“It’s really true how nothin’ matters, No mad, mad world and no mad hatters…”
— “Coconut Grove,” John Sebastian of the Lovin’ Spoonful, 1966
On first impression, it looks like a purely aesthetic move, conceived from the outside in: twisting, tornado-like forms that draw the eye skyward and create a highly animated presence among the static and rather dowdy high-rises along South Bayshore Drive. In fact, the shapes of the Grove at Grand Bay were generated by inward necessities following an exhaustive study by the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) and its director, Bjarke Ingels — 42-year-old design prodigy, Danish wunderkind, and former disciple of Rem Koolhaas — who came up with the operative trope, the working mantra for the project: “We have to ‘Re-grove the Grove,’ ” he said, somewhat cryptically but with conviction.
