Dezeen » Design Miami/

Netscape by Konstantin Grcic at Design Miami/

Catherine Warmann — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 15:40:59 +0000

Industrial designer Konstantin Grcic's installed seats made of netting suspended from a metal structure at Design Miami/ last week.

Located in the courtyard of the design fair, Netscape featured a six-point star-shaped metal frame with netting forming a series of hammock-like seats.

The installation was commisioned by Design Miami/ for the fair, where Grcic was presented with the Designer of the Year Award 2010 (see our earlier story).

See all our stories about Konstantin Grcic »

The following information is from Design Miami/:

Konstantin Grcic

Each December, the Design Miami/ designer of the year award recognises an internationally renowned designer or studio whose body of work demonstrates exceptional quality, innovation and influence, while expanding the boundaries of design. Selected by a committee of esteemed design luminaries from around the world, each designer of the year must demonstrate a consistent history of outstanding work, along with a significant new project, career milestone, or other noteworthy achievement within the previous twelve months. This year, we are thrilled to name Konstantin Grcic as the winner of the 2010 Designer of the Year Award.

For years, konstantin has been celebrated for an exceptionally thoughtful approach to advanced design, factoring in not only aesthetics but also a wide array of the most pertinent questions facing design creation today: how are we to deal with material scarcity? how can the relationship between objects and their sites of usage be harnessed to create more effective design work? how should design interface with other disciplines — art, architecture, theory, etc. — to maximize its potential? how can we simultaneously tap design’s history while fulfilling the promise of new materials and new technologies, while also creating humanistic work that responds to the pressing needs of the present?

In addition to designing objects for both mass and limited-edition markets, konstantin has also begun to direct his unique vision to curating design exhibitions, always reminding us of what matters most in design production and discourse. konstantin is a true designer’s designer. We are honored to recognize his immense talent and his impressive accomplishments.

Konstantin Grcic was born in 1965 in Munich, Germany. he apprenticed as a cabinet maker at parnham college, uk, and then earned a degree in Industrial Design at the royal college of Art in london, where he went on to work for Jasper Morrison, before establishing his firm konstantin Grcic Industrial Design in Munich in 1991.

kGID has since become one of the most important players in the international design industry, creating objects that have garnered numerous important awards (e.g., the compasso d’oro in 2001) and that have been acquired for the permanent collections of the world’s most prestigious museums (MoMA, New york; centre Georges pompidou, paris; Die Neue Sammlung, Munich; and others). his impressive roster of clients includes vitra, Magis, classicon, flos and Established & Sons, and his limited-edition work is represented by Galerie kreo in Paris.

the commission

to commemorate this award, each recipient is given a major commission to be unveiled at Design Miami/. konstantin has chosen to create a two-part project. the first part involves a six-point, star-shaped installation featuring hammock-like seats, designed specifically in response to Design Miami/’s temporary structure and an idea of how to service fair visitors in an original, novel way.

More than a seating element, ‘Netscape’ is conceived as a catalyst for social interaction. the project embodies konstantin’s acute sensitivity to the physical site and to the contextual demands of the given project. We know our visitors will enjoy putting this project to good use. The second part of konstantin’s commission involves a special exhibition of the designer’s favorite projects representing the remarkable arc of his career.

The works in the exhibition, chosen by Grcic himself, include seminal pieces displayed on readymade modeling stands placed in front of large-scale digital images taken in konstantin’s studio. through this presentation, viewers are invited into konstantin’s world, where they can glimpse the logical yet romantic process that is so important to his work. We would like to thank Nasir kassamali and luminaire for generously providing objects for konstantin’s exhibition.

Marianne Goebl appointed director of Design Miami/

Marcus Fairs — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 18:23:54 +0000

Dezeenwire: Marianne Goebl (below) has been appointed director of design collectors' fair Design Miami/.

