When OKO Group announced that LILLI would be designed by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, the firm's name registered immediately with anyone who follows global tall-building design. ASGG occupies a small category of architecture practices whose work has fundamentally shaped the skyline of more than one continent. To understand LILLI Miami Edgewater, you first have to understand the lineage of the firm behind it.
Who is Adrian Smith?
Adrian Smith is one of the most accomplished tall-building architects of the modern era. While serving as a design partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), he led the design of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai — currently the tallest building in the world at 2,717 feet. He also led the design of the Jin Mao Tower in Shanghai and the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago. In 2006, Smith co-founded Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture with Gordon Gill, taking with him a sensibility honed across decades of supertall design and refining it with a sharper focus on sustainability and what the firm calls "performance-driven design."
ASGG's current portfolio includes the Jeddah Tower in Saudi Arabia (which, when complete, will surpass the Burj Khalifa as the world's tallest building), the Wuhan Greenland Center in China, and a growing footprint in residential luxury — including UNA Residences in Miami's Brickell neighborhood.
What does ASGG's tropical modernism mean at LILLI?
ASGG's design language at LILLI is what's often called tropical modernism — a vocabulary that fuses clean modernist form (glass, structural expression, geometric clarity) with the climate-responsive elements appropriate to a tropical waterfront (deep balconies, organic curves, integration with landscape, deliberate attention to shadow and breeze). The result at LILLI is a 53-story tower whose softly rounded corners and articulated balcony elements create what the developer describes as "a cadence of light and shadow across the facade."
This matters more than it might sound. Most Miami high-rises follow a more rectilinear pattern — squared corners, flat planes, repeated balcony rhythms. LILLI's facade is curvilinear, with each balcony slightly differentiated in its relationship to the floors above and below. That subtle articulation means the building looks different at every hour of the day, depending on how the sun strikes it. At sunset, the champagne metallic accents on the floor-to-ceiling windows pick up the light. At midday, the rounded corners cast soft, organic shadows. In Miami's tropical light, this kind of detail is not decorative — it's how the building lives.
How is LILLI different from UNA Residences?
The most direct comparison for LILLI in the ASGG portfolio is UNA Residences in Brickell — the firm's other Miami project, also developed in partnership with OKO Group. UNA's design vocabulary is similarly fluid and curvilinear, with a sculpted facade that references the sea. But LILLI differs in three important ways:
- Density. UNA has 135 residences across 47 floors. LILLI has 117 residences across 53 floors — lower density, more height.
- Location. UNA is on the Brickell side of the bay, looking north and west toward the city. LILLI is on the Edgewater side, looking east toward Miami Beach and the Atlantic.
- Interior design responsibility. At UNA, the interior architect was a separate firm. At LILLI, ASGG is serving as both Design Architect and Interior Designer — meaning the same firm responsible for the curve of the balcony is also responsible for the curve of the kitchen island.
Why does a single-firm design vision matter?
When the design architect and the interior designer are separate firms, even the best collaboration produces small visual discontinuities. A facade detail might not echo in the lighting. A door pull might fight with the cabinetry. These are small things, but in a $5M+ residence they accumulate. At LILLI, ASGG is responsible for the entire visual language — from the curve of the balcony, through the marble slab counter, down to the brushed nickel of the Dornbracht faucet. The result is an unbroken design vision: every surface speaks the same language.
The same firm that drew the curve of the Burj Khalifa drew the curve of the LILLI kitchen island. Continuity at that scale is genuinely rare.
What does this mean for buyers?
For buyers, the implication is straightforward. LILLI is not a building where you're hoping the developer will deliver on a rendering. ASGG's track record is among the most consistent in the industry. The interiors will be precisely what was promised, because the firm responsible for promising them is the firm responsible for drawing them. That kind of alignment is one of the strongest indicators of pre-construction value — and it's why LILLI has attracted attention from buyers who would otherwise wait for completion.
For full pricing, current floor availability, and the official ASGG-designed floor plans, contact Adrian Sanchez at WIRE Miami directly. The developer covers the brokerage commission, so there is no additional cost to the buyer for working with a specialized pre-construction broker.