Mary Street.

Set on a tree-lined street in Coconut Grove, Mary Street redefines the visual landscape leading into Coconut Grove Village Center through its adaptive reuse of a previously standing 1980’s garage into a future-ready, Class A office building overlooking the nearby park and water.

In collaboration with Terra Corporate, Mary Street was envisioned as transforming a tired municipal building into a new space capable of creating new opportunities for commercial spaces and streetscapes, reintroducing community value to the existing structure. The new design is composed of five distinctly shaped volumes alternating between smooth curves and sharp angles that create a dynamic façade, and which establishes a unique presence along this entrance into the city’s downtown area.

The materials and palette for Mary Street’s architecture and interiors was inspired by the Grove’s local environment: the reflective, glass volumes recall the neighboring ocean and fresh aquafer waters below the site, while the Louvered volumes evoke the patterning and warm-toned coloring of seashells and sand.

A clear glass volume, curving at both street corners, houses retail spaces and the office lobby. The top three-story glass volume consists of the main office building. The building’s new garage is clad in a brise soleil or a screen of square-section, terracotta “baguettes.” The effects of this terracotta façade are twofold: providing ventilation and filtering daylight, while also creating a beautiful dappled light effect that mimics the way that Coconut Grove’s trees filter light through their lush canopies.