Hasta La Ideas

Winners of the 2010 W Hotels Designers of the Future Award (Photo: Design Miami)

“Bees!!!” Such was the excited text message we received yesterday from a friend making the rounds in Basel, where the Messeplatz is buzzing about designer Tomas Libertiny‘s honeycomb Jesus at the Design Miami/Basel booth of London-based Carpenters Workshop Gallery. Director Julien Lombrail is stoking the hive mentality by presenting the work in progress—he trucked in thousands of live bees that are denuding the sculpture of residual honey over the course of the fair. The piece is enclosed inside a large glass tank, so no stings have been reported (yet).

While Libertiny’s work is surely Basel’s apiological apex, Design Miami has also been busy feting the winners of the Designers of the Future Award, sponsored by W Hotels: Beta Tank (Michele Gauler and Eyal Burstein), Graham Hudson, rAndom International (Stuart Wood, Flo Ortkrass, and Hannes Koch), and Zigelbaum + Coelho (Jamie Zigelbaum and Marcelo Coelho). The designers discussed their fresh approaches yesterday at a talk moderated by journalist and curator Cedric Morisset before unwinding at a celebratory cocktail reception. No word as to which, if any, of their commissioned projects will live on in W Hotels. Announced in April at the Milan Furniture Fair, the Designers of the Future winners were chosen by a selection committee that consisted of Ambra Medda and Wava Carpenter (Design Miami), Mike Tiedy (Starwood Hotels), and Marcus Fairs (Dezeen).

Previously on UnBeige: