Established n 1992, Village Architects Inc. of Miami, FL, is a full-service firm, offering architectural design, interior design and engineering services. The number of projects the firm accepts is carefully limited to ensure the highest degree of personal involvement by its principals as they seek to produce the best possible design for each circumstance. The work of the firm’s team is not constrained by personal style or a signature trait that would limit architecture and design; instead the firm tries to celebrate characteristics unique to each of its projects.
Deborah DeLeon is a principal at the firm and was responsible for the design of the Key Biscayne House. A graduate of the University of Houston with a bachelor’s degree in architecture, she has 18 years of experience in designing and creating spaces and architecture. She works closely with her team to make certain that the details of prepared construction documents represents her design concepts.
Key Biscayne House is a $5 million, 10,000 sq. ft. home on Biscayne Bay in Key Biscayne. It was designed in the Florida vernacular, and with a Mediterranean influence. Its exterior features overtones of graceful masonry and stucco that are not just an interpretation of a particular style but a new iteration that is both traditional and modern.
The signature of the Florida vernacular architecture is its ability to moderate the tropical climate, create a relationship to the street at human scale and to clearly establish an identity for the neighborhood in which it is found. The Mediterranean Revival style is characterized by thick walls, small openings and outdoor living spaces such as courtyards, porches and verandas.
While metal roofing is common to the Florida vernacular, tile roofing is more common to Mediterranean designs. The architects initially chose tile but the owner, impressed with a neighbor’s standing seam copper roof, had a last-minute change of heart and requested metal too. It’s a change DeLeon was not unhappy to make.
“The standing seam metal roof really goes well with this style of architecture,” she said. From the myriad colors and styles of metal to choose from, the architect and client ultimately decided on 10,700 square feet of Bone White, .032” aluminum standing seam. The 20”-wide double-lock standing seam panels were formed into an Englert Inc. profile by Met Roofing of Miami. Englert Inc. is headquartered in Perth Amboy, NJ, and offers an extensive line of metal roofing for job-site fabrication by contractors throughout the country.
The roof was installed with all stainless steel accessories—clips, screws, etc. Already approved for use in Miami-Dade County, the roof as reinforced for hurricane-force winds by reducing the spacing between clips to just 10”.
Most of the hips were hand-cut miters. Even the HVAC penetration and the goosenecks were remade from the .032” aluminum coil to match the Bone White panels.
The biggest challenge of this job was the variety of changes in the roof plane, said Major Threkeld Jr. of Met Roofing. There were seven interconnecting levels on the north and south sides of the house with panel lengths of up to 51 feet from cricket to cricket, requiring special attention to the roof crickets and flashing to insure optimal performance.