The 1.6-million-sq-ft Aston Martin Residences rises 69 stories and 817 ft above the Miami River and Biscayne Bay with a glass, steel and concrete tower resembling a wind-filled sail and creating a distinctive visual statement in Miami.

Miami’s unique and demanding geological conditions required a close collaboration among structural engineers, architects and subcontractors that resulted in innovative concrete and foundation solutions.

Crews delivered the tower on budget despite facing structural hurdles. The building has a total of 391 condominiums with a lush assortment of amenities as well as a 552-space parking garage with 16 parking lifts.

With its gently curving profile of a sail and several substantial cantilevers, constructing the high-rise required close collaboration between teams from DeSimone Consulting Engineering and concrete contractors, a process ultimately resulting in a distinctive structure.

The architect’s design with its curving profile and significant height drove in large part the overall structural approach, which required massive sloped concrete columns to effectively deliver loads from the top floors to the foundation.

The building is designed as three towers in one, featuring three interior cores that anchor the structure in place. The three cores allow the building to rise to nearly 70 floors on the project’s narrow site.

The engineering team designed a stacked belt truss and shear walls to complement the core, a lateral system supplemented by super columns with high-strength concrete to deliver loads from the tower’s post-tensioned slab floors to piers underground that are topped by a large mat foundation 9 to 15 ft thick.

Photo courtesy Coastal Construction

Given the building’s location in a hurricane zone, wind-induced loads created a structural problem for designers to tackle. The structure will face extensive wind stresses and needed to resist a 9-million-lb-per-ft wind-induced overturning moment. This was addressed with two 12-ft-dia columns and with an innovative foundation with linear bearing elements consisting of a series of seven 36-in.-dia adjacent piles. In all, 573 piles were used.

Another solution came in the form of a 5-ft-thick transfer slab located at the top of the podium that transfers loads for nearly one-third of the tower and was cast in two phases to allow for efficient shoring—and made possible by the effective placement of shear reinforcing.

That foundation was necessitated by the site’s specific geologic features, including a close proximity to a creek feeding the Miami River, leading the project team to develop the mat foundation with group auger cast piles that was a first for the Miami market.

Contractors and subcontractors also worked to perfect concrete mixes for the project’s many concrete applications, including significant exposed concrete portions. And because of the unique curving sail shape, no two floors in the tower are exactly alike.

The result is the successful realization of the architectural team’s vision of a continuously shifting profile that stands tall and delivers a prominent addition to the Miami skyline.