In 2019 UPSCALE studio was chosen among several other architects and design build firms; UPSCALE design was the only project that implemented a radical, formal design as a conceptually expressive tool to represent the military history lifestyle before, during, and after the War.

For UPSCALE studio, the Gulf Coast Military History Museum was much more than a competition; it was about establishing and securing an identity within South Florida. Conceptually, UPSCALE studio wanted to express feelings of absence, emptiness, and invisibility – expressions of disappearance of the Culture and the War. It was the act of using architecture as a means of narrative and emotion providing visitors with an experience.

The interior of the museum is composed of reinforced concrete and steel which reinforce the moments of the empty spaces and dead ends where only a sliver of light is entering the space. It is a symbolic gesture by UPSCALE for visitors to experience what the people during War felt, such that even in the darkest moments where you feel like you will never escape, a small trace of light restores hope.