Goebl, currently head of international public relations and partnerships at furniture brand Vitra, will take up the position in February 2011, replacing founding director Ambra Medda, who announced her decision to leave earlier this year.

Konstantin Grcic to receive Designer of the Year Award at Design Miami/

Rose Etherington — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 12:56:50 +0000

Industrial designer Konstantin Grcic is to be presented the Designer of the Year Award at Design Miami/ in December, where he will also create a seating installation from nets.

Called Netscape, the 24 netting seats will hang from a star-shaped structure in the fair's courtyard.

Grcic will also curate an exhibition of his own work, displayed against photos from his Munich studio.

See all our stories about Konstantin Grcic »

Here's some more information from Design Miami/:

DESIGN MIAMI/ PRESENTS SIXTH ANNUAL DESIGNER OF THE YEAR AWARD TO KONSTANTIN GRCIC

New Work Entitled Netscape And Curated Exhibition By Grcic To Be On View At December 2010 Show

Design Miami/, the global forum for design, is proud to announce that German designer Konstantin Grcic has been selected as this year’s recipient of the Designer of the Year Award. New work commissioned for the fair, along with an exhibition of highlights from Grcic’s career, curated by Grcic himself, will be presented at the December 2010 edition of Design Miami/.

Each December, the Design Miami/ Designer of the Year Award recognizes an internationally renowned designer or studio whose body of work demonstrates unmatched quality, innovation, and influence, while expanding the boundaries of design. The Designer of the Year must demonstrate a consistent history of outstanding work, along with a significant new project, career milestone, or other noteworthy achievement within the previous twelve months. Past Designer of the Year winners include Zaha Hadid, Marc Newson, Tokujin Yoshioka, the Campana Brothers, and Maarten Baas.

“As we started looking at potential nominees for this year’s award, Grcic’s name quickly rose to the top,” says Wava Carpenter, Acting Director of Design Miami/. “Once nominated, our jury unanimously voted for Grcic—a clear testament to the strength of his work both throughout his career and over the last twelve months. Konstantin's work in the last year has demonstrated his incredible range and prolific talent. His ability to work in multiple contexts simultaneously is the hallmark of today's most successful and enduring designers, who of necessity are highly sensitive and responsive to the fluctuating demands of the market and the rapidly evolving discourse surrounding design.”

The Munich-based Grcic is not only one of the world’s most influential designers, but his disciplined, architectural, and boundary expanding approach to industrial design continues to set his work apart from his contemporaries. Founded in 1991, Konstantin Grcic Industrial Design (KGID) has worked in fields ranging from furniture and product design to exhibition design and architecture-related commissions. Grcic’s products have received awards including the Compasso d’Oro (for the MAYDAY lamp in 2001) and are part of the permanent collections of world- renowned institutions including The Museum of Modern Art in New York City and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. Throughout his career, Grcic has designed for companies including Cappellini, Established & Sons, Flos, Iittala, Krups, Magis, Moroso, Muji, and Vitra, among others.

Carpenter continues: “Over the last year, in addition to creating new designs, Konstantin also curated the first design exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery in London. Just the fact that the Serpentine asked Konstantin to do this project demonstrates his unequaled international reputation for integrity and quality in the field of design. But even further, Konstantin's specific selection of design objects represented a return to the roots of design during a time when market fluctuations were causing concerns over the future of the field.”

Grcic was chosen by a selection committee comprising previous Designers of the Year Fernando and Humberto Campana; Daniel Charny, Director at From Now On; Wava Carpenter, Acting Director for Design Miami/; Ambra Medda, Co-Founder and Creative Consultant for Design Miami/; Architect and Design Editor for Abitare Magazine, Anniina Koivu; Journalist and Curator Cédric Morisset; and Alexander von Vegesack, Founder and Director of the Vitra Design Museum.

