Feature · Penthouse · Miami Beach, FL

Marea PH

A top floor handed to us as bare slab and taped board, with the services still standing up out of the concrete. Five cameras went back to the spots they had photographed empty.

Text and pictures: Nodum

Type: Penthouse
Where: Miami Beach, FL
Year: 2026
Frames: 230

What we built

Walnut lift lobby
Slat panelling
Matt lacquer kitchen
Marble island
Oak dressing rooms
Flush doors

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Before and after

The wall goes up

It arrived as a bare slab and a blank sheet of board. Oak takes the floor, a bronze mirror lands in a lit reveal, and the cove light comes on behind its edge.

The room

The whole floor at once

The camera backs off the mirror and swings round. The bench passes, the round column crosses the middle, and the kitchen arrives at the far end.

The room

Into the kitchen

Across the floor and in. The stone island arrives with its row of stools and the lit splashback runs the length of the wall behind it.

Detail

The working wall

Down the island to the end of the galley: the lacquer run, the ovens buried in it, and the marble carried up behind the counter.

Entrance

Out to the lift

Off the ovens and through the threshold. Linen on one side, walnut wrapping the landing, and the oculus lit in the ceiling.

Entrance

Across the landing

The panelling runs the full height, the fluted bands break it, and the lift sits flush in the wall.

Detail

Glass against walnut

In on the console: glass on glass, the leaning mirror, and the leaves standing in front of the grain.

Final

And the hall opens

One turn to the left and the corridor is there. Linen on one side, lit slats on the other, and the sea at the end of it.

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Before and after

Five cameras, one floor.

Each pair is the same room twice: once on the day we measured an empty shell, once after the handover. Nothing between them but the work.

Scroll moves the line · drag to take over

The same landing lined in walnut, with a lit oculus over the ceiling recess

The lift landing as received: taped drywall, bare concrete and a grey lift door

Fig. 2 · Entrance

Out of the lift

The landing arrived as taped board, bare concrete and a grey lift door sitting in a hole. It is lined in walnut now, floor to ceiling, with the doors cut out of the same run and an oculus dropped into the ceiling recess.

The finished corridor in oak, with flush doors and a walnut slat wall

The corridor as received: bare concrete floor, plain doors and taped walls

Fig. 3 · Hall

Down to the living room

A concrete corridor with doors on both sides and nothing to hold the eye. The leaves are flush in a linen-finish panel now, the slat run takes the right-hand wall, and neither side breaks the line to the window.

The finished living room with the mirrored wall on the left and the kitchen beyond

The living floor as received: bare slab, taped drywall and an unfinished drop ceiling

Fig. 4 · Living room

The whole floor, from the corner

Bare slab and taped board, with the drop ceiling already running the length of the floor. The same view carries the mirrored wall on the left now and the kitchen at the far end, and oak the whole way between.

The same wall as a mirrored panel in a lit reveal, reflecting the room and the windows

A blank drywall wall over a bare concrete floor, with the balcony to the left

Fig. 5 · Living room

The wall that was not there

A blank white wall lit by whatever came in off the balcony. It is a mirrored panel set into a reveal now, lit from behind its own edge, so the terrace turns up on the inside wall of the room.

The finished kitchen in matt lacquer with a stone island and a lit splashback

The kitchen wall as received: patched drywall, sockets and capped services on the slab

Fig. 6 · Kitchen

From the dining end

Patched board, sockets left at counter height and a slab with the services still standing up out of it. The run is matt lacquer on our own carcasses now, under a stone top, with the ovens buried in the tall bank and the light behind the splashback.

Five cameras went back to the spots they had photographed empty.

Details

Where the floor gets its edges.

Stone island with a wine cabinet under the mitred return and walnut doors beyond — Fig. 7 Island end, wine under the return

Undermount sink in a stone top with the same stone carried up as a splashback — Fig. 8 One slab from tap to splashback

Wall ovens set into a run of tall matt lacquer units beside a lit splashback — Fig. 9 Ovens buried in the tall bank

Flush linen-finish door with no architrave, next to a lit walnut slat wall — Fig. 10 Flush leaf against the slat run

A linen-finish wall returning into a walnut slat run above an oak skirting — Fig. 11 Where the linen wall meets the walnut

Glass console table and framed mirror against a walnut panelled entrance wall — Fig. 12 Glass console against walnut

Walk-in dressing room in oak with lit hanging rails, drawers and glass shelves — Fig. 13 The dressing room, both walls at once

Oak shelving bay with glass shelves and the light buried in the carcass — Fig. 14 Glass shelves, light in the carcass

Corner of the oak dressing room with the bedroom and the bay through the opening — Fig. 15 The dressing room opens to the bedroom

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