Photo courtesy of Design Miami/.
Design Miami/ 2010 kicked off today in the eponymous city, with exciting showcases from designers and galleries from all over the world. This is the show's sixth anniversary. The first thing to greet Design Miami/’s visitors is the grand façade by New York-based design studio, Moorhead & Moorhead. The walls and roof made from twisted vinyl panels surround Design Miami/'s Designer of the Year award recipient Konstantin Grcic’s “netscape” of mesh netting chairs that hang in the entrance courtyard.
This year, glamour seems to be flourishing in full force. Nearly every booth or showcase seems to feature some bright, shiny, covetable objects. At Barry Friedman, Juan and Paloma Garrido are showing their Table Block (2009), a chunky silver-plated table reminiscent of a 3-D tetris cube.
For some decorative fun, look no further than Glass Staks 2, a series of curvaceous gold objects by Dutch designer Joost van Bleiswijk. For something much more functional, D+A Lab are presenting an unlaquered version of Amaral-Bostyn’s aluminum Del Campo bicycle; even unfinished, it’s a perfectly chic way to get around town. New York’s Ornamentum Hudson is displaying an array of playful and high-concept jewelry, ranging from gold bar-adorned rings by Karl Fritsch to a glimmering necklace by IDIOTS made from multi-colored beads, peacock feathers and actual bird wings.
The most fun trend this year is designers’ innovative ways to repurpose familiar mediums by finding new uses and textures for them. Tejo Remy and Rene Veenhuizen, a Dutch design duo, turn recycled strips of soft blankets into brain-like, swirling rugs in their Blanket Carpet. Also by the duo were what appeared to be inflatable outdoor tables, yet when touched turned out to be solid poured concrete. Over at Johnson Trading Gallery, Simon Hasan’s brass chair frame is beautifully draped in a soft caramel leather blanket, but the leather has actually been treated to be as hard as wood, creating an illusion of malleability in a highly structured piece.
Photo courtesy of Johnson Trading Gallery.
Also trending this year were innovative and beautiful lighting designs. Carpenter’s Workshop Gallery in particular showed an impressive array of spectacular lighting. Lonneke Gordijn & Ralph Nauta’s glass-enclosed “lamp” featured real dandelion seeds surrounding LED light-bulbs (2010), Mathieu Lehanneur’s S.M.O.K.E. landscape (2010) and rAndom international’s Swarm Light (2010), an enchanting audio-sensitive LED chandelier.