“As we discussed Grcic’s career as a jury, we kept coming back to how relevant his designs are to today’s world,” says Carpenter. “He has a remarkably strong body of work and because of that, he has the freedom to choose what projects he takes on. What’s inspiring is how he only does projects he believes in—his designs are never sensationalized; they are pieces that have the power to make the world a better place. A project like the MYTO Chair for instance not only utilized an advanced plastic in an entirely new way, but it did so by using the least amount of material possible. It made people re-think so many things: materials use, how cantilever chairs are designed, and environmental responsibility, to name a few.”

In keeping with Design Miami/ tradition, Grcic has created an installation for this year’s fair. His piece, entitled Netscape will be presented in an outdoor area in the courtyard of Design Miami/’s Temporary Structure designed by New York-based design studio Moorhead & Moorhead. Given flexible boundaries for the commission by Design Miami/, Grcic chose to create a functional work that visitors to the fair will be able to interact with directly. Playing off this year’s tent design, Grcic created a six-point star-shaped structure from which seats made of netting will be suspended. The hanging chairs will rock slightly when used by visitors and will create a space for guests to engage with one another before entering or leaving the fair. Netscape will seat 24 people at a time.

“When I first looked at the design for this year’s Temporary Structure, there was this beautiful part of the tent, just before the entrance,” says Konstantin Grcic. “I knew that I wanted to create something special for the fair—something functional, but also something that incorporated my ideas of what a place like Miami is like in December. The idea for the commission was fairly immediate because the tent design by Moorhead & Moorhead really lent itself to a project like this. It’s a space for people to enjoy.”

In conjunction with Netscape, a small exhibition of Grcic’s work will also be on display inside the fair, near the show’s entrance for Design Talks, the forum for exploring contemporary design practice and collecting. The works in the exhibition, chosen by Grcic himself, will include his favorites, along with seminal pieces from throughout his career. Among the designs on display will be the Blow Table for Established & Sons (2010), the Miura Bar Stool for Plank (2005), and the Tip Waste Bin for Authentics (2003), among others. The fifteen works in the exhibition will be placed on readymade modeling stands placed in front of large-scale digital images taken in Grcic’s studio.

“I wanted to create a display that celebrates the objects that allowed me to win this wonderful award,” says Grcic. “When you place furniture on the floor, people try it out. When you put it in a display like this, it changes the context. We chose to display these 15 pieces in front of images of the studio as a way to invite people into our world. You see the ‘mess’ behind what we do, but also the inspiration.”

In honor of this year’s award, Design Miami/ has partnered with TheCrane.tv, the premium online video magazine for contemporary culture, to produce two bespoke films on Konstantin Grcic, the history of Design Miami/ and this year’s Netscape commission.

Ambra Medda to leave Design Miami/

Marcus Fairs — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 13:55:28 +0000

Design Miami/ director Ambra Medda will leave the organisation in June, five years after co-founding the limited-edition design fair.

Medda will step down after the Design Miami/Basel fair in June but will continue to act as creative consultant to the organisation and serve on its selection committees.

A search is already underway for her replacement.

See all our stories from:

Design Miami/ 2007
Design Miami/Basel 2007
Design Miami/ 2008
Design Miami/Basel 2008

Here are some more details from Design Miami/:

Design Miami/ to announce new Director in June

Design Miami/ today announced that June’s Design Miami/ Basel will be Ambra Medda's final fair as Director. A search has commenced for the new Director, who will assume responsibilities for the Design Miami/ presentation in Miami in 2010. Medda will maintain a presence as a creative consultant and serve on the gallery and selection committees for the Designer of the Year and Designers of the Future awards. The news marks the five year anniversary of Design Miami/ and the 10th show overall, proving that the ambitious concept - to create a global forum for the design community - has achieved maturity.

Ambra Medda cites Design Miami as a highly rewarding collaboration. “With our upcoming show, Design Miami/ will have accomplished what we’ve envisioned since the beginning. Our goal was to develop a global platform for the design community, a forum sharing culturally significant experiences and commercial opportunities, and we’ve succeeded. I am tremendously proud of what we have accomplished in the past five years.”

