Design Miami/ and Swarovski Designers of the Future Award 2016 'Designing For Life and Future Living'
Design Miami/ 2016
In January 2016, Design Miami/ and Swarovski announced the recipients of the 2016 Swarovski Designers of the Future Award: sound artist Yuri Suzuki from Japan, based in London; glass artist Anjali Srinivasan from India, based in Dubai; and German-Icelandic design duo Studio Brynjar & Veronika, based in Berlin. New works by the winners, commissioned by Swarovski, will debut at the 11th edition of Design Miami/ Basel held June 14-19, 2016.
In response to the current need for designers to address the quality of interaction between people and the designed world around them, the winning designers in 2016 are requested to consider and interpret “betterment” as part of the creative process with the ultimate aim of creating an experience at Design Miami/ Basel that presents an ideal proposal for “designing for life and future living.”
The laureates of the award visited Wattens, Swarovski’s historic base in Austria, in December 2015 to explore the crystal brand’s legacy of creativity and innovation. The designers drew inspiration from the company’s archives, design centers and innovation programs, taking the opportunity to generate ideas and experiment with new design concepts.
Studio Brynjar & Veronika
Studio Brynjar & Veronika’s aim is to create unexpected moments of beauty using natural light almost in conversation with crystal. The crystal pieces will investigate the different qualities of the material in relation with light. While some pieces to refract the light into the colours of the rainbow, others reflect illuminated shadows on the floor or turn a space into a scene full of colour. The idea is to bring a sense of the natural and the diverse into the domestic space through crystal. The home becomes a place of constant change and surprises.
Their booth will consist of three moments of beauty – ‘Rainbow curtains’, ‘Illuminated shadows – crystal sticks’ and ‘Reflections of water’.
‘Rainbow curtains’
Studio Brynjar & Veronika are intrigued by the moment when the sun shines through the curtains and fills the room with rainbow reflections. For their installation, everyday blinds are translated into crystal to bring the rainbow into the domestic environment.
‘Illuminated shadows - crystal sticks’
This element explores the transparency of the crystal through a set of colourful sticks, where the crystal transfers the sunlight into subtle projections of colour. Each stick is glued and assembled from crystal pieces in various colour arrangements and range from 7-30cm length and 120–180cm in height.
'Reflections of water’
‘Reflections of water’ will consist of crystal plates that reflect and transform sunlight into reflections inspired by water and other natural elements such as clouds and raindrops.
Anjali Srinivasan
Anjali Srinivasan is to create an installation in which the visitor can interact with an elegant glass and crystal wave made up of touch crystals, standard crystals, Anjali’s own blown glass and sensor LED connectors.
The beautiful and impactful crystal wave will measure 1.6m in width and 5m in length and will consist of 1,500 touch crystals which contains an LED, which will be activated by the interaction of the visitor. The rest of the wave will include 2500 standard crystals (same size and shape as touch crystal) and 5000 glass pieces blown and produced by Anjali herself. A stunning degradation of colours will be running through the piece. Each crystal and glass piece, 8000 in total, will measure 3cm x 3cm.
The surface responds to human touch with glowing illumination. The glow travels across the object along with the person’s hand, and fades away when human presence is removed. Thereby creating an interface for crystal drawing. Crystal, a material whose essence lies in precision and optics, makes the phenomenon of light tactile. Light becomes ink. The ephemeral and ever-changing drawing in crystal, brings to attention - for the participant - both the beauty and impact of human effort and gesture.
Yuri Suzuki
Sound artist, designer and electronic musician, Yuri Sukuzi is to create a crystal ‘orchestra’ installation that explores sounds through crystal whilst creating interesting visual and light effects. The piece is inspired by glass harmonicas and instruments and will consist of 16 rotating crystal bowls, connected to a mechanism that makes contact with the crystal to create tapping sound, which will be tuned and programmed to be played together or separately.
A special composition will be created for the exhibition and ‘played’ on a crystal record with the sound coming from the crystal bowls.
Design Miami/ Basel June 14-19, 2016
Public Show Days
June 14-15/ 10am-8pm
June 16-17/ 10am-7pm
June 18-19/ 11am-7pm
