Category: Design Miami 2013

#DesignMiami : SWAROVSKI CRYSTAL PALACE x BRAZILIAN ARCHITECT GUILHERME TORRES

#DesignMiami : SWAROVSKI CRYSTAL PALACE x BRAZILIAN ARCHITECT GUILHERME TORRES

For Design Miami 2013, Swarovski Crystal Palace has commissioned award-winning, Brazilian architect and designer Guilherme Torres to create an installation inspired by water conservation and stewardship. The importance of water as a resource in the crystal making process led to the creation of the Swarovski Waterschool in 1999. Currently active in many countries worldwide, the Swarovski Waterschool program will expand to Brazil in 2014 to teach school-aged children about water conservation.

Titled Mangue Groove, this experimental architectural installation will be unveiled at Design Miami/, December 4 – 8, 2013 in Miami Beach, Florida.

Nadja Swarovski, Member of the Swarovski Executive Board, commented: “We are delighted to be working with Guilherme Torres to create our Swarovski Crystal Palace for Design Miami this year.”

Torres’ built environment occurs at the intersection of the natural, architectural and mathematical spheres. Inspired by Brazilian mangrove forests and the Voronoi diagram (in which space is divided into a number of cells with corresponding focal points), the structure will mathematically explore the balance between nature and science.

Mangrove forests – mangue in Portuguese – have long been considered emblematic of Brazil’s natural beauty and are essential for protecting coastal environments. Torres has deliberately placed the mangrove at the heart of his concept in order to draw attention to the growing conversation around the preservation of Brazil’s endangered aquatic ecosystems.

Torres’s design will incorporate Swarovski’s lead-free Advanced Crystal that will fill synthetic tubes, linked by geometric joints and lit with energy efficient LEDs. The structure itself will resemble a mangrove forest, with the joints at intervals throughout the space that follow the naturally occurring Voronoi diagram. Visitors will navigate through the space by walking on pathways of certified and reclaimed wood, in between the rising mangrove structures positioned above a shallow pool. Torres’s concept will artistically reflect Swarovski’s commitment to conservation.

“I am always studying nature and science – these are things that fascinate me!” says Torres. “Mathematics is part of my creative process and I feel privileged to be working with Swarovski Crystal Palace. This project has allowed me to think outside of the box and explore the combination of crystals, nature and science.”

To maximize the interplay between the varied shapes and materials, Mangue Groove will be an immersive experience, experimenting with the introduction of light and sound. Each day at 5:00pm, a dynamic mixture of light patterns and sound recordings will slowly grow in movement and tempo, until the environment is marked by the symbols of an Amazonian sunset.

“Torres’ piece is a reflection on the topic of conserving natural resources, a central theme of Swarovski’s newly created foundation. He has brought to life the powerful but fragile beauty of Brazil’s endangered mangrove forests in a resonantly beautiful and inspiring work, continuing his design vision with Swarovski crystal,” says Nadja Swarovski.

A once in a lifetime experience that is definitely on my Design Miami 2013 list to be seen !

More details here… (more…)

November 5, 2013
#DesignMiami: Louisa Guinness Gallery

#DesignMiami: Louisa Guinness Gallery

Louisa Guinness Gallery, London will be in Miami for the first time at Design Miami 2013 , with a dazzling selection of jewelry made by top contemporary artists. The gallery, based at Booth G21, will show work by internationally renowned artists such as Frank Stella, Sophia Vari, Anish Kapoor, Mariko Mori and Claude Lalanne as well as debuting an exciting new project by Ross Lovegrove.

Louisa Guinness specializes in artist-made jewelry. She says:

“I’m delighted to be bringing my passion for artist-made jewelry to Miami. Collectors will be fascinated to see work by artists which can be worn as statement pieces or enjoyed as miniature sculptures at home.” She adds: “We are the first gallery to deal exclusively in artist-made jewelry We don’t work with jewelers only artists whose primary medium is either painting or sculpture. Jewelry provides a new form of expression for artists, challenging them to adapt their artistic language to the demands of scale and function.”

For Design Miami she has commissioned artists to create new work made from non-precious materials. Guinness says:

“We have invited artists to make jewelry using common-place rather than precious stones including marble, alabaster or even pebbles. We want the jewelry to be judged for its artistic merit and not its material content.”

This new collection will be shown alongside the gallery’s debut collaboration with Ross Lovegrove and recent projects with Mariko Mori and Conrad Shawcross. They will also be bringing a number of 20^th century pieces by modern masters such as Alexander Calder and Fontana.

