SEAN McCAUGHAN

A little more than a decade ago, few condo developers in Miami would consider investing more than necessary in architecture, preferring to pack in more units at a lower price. Following the crash of 2008, as the city firmly established itself as an international art and design destination and developers needed to justify higher pre-construction deposits to avert another real estate bubble, that all changed. 

Big names like Zaha Hadid, Bjarke Ingels, Herzog & de Meuron, and Foster + Partners were splashed across glamorous new projects, with prices to match. And they sold well. The era of the starchitect had begun, with Miami as its epicenter. [Read more at the Miami Herald]

Over the past 15 to 20 years, Miami has become a city of condo dwellers, a shift that transformed the cityscape’s pattern of suburban sprawl and single family houses under palm trees to coastline-following mountain ranges of luxury towers that reach for the sky. In the 1980s, the Golden Girls lived in a house, but when the Kardashians came to town, they chose a condo in South Beach.

As more people flooded into Miami’s urban areas, the city took action to help new buildings and infrastructure adapt to the urban shift. In 2008, Miami approved Miami 21, the first New Urbanist zoning code to be applied to a large, preexisting city.  The form-based code was applied to a citywide rezoning and was a huge test for an urban planning movement that is more common in small towns like Seaside, Florida, the famous Truman Show locale. The code, enacted as the growing city was quickly running out of land, has led to a reassessment of how Miami works, and has prompted a more logical regeneration of the city’s urban core. [Read More at the Architect’s Newspaper]

By SEAN McCAUGHAN and PATRICIA COHEN. NORTH MIAMI, Fla.—In a somewhat bizarre arrangement, scholars gathered at the Museum of Contemporary Art here this weekend for a symposium led by a man whom city officials view as the museum’s director and who museum officials regard as an impostor. It was scheduled despite objections from the museum’s board, which ultimately gave up its effort to cancel the event inside the museum’s city-owned building. [Read More]—The New York Times

September 14th,2016 – Dear friends,

I recently left my position at Miami Condo Investments to freelance, consult, and work on my own writing and projects, including my latest bit of fun, seanofmiami.com. The new site will be all about Miami real estate, architecture, nightlife, etc. Check out Sean of Miami, and feel free to call me at (786)390-2625 or email me here, at spmccaughan@gmail.com anytime.

(UPDATE: ‘Sean of Miami’ has been renamed The Big Bubble at thebigbubblemiami.com)

I also have two articles coming out this week in the Architect’s Newspaper. (archpaper.com) So, watch out for those.

Yours,

Sean P. McCaughan
Writer, Editor, Etc.
seanofmiami.com
seanmccaughan.com
(786)390-2625
spmccaughan@gmail.com

MIAMI, FLORIDA (PRWEB) APRIL 27, 2016

MiamiCondoInvestments.com – the #1 ranking Miami Condos website – hires Sean McCaughan as Editor of its Miami Luxury Real Estate Blog.

Previously the Editor of Curbed and Editor-in-Chief of Gridics, McCaughan brings great talent and experience to the position. He is well-reputed in the Miami real estate community, attracting a wide audience with his brass, unfiltered commentary.

“Sean McCaughan is a talented, well-followed writer. We are extremely happy to have him on board,” says Lucas Lechuga, Owner and Founder of MiamiCondoInvestments.com.

With this new venture, McCaughan will focus on what he does best – write about all things Miami real estate. That will include architecture, luxury properties, neighborhood events, and more.

“I am looking forward to picking up my pen again, figuratively speaking, on a daily basis and contributing an intelligent, irreverent voice to the Miami real estate and urban dialogue at Miami Condo Investments,” says McCaughan.

My friends, colleagues, and Miami real estate family,

I would like to announce my new position as Editor in Chief of Gridics, a website for all things real estate, design, architecture, and everything we love that will be launching soon in Miami. It’s going to be a big adventure, with all of you along for the ride. I can’t wait to tell you all about it.

My new email address will be smccaughan@gridics.com and my mobile phone number, (786)390-2625, will remain the same. The new office is at the DuPont Building, at 169 E. Flagler Street, Miami, FL, 33131, Suite 1640. The site will be launching in the coming months, but in the meantime you can check us out at facebook.com/gridics.

This means, of course, that I will no longer be the Editor of Curbed Miami, and I have departed my position at Vox Media.

Yes!

My latest article at The Architect’s Newspaper is on the Miami 21 zoning code. Here’s a quote:

On February 9, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, the grande dame of New Urbanism, will present Miami 21, the first New Urbanist zoning code to be adopted by a major American city, at the AIA Center for Architecture in New York. Written by Plater-Zyberk, this form-based code was approved by the City of Miami in 2009. Miami has officially been New Urbanist—a theoretical Seaside on steroids—for the last three years. As mapped out by Miami 21, the citywide transformation away from automobiles and air-conditioned bubbles will take decades and will depend on Miami’s traditional boom-and-bust cycle of growth to accomplish this massive undertaking. It is an imperfect experiment with significant obstacles for the city, but there’s little doubt that it will work, and that it already has.

The rest of the article is at The Architect’s Newspaper.