“Climate ribbon” to cool Brickell City Centre shoppers

A thousand-foot long ribbon of steel, fabric and glass will keep future shoppers at Brickell City Centre cool.

The $30-million “Climate Ribbon” will protect shoppers from bad weather, capture breezes from Biscayne Bay and let in natural light in an “open air experience,” according to the development’s website.

The canopy, designed and engineered by design firm Hugh Dutton Associés of Paris, and the universities of Carnegie-Mellon in Pittsburgh and Cardiff in the U.K., is the first of its kind.

“We challenged ourselves to think about what that meant, to think about the definition of urban retail in Miami,” Swire Properties president Stephen Owens told the Miami Herald. “What should it be? Miami is really about its environment. That’s what people come to Miami for. So why build a large box that we would have to air-condition and that could be in Dallas or Atlanta or anywhere else?”

The system will capture about five million gallons of water annually, according to the project’s website. The ribbon, which spans four city blocks, makes a statement about the development and sets it apart from nearby competitors such as Miami Worldcenter, Swire officials told the newspaper. [Miami Herald] — Katherine Kallergis