Craig Robins is the real estate maverick lauded for rejuvenating Miami's fallen neighbourhoods. Betty Liu talks to him about his biggest project yet and his passion for low-rise development.

There is very little that is understated in Miami's South Beach area with its cacophonic mix of bawdy bars, colossal luxury cars and bikini-clad women.

Now the developer who helped shape this beach community is building a Mecca to the moderate - a place where the brash youngsters of South Beach would find themselves later in life with families and careers.

That is AQUA, an as-yet unbuilt gated community on Allison Island just north of South Beach, which is as much an ode to modernist architecture as it is to that growing American yearning for "community". All 8.5 acres are being developed by Craig Robins, the property maverick lauded for rejuvenating Miami's fallen neighbourhoods, including the Design District.

But it is also a subtle affront to other property developers in Miami and property companies elsewhere in the US that have skinned the land to erect ever-higher condominiums, which Robins and his architects complain mar the landscape.

"I want to prove that low-rise is more beautiful than high-rise," Robins says in his spacious headquarters near the beach. To prove the point, one of his architects, Walter Chatham, opens an issue of Ocean Drive magazine to an advertisement for a luxury tower condominium, which prominently displays a half-dressed woman in the foreground. "What does this have to do with selling condos? This ad's a self-parody of real estate in South Florida," Chatham says.

Indeed, neighbourhood associations had objected to plans by two other developers for the former hospital site, which would have built the very towers Robins detests. He only obtained approval from the associations and the city by presenting the AQUA concept and demonstrating his past commitment to constructing original, aesthetically pleasing buildings rather than standard, profit-driven ones.

In creating AQUA, Robins and his team of architects from New York and Miami are letting the clean lines of the four-story houses, with their panoramic views of the palm tree-lined streets and ocean, attract residents. Elevators within each home will take residents to their limestone-tiled living rooms, pear wood kitchens with Bulthaup taps, or wraparound balconies.

In describing one of his own buildings, Chatham fills in the blanks: "You can imagine the tropical setting, you can have friends over and head up to the terrace for the evening sunset . . . " and soon, one can almost feel the ocean breeze and the sublime tartness of frozen margarita.

"Every one of them is going to have a roof garden and each one is going to be designed by a different architect so you won't have the same houses on each block," Robins said. "In typical developments, the backyards always face the water. Here, the ocean is going to be shared by everyone. In this place, all the streets end at the water - no matter where you are, you'll always see water."

That, Robins insists, will encourage interaction as people stroll or jog on the ocean's edge, building a sense of community. "This is about building a neighbourhood and about doing it in a way that's real," he proclaims. Along with the 46 houses, which range in price from $800,000 to $3m, the project includes three low-rise apartment buildings set back from the rest of the homes.

AQUA marks the most expensive project for Robins at $125m, underlining how quickly the Miami property market has risen. It was only in the late 1980s that Robins took $20,000 and bought two buildings in South Beach, then a desolate area of drug addicts and hollowed out Art Deco hotels, beginning the transformation that eventually drew in celebrities, business tycoons and designers such as the late Gianni Versace.

Robins claims Versace fell for South Beach after staying at the Marlin Hotel, one of his properties, prompting the fashion designer to purchase a property on Ocean Drive. Robins also sold one of his hotels to Gloria Estefan, the Latina pop music singer, and her husband, Emilio.

Miami Vice (the television show) gave visual images of this place first. Then you had the fashion catalogue business which drew in the young, beautiful people but nobody else," Robins explains. "Then the art crowd moved in, then the international playboy types and so, finally, you had art, fashion and people. It's become a jet-set place."

It is clear Robins is no ordinary property mogul, stretching out on a blue couch sipping a mix of Perrier and apple juice while being interviewed. His affinity for design as art, which is a theme in each of his projects, is evident throughout the office of his development company, Dacra, from the chairs upholstered in cherry-red rope to the straw-stuffed couches.

Robins himself describes Dacra as more a creative company with a focus on property. The company has experimented outside property, publishing children's books and creating marketing campaigns for the state government.

Robins' fascination with art is most obvious in the Design District, where he has bought 20 buildings for more than $25m. The projects there include one building called the Living Room which will literally look like an oversized living room from the outside, complete with concrete furniture, to the passer-by.

"We're more a creative company that expresses itself through real estate projects," he explains. "We're not working in the conventional model of a real estate company." Rather than acquire singular buildings, Robins purchases clusters of properties, then builds a neighbourhood.

"If you go in and acquire a lot of property . . . you can appreciate the value of the whole neighbourhood," he says. As proof, Robins notes that South Beach property prices have risen between 10 and 20 times since he first invested there in 1987.

For AQUA, Robins gained inspiration from visiting places such as San Francisco and Berlin, where he saw a "consistent modernist style of architecture" throughout the German capital. He borrowed the vertical lifestyle of people in San Francisco, whose steep hills have created houses where living rooms are on third floors for the better views and bedrooms are on lower levels.

"I want residents, when they're looking across the street, to have an incredible view of rich and beautiful architecture," Robins says. "I want the same thing that happens to Americans when they go to Europe and say 'Wow' at all the buildings. That's a much better view than the one you get from a 30-storey building."

Copyright: The Financial Times Limited