Miami
Rene Gonzalez Architect

René González transforms an old warehouse into Karla, a serene and glowing event space and production venue in Miami

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	Rene Gonzalez, AIA
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I wanted a sequence of spaces where we could bring clients to ‘seduce’ them,” says Karla Dascal, founder of an event-organizing business that caters to such high-profile clients as Madonna, Ricky Martin, and the office of President George W. Bush. For her company, Karla Conceptual Event Experiences, Dascal envisioned “a place where clients could get inspired … with enough openness to let them imagine.”

The new headquarters, simply called Karla, is just off Biscayne Boulevard in Miami’s trendy Wynwood Arts District, occupying a 12,000-square-foot warehouse and an unbuilt adjacent lot of equal size.

Dascal needed a venue for throwing parties, making sets (such as the wedding decor she created for an episode of TV’s Extreme Makeover), and preparing floral arrangements for catered events. The program also included corporate offices, a conference room, a flower cooler, workspace, and ample storage.

Even before finding the warehouse property, Dascal signed on Miami architect René González. She was impressed by his installation for Design Matters, an exhibition of industrial design, fashion, and graphics that he curated in 2000 at Miami’s Museum of Contemporary Art. As she recalls, “He applied common materials like bubble wrap in a way you would never use them. He made them very elegant.” Dascal later sought out González and outlined her program for him. The event planner remembers explaining, “We’re a full-service production company—we do weddings, art-related parties for collectors during Art Basel, branding and corporate identity work, and dinners for the President. I want a Minimal space whose materials speak to me.”

A Minimalist approach suited González, who was born in Cuba but raised in south Florida, and had worked in Los Angeles for Richard Meier (on the Getty Museum) and Frank Israel before opening his own Miami firm, now with six architects. In converting the warehouse into Karla, González turned the property’s empty lot into a lush, subtropical garden, which you must traverse to enter the structure. Here, huge, single-paned glass doors between lobby and garden heighten ambiguities in the indoor/outdoor relationship.

The building now features a simple floor plan with innovative material applications. Entry, conference room, and workspace form a series of high-ceilinged, boxy white spaces, some with glowing, light-infused walls. The built-in reception desk seems to float above the high-gloss epoxy floor. Behind the desk is handmade, 3D white wallpaper by artist Tracy Kendall. Etched-acrylic, floor-to-ceiling panels, backlit through blue filters, define the reception area’s other edges.

Want the full story? Read the entire article in our September 2006 issue.
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