SERVICE
Condominium and Penthouse Design
Oceanfront condominiums and penthouses, designed around what the building actually allows.
Designing in a tower is a different discipline from designing in a house, and most of the difference is invisible in the finished photographs.
A condominium is three categories of space, not one. The interior of your unit is largely yours. The balcony and often the windows are limited common elements that belong to the building. Structure, façade and risers are not yours at all. A design that ignores those boundaries gets rejected by the board, and a design that understands them gets approved on the first submission.
Then there is timing. Miami-Dade now requires building recertification at thirty years, or twenty-five within roughly three miles of the coast, which covers nearly every oceanfront tower in this market. When a building goes through that cycle it commonly replaces windows, sliders and balconies. Anything built tight to those elements gets cut out. Knowing where your building sits in its cycle is the single most valuable piece of information before design begins.
We resolve plans around fixed plumbing risers instead of fighting them, detail to the reveal depth that impact glazing actually produces, and specify flooring against the acoustic assembly your building requires. That is where a tower interior is won.
What the work includes
- Full interior scope within the unit
- Plans resolved around existing risers and structure
- Board submission package coordination
- Acoustic flooring assemblies to building requirement
- Detailing to impact glazing reveals and thresholds
- Custom millwork for non-standard dimensions
- Lighting design
- Furniture and fixture specification and procurement
- Phasing around building recertification and repair cycles
- Final installation and styling
Selected projects
Common questions
Can you move the kitchen or a bathroom in a condominium?
Often not, or not economically. Wet areas connect to vertical risers shared by the whole stack, and in a post-tension slab core drilling for a new drain may be prohibited. In most towers the better result comes from resolving a plan around the existing locations.
Do I need board approval for interior work?
In almost every South Florida condominium, yes, even for work entirely inside the unit. The association approves the scope, the contractor and the logistics before work begins. A complete first submission is the main lever an owner controls.
Should I renovate before or after my building's recertification?
Interior work away from the façade can proceed at any time. Anything touching windows, sliders, balconies or façade-facing walls should wait until the building's repair scope is known, because those elements are commonly replaced and anything built to them will be cut.
How much does a luxury condo renovation cost in Miami?
Published market ranges put condominium renovation at roughly $80 to $220 per square foot, with comprehensive gut renovations at $175 to $250 and coastal luxury frequently above $250 to $300. Renovating in a tower costs roughly 10% to 20% more per square foot than the same work in a house, for administrative rather than material reasons.