Bold + Buoyant: The Best of Design Miami/ 2023

Like every year, Design Miami/ 2023 featured a stunning showcase and curatorial of pieces sourced from design galleries around the globe, inclusive of a very comprehensive collection of exquisitely beautiful furnishings and other homewares. My favorite pieces from this year’s design exhibition featured bold, colossal, and playful forms all utilizing an eclectic mix of fun materials – each very well distinguished from one another, all still oozing that unmistakably cheeky and cheerful yet unorthodox design aesthetic I’m enamored by.

Reimagining furniture with “alter egos” and giving them new life through elaborate and fuzzy textile adornments, Kingsnorth utilizes industrial production processes as a means of executing her oeuvre. Her creations incorporate sculptural art with anthropomorphic influence – personifying each creation that is also equally just as functional.

Working with incredibly robust materials, multidisciplinary designer Josep Vila Capdevila of Aparentment designed the Breakwave chair to be used for protection + shelter, just as breakwaves redirect water from the shore of the Mediterranean Sea – thus incorporating a brutalist, industrial, and utilitarian design influence.

Inspired by the belief that furniture is another dimension of architecture, designer Sang Hoon Kim creates functional furnishings composed of foam executed in playful organic forms that are both geometric and asymmetrical in nature. Through scientific and impromptu production techniques, each piece is also inspired by spatial design – influenced by its surrounding environment while also creating it.

Engaging in the exploration of contemporary color systems, Australian designer Nick Thomm’s visual language is defined by fusing modern technology with traditional art processes, creating furniture permeated by a composition of epoxy resin coatings, executing a unique blend of abstract forms, shapes, and colors.

Interior designer and singer, Bea Pernia, is inspired and enamored by natural materials and enjoys exploring the juxtaposition of various materials such as stone, porcelain, marble, metal, and wood. As an award-winning singer, the way Bea approaches design with layering materials, shapes, and colors is how she composes her music, and reflects on a similarity between the two creative mediums.

Reimagining the kintsugi lacquer mending technique, Japanese artist Kodai Ujiie’s vibrant vessels are transcending contemporary Japanese ceramics. His unique wares are composed of chunky, organic forms and fueled by immense texture, shape, and color.

Fusing Sam Ross’s conceptual and avant-garde approach to design with Kohler’s timeless and conventional legacy of kitchen and bath products, this collaboration explores an amalgamation of new materials, forms, and colors – reassessing the thoughts and ideas of our familiarity with mundane, everyday objects.

As the 2023 commissioned designer for Miami Art Week, Lara Bohinc’s furnishings were artfully staged in Design Miami’s courtyard as well as throughout the Design District. With chunky, candy-colored colossal forms crafted from cork, the designer creates a cozy meeting place and entices guests to take a seat, relax, and reflect.

Tadeas Podracky deeply values design authenticity with an inquisitive approach through his extensive material research. The concept for this stool is “change” which assesses how inanimate everyday objects can also be subject to growth and decay. Crafting by hand a nearly symmetrical wooden form, Tadeas also reimagines good design by reevaluating design approaches based on destruction and individuality.

Creating an unorthodox harmony with asymmetrical characteristics, Rogan Gregory is inspired by ecology, biological processes, natural + organic forms, and geology. The Meridian mirror, composed of bastogne walnut and bronze, is almost reminiscent of a deflated + distorted balloon, and is complemented by a coffee table composed of the same material and design ethos.

‘The Land of Light’ exhibition is a curated collection of monochrome sculptures reminiscent of miniature animals, created to illuminate and navigate through the darkness and unprecedented times. The sculptures are also designed to possess a unique super power, playfully personifying each one.

Tiffany Harrison is a multidisciplinary creative who is skilled in visual + literary storytelling. She immerses herself in artful endeavors with creative direction + design, drone videography, and prop styling. Tiffany’s work is super conceptual and is inspired by contemporary art, which she is truly passionate about. You can connect with Tiffany on her website and Instagram.