Monad Terrace Condo, Miami Beach

Ateliers Jean Nouvel presents Monad Terrace, the Pritzker Prize-winning architect’s only residential project in Florida.
Composed of fifty-nine individually designed waterfront residences arrayed around a glittering lagoon on Biscayne Bay, Monad Terrace provides brilliant light and expansive private outdoor space while being sheltered by climbing gardens that feature native Bougainvillea and Passion Vines. Nouvel artfully directs the play of daylight and water throughout the project.

The flourishing and special neighborhood of South Beach Bay, minutes from the organic beauty and cultural attractions of all of Miami Beach, but with a character all its own, provides a natural setting for the unique waterfront living to be found at Monad Terrace.

Nouvel’s mastery of the art and science of light comes to life in the innovative sawtooth façade, which brings the feeling of Biscayne Bay deep into the heart of the property, creating what Nouvel has dubbed “the reflection machine.” Select Monad Terrace floor plans features a sawtooth profile—a kind of refined zig-zag—along the glass façades that face the water garden and lagoon so that one never loses view of the bay and sky, and yet privacy is assured. And in a beautiful side effect, at night the building glows like a paper lantern or a silver moon.

Monad Terrace’s unique honeycomb sawtooth façade captures, diffuses, and reflects incoming light, simultaneously framing views and providing privacy. Transparency and translucency are achieved by a bespoke engineered screen system, built into the faceted glass walls of each residence. While the glass facing the bay is clear, the glass facing adjacent residences features a distinctive aluminum hexagrid screen embedded within the glazing itself. Viewed from an oblique angle, the screen becomes opaque. When viewed head on, these same screens become transparent—adding sparkle and luminosity to every interior space. Throughout the floor plan, the angle of each facet is unique—precisely calibrated to the lines of sight from within each residence, to the waterfront and beyond, as well as sheltering residences from adjacent sightlines.

Monad Terrace ​will be the first condominium residence in Miami Beach to be built above updated flood and sea level elevations. The building ​is designed to ​reflect ​the light and water of its surroundings, while living in harmony with the time and place in which it rises. Ateliers Jean Nouvel has applied a practical awareness of our changing climate to the project—seamlessly engineering environmental responsibility and innovative climate resilience features into the building’s architecture.​ ​