A gigantic, textured and emblematic 3D public sculpture designed by New York-based architecture practice SHoP Architects will hit this year's Miami Design District’s iconic Jungle Plaza, which will house an outdoor cultural events for a long-term public enjoyment. SHoP Architects was announced as the recipient of the 2016 Panerai Design Miami/ Visionary Award with its bold, evocative architecture, philanthropic initiatives, sustainable development, and innovative practices/entrepreneurship. 

The award will be given on Tuesday, November 29, 2016 by esteemed Italian watchmakers Officine Panerai at the Design Miami/press reception. Now in its third year, the annual award is sponsored by Officine Panerai and celebrates those who have made a significant contribution to the field of design. 

SHoP’s work will be celebrated through an original design by the firm, which will serve as a public plaza at the entrance to this year’s Design Miami/ fair in December. Titled Flotsam & Jetsam, the installation seeks to make visible two qualities—one evident, one latent—in the understanding of the city today. It exists at the intersection of Miami's celebrated spirit of play, represented by a relocated landscape that mimics the beach, but also the city's emergent function as a center for creative visioning and technological discovery.

To help realize Flotsam & Jetsam, SHoP brought in Branch Technology, a Chattanooga-based fabrication firm that is working to bring 3D printing out of the realm of prototyping and table- top production and into broader use as a full-scale, practical means of construction. SHoP chose Oak Ridge National Laboratory to provide a second material printing technology. 

The contrasting method used by ORNL—which employs a biodegradable bamboo print medium—is also capable of enormous output sizes. Currently holding a world record for largest 3D printed object, ORNL will surpass that accomplishment with the completion of an essential element in SHoP's Design Miami/ installation: the bar. 

SHoP Architects installs a giant 3D printed object in the Miami Design District. Image © SHoP Architects

In order to optimize an exploration of the possibilities of the print medium, and to create instruction sets suitable for communicating clearly with the production team, SHoP leveraged a longstanding partnership with Dassault Systèmes, an international leader in developing creative design and project management systems optimized for 3D production and direct-to- fabrication methodologies.

SHoP's often unconventional designs are rooted in a love of craft and driven by an ongoing commitment to creating a "high-performance" architecture that embraces the field's traditional constraints in order to transcend them. 

"SHoP is a place where people come together without any prescribed idea about what the esthetics of a building or public space should be, then we take complex problems and solve them with both beauty and technical proficiency," Founding Principal Gregg Pasquarelli said. "Working with Design Miami has been a great experience and a perfect opportunity to explore the expressive possibilities of tomorrow's architecture."

Thornton Tomasetti, structural engineering company, will be working on the project with SHoP Architects. Taken together, the installation by SHoP presents in microcosm a method of thinking and making that holds the potential to revolutionize the expressive potential of new technologies in real-world conditions. 

By evoking a specifically Miami sense of seaside glamor in an environment realized through progressive creative methods, Flotsam & Jetsam seeks to be both a celebration of the city as it has long existed in the popular imagination, and an evocation of what it can become.

“SHoP represents exactly what the Panerai Design Miami/ Visionary Award is meant to recognize: innovation, inspiration and an outstanding point-of-view,” says Rodman Primack, Chief Creative Officer, Design Miami/. “For the first time, we will be installing the commission long-term in the Miami Design District and I cannot think of a better practice to conceive this installation. We are thrilled with the pavilion design and delighted to honor SHoP for the 12th edition of Design Miami.”

After Design Miami/, Flotsam and Jetsam will be reinstalled in the Miami Design District’s iconic Jungle Plaza to house an outdoor cultural event space for long-term public enjoyment. The space will be launched with the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami (ICA Miami) in Spring/Summer 2017alongside a signature community program for bringing world-class public sculpture to the city. 

Flotsam & Jetsam seeks to be both a celebration of the city as it has long existed in the popular imagination, and an evocation of what it can become. Image © SHoP Architects

This new annual public program, based in and extending beyond Jungle Plaza will see ICA Miami curate annual sculpture installations by some of the leading artists of our time. This partnership with MDD advances the museum's mission to provide a free and open cultural resource for local and international communities. The public sculpture initiative will be further enlivened by a program of talks, performances and cocktail events under the shade of SHoP’s spirited pavilions.

Officine Panerai, which, for many years has promoted international projects aimed at supporting the culture of design, will act as Presenting Sponsor of the event and will honor SHoP with a commissioned installation exhibited in Panerai’s Miami Design District boutique. 

For its part, Panerai stands out with the dramatic power of its designs; originally conceived and produced for military use underwater, every detail in the Panerai watch is perfected to perform the function for which it was conceived. This organic connection between design and functionality is evocative of SHoP’s mission blueprint, making the design collective the ideal recipients for this year’s Panerai Design Miami/ Visionary Award.

SHoP is an award-winning architecture firm with a staff of over 180 talented architects, designers and engineers. Since 1996, SHoP has harnessed the power of diverse expertise in the design of buildings and environments that improve the quality of public life. 

An inclusive, open-minded process allows SHoP to effectively address a broad range of issues in its work: from novel programmatic concepts, to next-generation fabrication and delivery techniques, to beautifully crafted spaces that precisely suit their functions. Twenty years ago, the principals set out to prove that intelligent, evocative architecture can be made with real-world constraints. Today the firm is realizing that promise in innovative buildings around the world.

Top image © SHoP Architects

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