Frank Gehry has officially been replaced by dutch firm West 8 for the Miami Beach Lincoln Park project. Gehry and the city were at odds after he could not stick to budget. The project will still have to be approved by the city of Miami Beach before it’s finalized.

The new 2.5 acre urban park in the cultural and civic heart of downtown Miami Beach will serve as an outdoor performance space for the New World Symphony as well as a distinctive park for residents and visitors. West 8’s design approach calls for an integrated relationship to the Frank Gehry-designed New World Symphony building a new park that balances the building design, the surrounding context, and its own programmatic and design ambitions.

Via: blogs.miaminewtimes.com:

‘Frank Gehry has officially been replaced on Miami Beach’s Lincoln Park project – the outdoor, 2.5-acre space leading up to the Gehry-designed New World Symphony – after the famed architect couldn’t stick to budget. The selection committee has chosen West 8, a Dutch firm specializing in contemporary landscape architecture.

The firm, West 8, was selected from a dozen applicants for the $13 million park project by a six-person committee representing the city and the New World Symphony, which is building a Gehry-designed concert hall behind its Lincoln Road Mall home. The 2.5-acre Lincoln Park would front the new hall, which is rising on the site of a former parking lot between Lincoln Road and 17th Street.’

The firm specializes in contemporary landscape architecture and has designed projects including Governor’s Island New york, Bridges Parque Lineal de Manzanares, Madrid and most recently the Spadina Wavedeck in Toronto.

The 2.5 acre park will serve as an entrance to the Gehry designed New World Symphony scheduled to open in January 2011. It will also provide an outdoor venue for concerts and expansive green space.

Via: www.miamiherald.com:

COSTS AND INSULTS

‘Gehry withdrew from the park project in April after the city – which shifted $2 million from the park to an accompanying Gehry-decorated garage next door because of cost overruns – balked at the fees. Some commissioners made critical remarks the famed architect called ‘insulting.’

Gehry said he had undertaken the park design in addition to the hall only as a favor to New World Symphony founder Michael Tilson Thomas, an old friend, and was disinclined to quibble over his fee.

Moreover, he called the $10 million construction budget insufficient for the ambitious goals for the park, which is meant to function both as a restful green space and a lively urban crossroads, with concerts or rehearsals taking place inside the hall projected on the building’s facade for viewers in the park.

Gehry did, however, agree to review the final park design gratis.

West 8 beat out a second high-profile finalist, Hargreaves Associates, designers of Miami Beach’s new and popular South Pointe Park. On schedule and within budget, Hargreaves transformed an underused park by creating a serpentine pathway atop an artificial mound on the flat shoreline to provide parkgoers sweeping views of Government Cut.

The competition between the two finalists amounted to Mac versus PC – with West 8 the edgier and less conventional choice, and Hargreaves the solid, more-established alternative.

FLEXIBLE DESIGN

At a presentation last week, West 8 founder Adriaan Geuze and principal Jerry van Eyck captivated committee members with a flexible, almost instinctive approach to thinking through design possibilities, coupled with budgetary and managerial discipline. One reference consulted in England reported the firm delivered plans on time and met budget, Kasdin said.

The firm presented a rough idea for a park resembling an undulating or wrinkled carpet, raised at the edges to sharply enclose the green space and baffle street noise.

The designers stressed they could end up with something completely different after public meetings with Beach residents, planners and elected officials. But they said the park should above all harmonize with Gehry’s building design while neither mimicking nor competing with it.

As to that $10 million budget, Geuze said, ‘the good news is, it’s doable.”