Art Basel Miami Beach was cancelled this year for obvious reasons. It had originally been scheduled to kick off on December 3rd. But Design Miami is still hosting some physical exhibitions and naturally a lot of online programming. They also partnered up with Dezeen (and others) to host a series of online talks as part of the festival. Here is one about Latin American architecture and its symbiotic relationship with Miami. For some, Miami is known as "the capital of Latin America." This talk explores that idea, but also how the relationship really runs both ways. It's with architects Tatiana Bilbao and Carlos Zapata, and developer Joseph Schwarzkopf.

If you can't see the video, click here.

The width of a standard parking space in Toronto is generally 2.6m. I say generally because it depends on a few other factors, such as whether it's "obstructed" or whether it's being accessed off a substandard drive aisle. But for the purposes of this post, let's agree that the width of a standard Toronto parking space is 2.6m.

The reason I mention this is because Onexn Architects has recently completed a 2.6m wide cafe in Shenzhen called Joys. Pictured above, the 9 square meter space used to house an air conditioner repair shop.

Now, some of you are probably looking at the photos and thinking that this maybe isn't such a big deal. But small spaces force you to be creative.

Look at the grey exterior paving that creates the impression that the cafe is spilling out onto the sidewalk. And look at how they used an illuminated 5 meter tall canopy to try and accentuate the space.

In some places and in cities, a retail space like this might easily become forgotten space. But here, it was something worth designing.

Photography by Li Jinhui via Dezeen

MAD Architects recently completed its first project in the United States at 8600 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. It's interesting (and beautiful) in that it was designed to resemble a village of gabled residences sitting on top of a green hillside.

The green hillside is actually a three-storey concrete podium that is covered in what is said to be the largest living walls in the country. The gabled houses on top are wood-frame construction and were assembled to create an open-air courtyard in the middle of the site. Eighteen residences in total. Prices starting from USD 3.7 million (as of May 2019).

At five storeys, I suppose you would call this a mid-rise building. The site area is about 25,700 square feet and the building area is not even 48,000 square feet, according to ArchDaily. So the overall density on the site is actually remarkably low. At least compared to what we're accustomed to building in Toronto. It might be dense for Beverly Hills.

I would love to see the development math for a site like this. After I got over the architecture, the first thing I thought was, "you could never build a mid-rise building like this in Toronto." I suspect it's also not obvious in Los Angeles. And you probably need "starting from 3.7 million" in order for it to pencil.

Photo by Darren Bradley via Dezeen