Louise Guinness Gallery’s attendance at Design Miami 2013 promises to provide a fascinating focus for collectors and enthusiasts who will have the opportunity to see these pieces in Miami for the first time.

Image above: Sophia Vari/ Salmonée pendant/ black Belgian marble, Carrara marble, lapis lazuli courtesy of Camron PR.

October 25, 2013
#DesignMiami : Perrier-Jouët x Simon Heijdens

#DesignMiami : Perrier-Jouët x Simon Heijdens

Perrier-Jouët has announced its design collaboration with London-based Dutch designer Simon Heijdens. Simon will create an immersive experience to be unveiled at Design Miami/ 4 – 8 December. Titled Phare No. 1–9 this ‘lightwork’ explores the relationship between the medium and the message with an entirely new way to express a story in a poetic, sensory work. Playing with materials, volume and movement, Phare No. 1–9 merges the conceptual and the tangible to propel the Art Nouveau aesthetic into the 21st Century.

Simon Heijdens’ key works such as Lightweeds, Tree and Shade have narrative threads that bring the natural world, and a sense of ‘coincidence’, into man-made spaces. Known for creating immersive, site-specific pieces, Heijdens’ works often use new media to add a particular notion to a space, creating an unforgettable experience. With a fine-tuned practice and clear voice, Simon Heijdens’ works are transformative yet subtle, concerned with temporality and the human experience.

To make Phare No. 1–9 Heijdens delved below the surface of the classic Art Nouveau aesthetic to find its core, which inspires this new work. Heijdens is also fascinated by the context surrounding Art Nouveau. It was an era that saw technological advancements important to the visual arts, such as the popularisation of the lithographic poster by Jules Chéret and the genesis of cinema by Louis Lumière. The conversation between Heijdens’ own practice and Art Nouveau grew when Heijdens visited the home of Perrier-Jouët, La Maison Belle Époque in Epernay; it is here that Art Nouveau came to life as an experiential genre.

“We are thrilled to be working with Simon Heijdens this year. Simon introduces a new medium of expression, which we believe makes an important and forward-thinking contribution to the design world. The installation space becomes a screen upon which Simon tells his story. Light and liquid create the narrative; it has to be experienced.” Says Axelle de Buffevent, Style Director for Martell Mumm-Perrier-Jouët.

Phare No. 1–9 will be unveiled in at Design Miami/, of which Perrier- Jouët is a proud partner. Since the champagne house’s first artistic collaboration in 1902 with the significant French Art Nouveau artist Emile Gallé, who created the iconic anemone of its Belle Époque cuvée, the house has continued to commission established and emerging designers and artists. Through the partnership with Design Miami/, Perrier-Jouët helps support the best in new design talent. This marks the second year Perrier-Jouët is participating in Design Miami/ to create a curated Salon project. It follows their acclaimed 2012 project Lost Time by designers Sarah van Gameren and Tim Simpson of London-based studio Glithero. (more…)

October 9, 2013
#DesignMiami : formlessfinder x Design Miami 2013

#DesignMiami : formlessfinder x Design Miami 2013

formlessfinder has been selected to design the Design Miami 2013 Entrance Pavilion. Based in NYC, the formlessfinder team of Garrett Ricciardi and Julian Rose is dedicated to releasing the formerly siloed input and output aspects of architecture so that each project has the ability to have its own flavor.

As the press release states:

“Each December, Design Miami/ commissions early-career architects to
build a designed environment for the fair’s entrance as part of its biannual Design
Commissions program.

Harnessing multiple, often unexpected, properties of sand and aluminum,
formlessfinder’s Tent Pile pavilion provides shade, seating, cool air and a space to play for the city’s public. The pavilion appears as a dramatic aluminum roof miraculously balanced on the apex of a great pyramid of loose sand. Milled aluminum benches give resting space in the shade, where visitors will be fanned by the cool air naturally generated by the structure….

The pavilion acts as a refuge for the more than 50,000 visitors who come to Miami for the
fairs each year, as well as inhabitants of the city’s South Beach neighborhood. It is
intended as a public installation that marries the practical requirements of shelter and
seating to spectacular creative architectural ideas from a young practice. Formlessfinder’s
Tent Pile engages not only with materials and aesthetics specific to Miami, but with the
location of the fair within the city–the pyramid of sand is there to be sat on and played in,
the cooling fans to be approached, examined and enjoyed. “We’re hoping to create
something that people would want to participate in,” says Ricciardi, and the result is a
structure designed to be occupied and explored, as much as it is to be admired. ”

For further information, please visit Design Miami’s website and blog, Design Log, for
regular news and updates.

Photographs courtesy of DesignMiami/

October 9, 2013