Wynwood Walls gets bigger

PLUS URBIA DESIGN'S WYNWOOD WORK PRAISED IN HERALD ART BASEL BLOG

It has been an honor to be part of the PlusUrbia Design team work with the Goldman Family on Wywnood Walls Garden, next to the famous Wynwood Walls and Wynwood Doors. 

We are humbled to be lauded by Andres Viglucci, the Miami Herald's longtime urban affairs reporter -- and one of the best urban design writers on the staff of a major daily newspaper in the nation.

Here's the item:

Wynwood Walls, the curated graffiti-mural project that jump-started the neighborhood's revitalization, keeps getting bigger and bigger -- literally. And better, too.

The Goldman family just expanded the murals project onto a vacant, nearly half-acre property next door and turned it into an enclosed, landscaped garden designed by a prize-winning Coconut Grove firm, PlusUrbia.

And while the opening was timed for Miami Art Week, the good news for locals is they get to enjoy it year-round.

The garden features four new murals in Wynwood Walls' recently completed "Walls of Change" installation. One of the new murals is painted on the side of a stacked set of shipping containers, another on the side of a warehouse that opens onto the new garden. During this week, the warehouse is serving as a studio for artist Peter Tunney's newest endeavor, taking really big Polaroid portraits using a giant vintage Polaroid camera from the '70s.

But the garden is not just a canvas for art. Goldman Properties and PlusUrbia say the garden provides "urban relief" for the rapidly evolving Wynwood industrial district -- which, given its origins, never had any parks or green spaces other than vacant lots.

PlusUrbia's Santiago Eliaschev says the garden was designed to give visitors different vantage points from which to view the murals, including angled benches and sloping planters that also provide seating -- perfect, the firm boasts, for "Wynwood selfies."

If the firm name sounds familiar, that's because it's also responsible for the new Wynwood zoning plan that's meant to spur housing development and improve streets and sidewalks in the neighborhood while preserving its distinctive warehouses and funky vibe.

The PlusUrbia Wynwood Neighborhood Revitalization District plan recently won the American Planning Association's 215 Great Neighborhoods award.

The new garden is immediately west of Wynwood Doors, the Walls project's last expansion.

ANDRES VIGLUCCI

Posted by Miami Herald