Health on Higher Ground (HHG) breathes new life for Miami as an academic medical clinic, oriented around outstanding services and exceptional care. This new regional meeting place resurrects a core sense of place and community where well-being improvements beat through art based place-making strategies. Smart transportation, interactive public spaces, flexible designs, and enterprise economics nourish eclectic places and connect people to more sustainable rhythms through life. By enhancing the existing city neighborhoods of Miami, more resilient urban tissues prosper together.

Miami health services and its associated data management systems are currently located in endangered storm surge zones. Looking to expand their existing behavioral health practices elsewhere, upland connectivity strategies permit more optimal cycles of medical practice. Repositioning University of Miami’s data management systems to higher ground also invites data repository and research programs to merge with clinical practice. This multi-purposed development repositions infrastructure needed to augment existing medical frameworks into readily compliant functions. In times of regional crises, it also functions as a safe evacuation area. By doing so, reliance becomes resilient.

The cultivation of thriving live, work, play environments that HHG encompasses is an exemplary model which heartens others to follow its build-to-suit approach. It is not just a complete community rooted in the arts and well-being; it is one that continues to diminish the edge effect of socioeconomic discrepancies. Through these strategies, it establishes and encourages a new civically engaged middle class to embrace change and encourage healthy-life enriched activities. 

Competition Partners: Eleni Kroi, Zach Brown, Rand Zalzala, & Brock Thompson