Plusurbia Design

We are thrilled to announce that Karla Fidalgo and Beau Clardy have joined us as full-time Urban Planners & Designers!

Both began their journeys with us as interns, and we could not be more excited to welcome them into the next chapter. Karla will be based in our Miami office and Beau in our Greenville, South Carolina office.

Watching them grow from interns to full-time team members has been a joy. Their collaborative energy, curiosity, and commitment to creating places where communities thrive are exactly what drive​s our work forward. At Plusurbia, we believe design begins and ends with people, and these two embody that spirit completely.

Children are shaped by cities long before they fully understand the places they call home. They walk along sidewalks that are either welcoming or neglected, cross streets designed by people they will never meet, and experience the impact of planning decisions every single day.

From Wood Blocks to City Blocks is a free illustrated book written by Plusurbia Founding Principal Juan Mullerat, inspired by his experience as both a father and urban designer. The book encourages young readers to observe the world around them, ask thoughtful questions, and imagine better possibilities for the communities they share. Through everyday places like sidewalks, streets, parks, and schools, it introduces urban planning as an act of care and shared responsibility.

Free to download and licensed for educational and civic use.
📖 https://lnkd.in/eVH8Y2si
🖨️ Print copy: https://lnkd.in/enBE8yhE

Because at Plusurbia Design, we believe everyone deserves to understand and access the cities they live in and that civic awareness can begin early.

Plusurbia and the Miami-Dade County Office of Historic Preservation / Miami-Dade County Department of Regulatory and Economic Resources are honored to receive the 2026 Dade Heritage Trust Miami Preservation Award, recognized for Navigating Miami-Dade Heritage.

Every April, Dade Heritage Trust celebrates individuals, organizations, and businesses whose work helps protect and promote Miami-Dade County's built heritage and natural environments. Being named among this year's honorees is a distinction we do not take lightly.

At Plusurbia, we believe that understanding a place and its context is essential to planning for its future. Miami-Dade's layered history, its neighborhoods, its architecture, its culture, is not a backdrop to our work. It is the foundation of it.

Thank you to Dade Heritage Trust, Miami-Dade County, and to the communities across Miami-Dade who trust us to help navigate what makes this place worth preserving.

View the project here: https://bit.ly/4dxxSzc

Plusurbia was recently featured in the Key Biscayne Portal - Keybis in a piece covering the latest progress on The Shoreline, a proposed redesign of the Rickenbacker Causeway that would transform how people move to and from Key Biscayne.

The article highlights several of the key concepts our team has been developing alongside HDR Engineering and the Friends of The Underline, including a split-level viaduct that separates fast-moving traffic from pedestrians and cyclists, 160% more beach space below, and improved access to destinations like Virginia Key, Miami Marine Stadium, and MAST Academy.

This project reflects exactly the kind of work Plusurbia was built to do. Complex, context-driven, and rooted in the belief that great infrastructure should serve people first. The Shoreline is not just a transportation solution. It is an opportunity to create a more connected, walkable, and resilient corridor for the tens of thousands of people who use the causeway every day.

We believe that understanding a place and its context is critical in planning for the future. That means listening, analyzing, and designing with precision so that bold ideas can become implementable ones.

The feasibility study is underway, and the conversation is just getting started.
Read the full article and follow the progress: https://bit.ly/4uZXADy

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and the spaces we inhabit have more to do with how we feel than we often acknowledge.

Research consistently shows that access to green space, parks, and tree-lined streets has a measurable impact on mental health and wellbeing. Yet in many cities, these spaces are unevenly distributed, often absent in the neighborhoods that need them most.

Equitable access to green space is not a design preference. It is a public health necessity.

At Plusurbia, we believe great places begin and end with people, and that means designing cities where everyone has the space to breathe, slow down, and feel at home.

Proud to share that The Underline has recently reached a significant milestone, completing five miles of its 10-mile linear park and urban trail beneath Miami's Metrorail, connecting Brickell to Coconut Grove and Dadeland.