Craig Robins, the Miami-based property developer and collector who owns Design MIami/ in partnership with Art Basel parent company MCH Group, told The Art Newspaper "When the show began, we believed we were tapping into a global phenomenon - a burgeoning interest in collecting design, and a craving for this kind of forum. But the success we've enjoyed during Ambra's six years as Director, the partnerships that the fair has created with companies like HSBC Private Bank, Audi, Swarovski, Moet Hennessy, Fendi and W Hotels, surpassed our expectations, and she did an extraordinary job of building a business from scratch. Our strong executive team will continue to expand the show's reach while maintaining the curatorial standards of excellence that have defined Design Miami/”

From its inception, Design Miami/ and Design Miami/ Basel quickly attracted leading galleries from around the world, including Galerie Patrick Seguin, Galerie Kreo, Nilufar, Galerie Downtown-François Laffanour, Dansk Møbelkunst Gallery Jousse Entreprise and R 20th Century. The first Designer of the Year award was presented to Zaha Hadid in 2005, with Marc Newson, Tokujin Yoshioka, the Campana Brothers and Maarten Baas following suit. The Designers of the Future award, presented annually in Basel, has proven to be a harbinger of critical and commercial success for young talents, initially singling out Established & Sons and subsequently Swedish collective Front (2007); Julia Lohmann, Max Lamb, Martino Gamper and Kramm/Weishaar (2008); and Nacho Carbonell, Peter Marigold, Raw Edges, and Tomas Libertiny (2009).

The launch of Design Miami/ in 2005 was initially seen as an experiment: Could limited edition design be presented alongside art as collectible material and hold its own? Despite the economic volatility of recent years, and the initially small size of the market, the show, presented twice yearly concurrently with powerhouse Art Basel and Art Basel Miami Beach, quickly established the vibrancy and dynamism of the market.

Back to Dezeenwire »
Back to Dezeen »

The post Ambra Medda to leave Design Miami/ appeared first on Dezeen.

Designers of the Future Award winners announced

Rose Etherington — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 11:31:15 +0000

Dezeenwire: Design Miami/Basel have announced designers Beta Tank, Graham Hudson, rAndom International, Zigelbaum & Coelho as winners of this year's Designers of the Future Award. See press release below:

DESIGN MIAMI/ BASEL PARTNERS WITH W HOTELS AND PRESENTS THE WINNERS OF THE 2010 W HOTELS DESIGNERS OF THE FUTURE AWARD

Since its inception, Design Miami/ Basel has guided its Designers of the Future Award toward the recognition of designers working in innovative ways – whether new materials, new processes, or new approaches. The goal of the Award, launched in 2006, is to offer the best representatives of the next generation of design creatives the opportunity to present newly commissioned work to a powerful audience of collectors, dealers and journalists, drawing attention to design practices that exemplify new directions for the future of the field.

This year, Design Miami/ Basel is pleased to announce its new partnership with W Hotels in presenting the 2010 W Hotels Designers of the Future Award. This alliance will allow Design Miami/ Basel to expand the benefits that the award brings to the winners, including the chance for the commissioned projects to have a life after the fair through practical applications within W’s sites around the world.

The 2010 W Hotels Designers of the Future Awards winners are:

Beta Tank
Graham Hudson
rAndom International
Zigelbaum & Coelho

These four winners were chosen by a selection committee comprising of Ambra Medda, Director, and Wava Carpenter, Associate Director, Design Miami/; Mike Tiedy, SVP, Global Brand Design & Innovation, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc.; and Marcus Fairs, Editor-in-Chief, Dezeen.com.

“Innovation is at the core of W’s design philosophy,” says Mike Tiedy. “The work of these four winners represents exactly the type of forward-thinking design that W Hotels seeks to bring to its new and existing hotels all around the globe.”

