lush, fifth-floor sky garden of East Miami Hotel, part of the Brickell City Centre development.
To see more images of the conference and reception, view the gallery.
Friday 23 February 2024, Off-site Tours
Aston Martin Residences
Nearing completion, this new high-rise tower is on the banks of the Miami River and Biscayne Bay. Housing 391 condominium residences across 66 floors, the complex is inspired by the prestigious English automobile brand. The building’s slender design was inspired by the shape of a sailboat, with its narrow form designed to create an aerodynamic flow around it. Senior Representatives from Coastal Construction and Desimone Engineers led the tours and shared the background of the design and engineering of the building.
Brickell City Centre
An example of urban redevelopment where mixed-use buildings create a well-balanced neighborhood. The phased, 7-block, transit-oriented development focuses on connectivity, smart growth principles, and sustainable design. Featured throughout is the “Climate Ribbon,” an elevated trellis of steel, fabric, and glass that spans 150,000 square feet and connects the city blocks while protecting visitors from inclement weather, capturing sea breezes, collecting rainwater for reuse, and allowing visitors to enjoy natural light in an open-air experience. The walking tour went through the development with Senior Representatives from Swire Properties, Arquitectonica, and Magnusson Klemencic Associates who led it and shared more about its design and engineering features.
The Climate + Innovation HUB
Located in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood, the Climate + Innovation HUB is powered by Future of Cities and was designed to be Miami's first net-zero office and event space, a center for community resilience, regenerative design, and climate solutions. The HUB is all about fostering and accelerating ingenuity to create global solutions and stem the threat our global coastal cities face. It is also a gathering place to further the dialogue about the impacts of climate change whether through urban building and planning; social justice and equity; technology solutions and Web3; or housing affordability. Leading the tour was Jor-El Garcia, Director of Events, at Future of Cities.
Pier Sixty-Six and Broward County Convention Center Tour (Ft. Lauderdale)
Attendees began their morning with a ride on the Brightline train to Ft. Lauderdale, where they toured two adjacent construction sites: Pier Sixty-Six Resort & Marina and the Broward County Convention Center. The Pier Sixty-Six Resort & Marina is on a 32-acre waterfront property and will feature 26 luxury resort residences, 92 condominium and villas residences, the renovation of the existing 17-story hotel, and the construction of a new hotel. The tour was led by Laurent Foury, Project Director, Americaribe LLC for this project, that is scheduled for delivery in late 2024.
Across the 17th Street Bridge, and adjacent to this first site is the Broward County Convention Center which is undergoing a significant expansion with an addition of flexible indoor and outdoor contemporary event space of more than 1.2 million square feet. Leading the tour was Alvaro Mejer, Project Manager, Baker Concrete Construction.
Get the Latest News and Updates from CTBUH
Fields with an asterisk (*) next to them are required.
View our privacy policy