What began five years ago as a bold vision for how Miami could reclaim its public realm is now a living civic destination where mobility, recreation, culture, and community converge.

Plusurbia Principal and Founder Juan Mullerat, who serves on the Board of Directors of The Underline Conservancy, has been part of supporting this vision as it takes shape across Miami's neighborhoods. His work advancing walkable, connected, and inclusive urban environments reflects the same commitment that drives everything we do at Plusurbia: great places begin and end with people.

Five miles down. Five more to go.

Plusurbia was recently featured in the Boca Raton Tribune in a piece spotlighting the Nora District. The article specifically references our role in shaping the master plan alongside the City of West Palm Beach.

Districts like Nora don't happen by accident. They are the result of intentional planning that begins with a deep understanding of place, its patterns of daily life, and its cultural context. When that foundation is in place, it creates the conditions for operators who are equally intentional about their concepts to want to be part of what the place can become.

At Plusurbia, we believe the creation of great places begins and ends with people. That means listening and translating what we hear into environments where urban life can unfold naturally and where communities can genuinely thrive.

Nora is a living example of what that process produces.
Read more: https://bit.ly/4tlO1gJ

Continuing our Earth Month series, we’re highlighting Wynwood Walls Garden, an example of how even small interventions can reshape the experience of a dense urban district.

This approach is explored further by Juan Mullerat in his latest piece in the May issue of the National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA), where he examines Wynwood’s evolution from an industrial district into a mixed-use neighborhood, and what it reveals about the future of urban public space. In places where parks were never planned and land is limited, cities must take a different approach.

In a place surrounded by art to look at, people still need space to pause and experience nature. Wynwood Walls Garden introduces that condition into one of Miami’s most active environments. Set within a 0.43-acre site, it functions as an outdoor living room, creating space to gather.

By embedding public realm improvements into zoning, streets, and development, Wynwood reflects a broader shift in how cities can create more accessible, livable environments, where public space is not centralized, but integrated into everyday life.

Set within a dense environment, the project transforms a 0.43-acre site into what functions as an outdoor living room, a place where people can sit, gather, and spend time and not just move through.

Sloped planters and integrated greenery soften the space and reduce heat, while angled seating and open sightlines allow visitors to experience the murals from multiple perspectives. The layout is intentional and creates moments of pause without interrupting the flow of the district.

In a place built for visual engagement, the garden adds a space designed to pause and breathe.

Read the full article here: https://parksandrecmag.mydigitalpublication.com/may-2026/page-36

In dense urban neighborhoods, the most impactful green spaces aren’t always the largest, they’re the ones embedded into daily life.

Interamerican Plaza reimagines underutilized streets and hardscape into a pedestrian-oriented civic space that connects Miami-Dade College’s Eduardo J. Padrón Campus with the surrounding Little Havana community.

By introducing shade, gathering areas, and flexible open space, the plaza transforms a once car-dominated environment into a place designed for people.

These types of interventions strengthen social connection, support local identity, and create opportunities for everyday interaction.

Green space, in this context, becomes a bridge between institutions and community.

Continuing our Earth Month series, we’re highlighting City Terrace, where the Tri-Rail station becomes the anchor for more connected growth. Opa-locka didn’t need more space, it needed better connections and a clear vision for how the area functions.

By structuring development around the station and strengthening links to the urban core, the plan created a more cohesive, walkable district. What was once fragmented is now organized around accessibility, with a stronger relationship between transit, public space, and daily activity.

Green space plays a supporting but essential role in that system. Shaded corridors, pedestrian-friendly streets, and integrated public spaces improve comfort at the ground level making it easier for people to walk, spend time outdoors, and engage with the environment.

The result is not just improved mobility, but a shift in how the area functions and is experienced, moving from disconnected to navigable, from underutilized to active.

In Opa-locka, design helped establish the foundation for long-term growth.