“W Hotels has been a design led brand and an innovator in its category from the very beginning,” says Eva Ziegler, Global Brand Leader, W Hotels Worldwide. “We are thrilled to be able to partner with Design Miami/Basel and be involved in recognizing the cutting-edge works of these upcoming and emerging young talents and look forward to showcasing their work to a global audience at our hotels.”

While the Designers of the Future Award has always featured unique and ground- breaking design work embodying the most progressive attitudes of each year, this year’s award pushes the drive towards experimentation further than ever. Exploring design work created at the very edges of the discipline, the 2010 W Hotels Designers of the Future Award will look beyond pure product and furniture design to embrace conceptually and technologically vanguard work that bridges multiple areas of practice including art, sociology, and science.
“This year, we wanted to emphasize recent advancements in novel ‘design thinking’ that involve rich intersections between a variety of creative fields while exploring modes of design work that are particularly interactive” comments Design Miami/ Associate Director Wava Carpenter. She adds, “The common thread shared by the four diverse award winners consists of experiential and cross-disciplinary approaches that prompt visitors to participate and re-think the definitions of design practice.”

”I think this year’s award is particularly exciting because, through the resources of W Hotels, we’re able to provide the designers with the opportunity to create work with a practical/commercial application, but at the same time we’re commissioning designers whose work is especially conceptual.” Says Ambra. She adds, “I’m so proud to see that Design Miami/ has found a new way to present itself as a platform that encourages new collaborations and intersections of culture and commerce.”

Berlin-based studio Beta Tank exemplifies the “design-for-debate” strand of contemporary design practice. For their commissioned project in Basel, Beta Tank will tackle the complex debate over the differences between art and design. The duo will harness aspects of international tax and shipping laws to question and reveal some of the arbitrary assumptions underlying the policies of the legal bureaucratic entities that regulate cultural production. The studio will create a series of ‘blended’ objects – partly hand-made, partly machine-made – that will be delivered to the fair in separate shipments, incurring different customs charges along the way. “This project is a reflection of how we work simultaneously in the realms of the theoretical and the practical,” states Beta Tank's Eyal Burstein. “We want to understand how true innovation and creativity, that which crosses boundaries and moves into the unknown, can be actively pursued and matched within existing categories and assumptions about business practices and results.” "And then we would like to transform these ideas into objects and homes," adds Michele Gauler, "to somehow embed objects with ideas and discourse, to tell a wonderful story." This project will form part of a book that the studio is producing to help guide young creative businesses through the maze of business models.

Although he comes from the art world, Graham Hudson is planning to create the most practical project for his award commission. Hudson has taken up a challenge posed by W Hotels to create a modular bar/DJ booth that can be installed temporarily at sites around the world – a sort of ‘party to go.’ Hudson jumped at this opportunity because he has a great interest in the demise of the 1990’s club
scene in London, and sees this project as a way to memorialize a pre-internet, socially-dynamic era. "I'm not a designer, but I use a lot of raw and ready-made materials in public spaces, so there's a lot of crossover; design and architecture is very much part of my work's language, so it's great that this side has been acknowledged – and a nice reminder of design's non-fixed boundaries..." says British artist, Graham Hudson, referring to his selection for the Designers of the Future Award. Hudson’s work has taken many forms but consistently demonstrates how today’s creatives are forging new paths through site-specific installations meant to promote social interaction and playful engagement with repurposed materials.

London and Berlin-based studio rAndom International represents a strand of creatives who employ cutting-edge technology and digital programming to develop interactive installations that combine the aims of both art and design. According to co-founder Hannes Koch, “Our work has a function: to generate a response.” For Design Miami/ Basel, rAndom International will create a new installation composed of lights that have been programmed to “dance” in response to the visitor’s body movements. Koch adds, “We are curious about the behavior of objects and want to reveal the hidden beauty and poetry in technology.”

