Following design trips to W Hotels around the world, designers to unveil new works at Design Miami/ Basel and later installed at W Hotels in Verbier, Bangkok and Mexico City.
MILAN – From the 52nd edition of Salone del Intern Mobile, Design Miami/ Basel and W Hotels Worldwide announced the winners of the 2013 W Hotels Designers of the Future Award. The 2013 winners include Seung-Yong Song from Korea, Canadian Jon Stam and Bethan Laura Wood from the United Kingdom. An evolution of the Award, this year for the first time the winning designers were sent to specific new or renovating W Hotels to solve for a specific design challenge or need. The newly commissioned works will be unveiled at Design Miami/ Basel (June 11-16, 2013) and later installed at W Hotels in Verbier, Bangkok and Mexico City.
This is the fourth occasion that W Hotels and Design Miami/ Basel have collaborated on the Award. Started in 2006 at Design Miami/ Basel, the Designers of the Future Award recognizes up-and-coming designers and studios that are expanding the field of design. Each year, three designers or studios are selected as a way to honor a variety of approaches in the constantly evolving landscape of contemporary design. The Award moves beyond pure product and furniture design to acknowledge technologically and conceptually vanguard pieces that work across multiple disciplines, offering the next generation of design creatives the opportunity to present newly commissioned works to an influential audience of collectors, dealers, and journalists at Design Miami/ Basel.
Designer Projects Focused on “Making Connections”
The brief for this year’s Award commissions is entitled “Making Connections.” The designers’ projects will facilitate exchange between local communities and the international visitors who pass through them, whether for business or pleasure. The goal of these projects is to deepen the appreciation for the distinct regional characteristics found in each destination.
Each of the winning designers has been paired with a new or renovating W Hotel to create a site-specific project. Each designer has already been sent on a design visit to a W Hotel, finding inspiration in the hotel design concept, the destination, local craft and materials as well as investigating the cultural and material conditions of the surrounding area, all of which will inform their finished project. Jon Stam spent time in Verbier, where the W brand’s first ski retreat will open later this year, Seung-Yong Song visited W Bangkok, which opened December 2012, and Bethan Laura Wood travelled to W Mexico City, which will undergo renovations. In addition to being showcased at Design Miami/ Basel in June 2013, their finished work will ultimately be installed at the hotel they visited, solving for a specific design need.
The winners were selected by an international jury that included Jan Boelen of the Design Academy Eindhoven and Z33; Tony Chambers of Wallpaper magazine; Aric Chen of M+ Museum Hong Kong; Alexis Georgacopoulos of Ecole Cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ECAL); Marianne Goebl of Design Miami/; Benjamin Loyaute, author, curator and journalist; and Mike Tiedy of Starwood Hotels & Resorts, parent company of W Hotels Worldwide.
Photo caption: W Hotels Designers of the Future Award 2013 winners: (L-R) Canadian-Dutch designer Jon Stam, Bethan Laura Wood from the United Kingdom, and Seung-Yong Song from Seoul, Korea. (Photo: Business Wire).
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