Paul Fischman was born at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami in 1978, the same hospital where his father was completing his residency. That detail matters to him, because it is one of many threads connecting his family to the city he has spent his career reshaping.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the birth of my daughter a few years ago, we now have five generations of deep family roots in Miami,\u201d Fischman said, \u201cwith a triple legacy at the University of Miami.\u201d<\/p>\n
The family eventually settled in Vero Beach, where Fischman grew up along the Intracoastal Waterway. The architecture there, he said, mostly left him underwhelmed: subdivisions with what he calls \u201cbuilder versions\u201d of the British West Indies style. But what he found uninspiring as a kid also made him curious, and that curiosity became a career.<\/p>\n
Today, Fischman is a principal and managing partner at Choeff Levy Fischman Architecture + Design, the Miami-based firm he runs with founder Ralph Choeff and partner Raphael Levy. The firm has become one of South Florida\u2019s most recognized names in high-end residential design, known for a signature tropical modern aesthetic that defines much of Miami Beach\u2019s most exclusive enclaves, such as Venetian Islands, Star Island, and North Bay Road, to name a few.<\/p>\n
Before all of that came Key West. With family roots on the island stretching back generations, Fischman spent four to six weeks there each year as a child, visiting his grandparents\u2019 and great-grandparents\u2019 houses. It was there, even before he had the vocabulary for it, that he began understanding what he now calls the principles of tropical design.<\/p>\n
\u201cJalousie windows. Cross ventilation. Deep overhangs. Limiting glazing on certain sides of the house,\u201d he said. \u201cThese are old environmental design principles for the tropics and subtropics. I didn\u2019t understand back then that these were environmental design techniques, it\u2019s how people lived in South Florida in the early 1900s with no air conditioning and a lot of humidity.\u201d<\/p>\n
That foundation preceded his formal education. He left Florida for the University of Colorado, where he earned an undergraduate degree in environmental design, then returned south to complete a Master of Architecture at the University of Miami School of Architecture in 2005.<\/p>\n
Fischman credits the University with teaching him how to transform design concepts into something buildable. The U is also where he found his own design philosophy in architecture.<\/p>\n
\u201cI learned how to design in Colorado, whereas UM taught me how to encapsulate that into every one of my designs,\u201d he said. \u201cUM is where I said: I know who I am as a developing architect.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was not a typical Miami architecture student. At a school he describes as more rooted in planning and historical architecture at the time, Fischman stood out as the modernist in the room. Professors including Dennis Hector, Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Lejeune, and Leon Krier pushed him to lean into it rather than conform.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was the purple elephant,\u201d he said. \u201cMy drawings looked different. I made colorful renderings, while others documented existing buildings. Professors like Leon Krier told me to embrace modernism, embrace being different.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also started working before he graduated. In his second year of graduate school, he began doing 3D renderings and design presentations for Choeff, using the University studio computers after hours to juggle thesis work and real client deadlines simultaneously.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt taught me the business of architecture,\u201d Fischman said. \u201cClients don\u2019t say, \u2018It\u2019s okay if you don\u2019t hit your deadline.\u2019 You don\u2019t sleep until you hit your deadline.\u201d<\/p>\n
That working relationship stretched more than a decade before Fischman formally joined as a partner in 2012. In the intervening years, he worked at larger firms such as Arquitectonica under Bernardo Fort-Brescia, an experience he credits with teaching him construction knowledge, structural thinking, and the global appeal of climate-responsive design. When international clients seek out CLF today, Fischman says part of the draw is Miami-Dade County\u2019s status as a Zone 1 hurricane zone, the most demanding building standard in the country.<\/p>\n
Fischman and the firm regularly hire University graduates and interns from the School of Architecture, and he recently toured the school\u2019s expanded Thomas P. Murphy Design Studio Building with Dean Rodolphe el-Khoury\u2014a visit that, by his account, left him nearly speechless.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy jaw dropped to the ground,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a completely different place now.\u201d<\/p>\n
He hopes to guest jury in design studios and eventually teach. His advice to current students is less about technique and more about resolve.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t let people tell you that you can\u2019t do something,\u201d he said. \u201cEverything they told me we couldn\u2019t design in Florida 20 years ago, we\u2019re doing things 10 times more sophisticated today.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paul Fischman was born at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami in 1978, the same hospital where his father…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-296581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}