RE LOG Spring '25

SPRING 2025 Ransom Everglades LOG 11 Her interests had expanded well beyond architecture to encompass a broader, more holistic view of the ways in which design can change the built and unbuilt world. By then she had already launched a firm-within-the-firm, a design studio that focused on interiors and products (Arquitectonica Interiors + Products), then a second one to do architecture at a smaller scale (Arquitectonica Studio). But as time went on, what absorbed her most of all was landscape. She enrolled in Florida International University’s master’s program in landscape architecture, and in 2005 she and Margarita Blanco founded ArquitectonicaGEO as a complement to the larger and faster paced (and burgeoning) architectural practice. In the last two decades, Spear has focused primarily on ecologically responsible landscape design, with forward-thinking designs that have shed new light on the possibilities of integrating nature and architecture. Among GEO’s goals is the making of more ecologically sound, socially engaged and economically invigorated public spaces without sacrificing aesthetics. It almost goes without saying Spear is a fierce advocate for the natural environment and a constant and restless learner as she seeks answers to the many questions of survival and resiliency that confront not just Miami, but the world. “The most productive thing one can do,” Spear says, “is to add to the earth, add plants, add trees. It’s amazing how much pushback I feel if I quietly say: Maybe do not build it so tall, so dense? Maybe underbuild it? Maybe there should be more landscape? Maybe we should not build it at all: make a park or a garden or just wild?” ArquitectonicaGEO’s work can be seen not just at PAMM and the Frost Science Museum, but on the campuses of both the University of Miami Lakeside Village and Florida International University, on the rooftop at Brickell City Centre and in the design of the PortMiami Tunnel – and there is more to come. “I began thinking about how ironic it is that the most experimental (and even often controversial) area of design is not ‘how big’ or ‘how tall’ but actually the preservation of the land and the landscape and how important it is to ask the most difficult questions,” she said. Spear has been asking those difficult questions her whole life. But perhaps the sea change is that the more youthful “why not?” has evolved into a more informed and perhaps more sagacious, but no less wise question, which is “why?” Beth Dunlop was the longtime architecture critic for the Miami Herald as well as the former editor of the magazine HOME Miami . She has written, co-authored or contributed to more than 40 books, among them two on Arquitectonica. She is the mother of Adam Farkas ’01 . Emilia Adams ’29, Marisa R. Fort ’98, Laurinda Spear ’68 in 2013