For Design Miami/ Basel, Zigelbaum & Coelho will create “Six-Forty by Four- Eighty,” an interactive installation of thousands of graspable, luminescent pixels controlled by remote light brushes. The project blurs the boundaries between the digital and the physical while presenting a new solution for controllable, ambient lighting for interior spaces. W Hotels sees a fit between this project and the brand’s ‘Living Room’ approach to lobby areas, in which people are encouraged to hang out, socialize and enjoy their surroundings. “Primed by the biases of our visual culture, the pixel has ascended as the digital realm's primary ambassador, but it has been a deceitful emissary,” says Jaime Zigelbaum. “By transposing the pixel from the confines of the screen and into the physical world, focus is drawn to the materiality of computation itself, and new forms for design emerge from the exposed spaces between media.” Marcelo Coelho adds, “Our participation means that we, the bastard children of art, design, engineering, and human-computer interaction, are invited into the family home. And just in time to get to work. Computational material is new again.”

Beta Tank

Beta Tank is a design practice based in Berlin and London, founded by Michele Gauler and Eyal Burstein to take on large, complex social and technological issues and translate them into easily understood objects and services. Their projects develop from a deep interest in how humans adapt to progress in their everyday lives. While Beta Tank's designs may seem fantastic or magical they are always based on available technologies and address timeless human behaviours and needs. Michele Gauler studied Psychology and Human-Computer Interaction and worked for IBM with their user experience team before moving to London for an MA in Design Interaction at the Royal College of Art. Eyal Burstein studied graphic
design at the London College of Printing, then Design Interaction at the Royal College of Art.

Graham Hudson

Graham Hudson (b.1977) received an MFA from Royal College of Art, London in 2002 and lives and works in London. Hudson's work operates across sculpture, architecture and design, producing both objects and installations in a variety of media. Recent solo exhibitions include ZINGERpresents, Amsterdam (2010) and Montior, Rome (2009). Recent group exhibitions include Points and Lines, LMCC Sculpture Park, New York (2009), Frieze Sculpture Park, London (2009), Enzo Mari's Autoprogettazione Project, Architectural Association, London (2009) and projects at the Baltic, Newcastle, MK Gallery, Milton Keynes, and Camden Arts Centre London. Commissions have included Comme des Garcons, Dover Street Market, London, Comme Des Garcons, Aoyama, Tokyo, and Workshop Workshop at Design Miami/ 09. Forthcoming exhibitions include 'Newspeak' Saatchi Gallery, London, Sculpture Roof, CRISP, London, and a solo exhibition at ArtHouse, Texas in 2011.

rAndom International

After meeting at the Royal College of Art in 2002, Stuart Wood, Flo Ortkrass and Hannes Koch founded the London-based collective rAndom International with a vision to create engaging and experimental art and design projects. Working within the frontiers of innovation across science, art and design, rAndom International has developed a series of increasingly experimental installations that aim to re- interpret the ‘cold’ nature of digital-based work by providing the viewer with the opportunity to have a more hands-on and aesthetic experience with technology.

Zigelbaum & Coelho

Zigelbaum & Coelho is a post-industrial design studio founded by Jamie Zigelbaum and Marcelo Coelho. Operating at the intersection of design, technology, science, and art, their work utilises physical, computational, and cultural materials in the service of creating new, but fundamentally human, experiences. Jamie and Marcelo began collaborating while students at the MIT Media Lab. They have lectured, published and exhibited internationally; taught classes on next generation interface design and fabrication techniques at MIT; and organised international workshops and conferences in the fields of transitive materials, reality-based interaction, and tangible interfaces. Jamie’s multidisciplinary work straddles design, human-computer interaction, media theory and cognitive science. Marcelo is an inventor of paper computers, shape-changing composites, interactive garments and digital gastronomy. His multidisciplinary Transitive Materials workshops bring together artists, designers, scientists and researchers working at the shifting boundaries between people, materials and computers. Both based in the United States, they push bits, and occasionally atoms, between Los Angeles and Cambridge.