Lori Capullo | 9/12/2011

CHAD OPPENHEIM, 40
Oppenheim Architecture + Design / Miami - COR building / proposed

Chad Oppenheim's love affair with architecture began when he was 7 years old, at the kitchen table where his parents designed the plans for their own house. "It was during the last energy crisis, so they were exploring the idea of wind turbines," he recalls. "The neighbors rejected the idea because of how high they would extend above the roof, but the idea is something that's been fascinating to me for a long time." So when he became an architect himself, Oppenheim says, "I felt that there was a possibility of creating a building that is functional, efficient, beautiful and full of fantasy — and hopefully set forth a new way of thinking in terms of saving the planet one building at a time."

Hence, COR, a mixed-use high-rise so named for two reasons. "One is an energy 'core,' because the building would produce energy, and the other is that it was in the Design District, and it would act as the center, or 'core,' of the area," Oppenheim says. The 400-foot tower was designed to extract power from its environment using wind turbines, photovoltaic panels and solar hot-water generation, all of which are incorporated into the "skin" of the edifice. "In typical buildings, you need a lot of beefy structure inside for things like wind resistance, for example," Oppenheim says. "That gets very expensive and disruptive to the floor plans. Here, the skin of the building is actually the structure as well."

[Photo: Dbox]

Arriving at a design that would work required extensive investigations and numerous sketches. The process took a couple of months before the idea was "cooked" enough, met the city's code requirements and resulted in a shape that worked best. "It was an arduous process, but I like those challenges," he says. "They force you to think outside the box."

COR was to be completed last year but fell victim to the real estate crisis and is now on hold. However, the design has, as Oppenheim puts it, become "the poster child of green architecture." He receives up to 10 e-mails a week from students and design professionals around the world who are inspired by the concept of COR, and developers from Canada and China have expressed a desire to build it. "I hope it gets built in Miami," he says. "The city deserves this landmark of a new ecology."

• Vice grip: Michael Mann, producer of Miami Vice — the show that inspired New Jersey-native Oppenheim to move to Miami as a young man — has said Oppenheim's architecture represents "the new Miami."

• First south Florida, then the world: Oppenheim has added offices in Los Angeles and Basel, Switzerland.

[Photo: Dbox]