Designer of the Year 2008:

Humberto and Fernando Campana

Design Miami/ has announced that the winners of this year's prestigious Designer of the Year Award are Brazilian designers Humberto and Fernando Campana.

In keeping with Design Miami/ tradition, the Campana brothers are set to create an installation designed exclusively for the December show, to be presented within the central courtyard of the fair's new temporary structure designed by New York architects ArandaLasch.

Having trained respectively in law and architecture, Humberto and Fernando began working together in the mid-1980s, designing furniture inspired by the street life and carnival culture of their native country Brazil. Combining ready-made components with high and low tech processes, the emphasis of their work is on creating decadent and opulent objects from existing industrial materials often neglected by consumers. Their witty, iconic designs have been manufactured by leading Italian companies, including Edra, Alessi and Cappellini.

"They are designers we have been captivated by for years," Craig Robins, Design Miami/'s Principal explains. "The Campanas form a bridge between commercial production, handicraft, and the possibilities of limited edition design."

The installation at Design Miami/, entitled Diamantina, will represent an evolution of their TransPlastic series, which was unveiled at Albion Gallery in London in 2007. Using the native Brazilian plant Apuí, which grows on and eventually chokes rainforest trees, TransPlastic designs feature this rattan-like fiber woven around ready-made plastic garden chairs and other plastic objects, such as discarded toys, dolls, flip-flops and tires. Like the rainforest trees, the man-made objects are almost entirely swallowed up by the organic material, symbolizing nature's triumph over the synthetic world.

Design Miami/ will take place between 3 - 6th December 2008.

TransPlastics Series by Campana

TransPlastics Series by Campana