Who wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to live in one of the nation’s innovative urban destinations, in a house planned by a well-known architect whose interior is interpreted by some of today’s best designers?

That’s the idea behind House Beautiful 2006 Designer Showhouse, at AQUA Allison Island in Miami Beach, an island community that includes 46 island homes, three mid-rise condos and three public art installations from leading New York and Miami-based architects. Designers Barclay Butera, Christopher Coleman, Nancy Corzine, Orlando Diaz-Azcuy, Alex Dickson, Joe Nye, Alison Spear and Robert Stilin all shared their visions in a 5,000-square-foot townhouse.

Nancy Corzine’s reinterpretation of Miami Deco has flair. Over a white marble-topped table, there’s her signature “Deco” lamp (a stately crystal-ball chandelier). The bluish-theme room has two arrangements: Corzine’s “Palm Springs Sofa” and two of her “Sinatra” lounge chairs facing her Gustavian daybed — upholstered in azure. Why so much fabric? French writer Colette recalls famous designer Elsa Schiaparelli’s dictum that upholstered furniture “always hides a blemish.” Never mind, Corzine is able to attain a sophisticated and yet relaxed mood.

For the dining room, architect Alison Spear creates a modern Miami flavor that looks effortlessly authentic. A black crystal chandelier (by Myriam Bruni for NIBA) suspended over Piero Lisonni’s “Beam” glass table and “Silhouette” acrylic chair-set (by Benjamin Noriega Ortiz) inside cork-covered walls, punctuated with paintings by Miami artist Lynne Golob Gelfman, gives the room a chic transparency. Then, Spear spiced up the kitchen with lemon, lime and orange-color circular tiles, and relaminated the handsome Bulthaup cabinets in yellow and green “as if Lucy and Ricky Ricardo were living in Miami in the 21st Century.”

Designer Robert Stilin (from East Hampton, N.Y.) decorated an extra room (on the house’s second floor) with modern and contemporary touches: an eye-catching retro Danish orange lamp, original 1950s Danish chairs, a coffee table and a bluish Billy Baldwin sofa bed accented by Thomas Ruff photos and paintings by Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle. The vintage Swedish flatweave mat added a fresh and cohesive feel.

Finally, Orlando Diaz-Azcuy’s relaxed rooftop terrace mixed soft reds and sand colors. He has comfy metal chairs and a sofa upholstered in waterproof pale fabric and a coffee table over a pink rug. I wondered if his inviting rectangular shelter (with tall rectangular hurricanes of filmy acrylic) lodging the interior pink-covered bed could endure a Category 3 Miami hurricane.

I kept thinking of the ways in which designers characterize Miami as “decoish,” “fun,” “sunny,” “tropical,” etc., and to what extent this depiction follows old stereotypes that end up reflected back in the design. AQUA is in Miami all right, but it’s also a utopian enclave, very much like the Weissenhof Estate, which launched the International style in the 1920s, a utopian experiment in architecture and urban design. It should be interesting to see a second house, this time with a well-known curator overseeing a more unified plan.