Swarovski, the world's biggest jewellery and fashion accessories brand, has named three designers as the winners of the 2017 Swarovski Designers of the Future Award in collaboration with Design Miami. In its third consecutive year, the winning designers, announced at this year’s Salone del Mobile in Milan and they will be partnering with Swarovski to develop a new model or design statement inspired by crystal to be presented at the inaugural exhibit. 

This year's winners announced as London-based Dutch designer Marjan van Aubel, LA-based architect and founder of Bureau Spectacular Jimenez Lai, and Takt Project. 

Adopting a new selection method for 2017, the award’s winners were selected by a jury of leading figures in the design world based on their exceptional approach to one of three fields: architecture, technology, and product design. At Design Miami/, the designers will integrate their unique pieces into one complete environment which will tell a single narrative of cutting-edge technology and the ability of imaginative advancements to shape societies. 

The display will show an engaging mix of collections harmonizing socially driven endeavors and sensory-related science experiments in a conceptual and communicative space. Swarovski named the award with the title of 'The Future is Bright'. 

Marjan van Aubel, specializing in solar power technology, London-based Dutch designer, works with materials and objects through the looking glass of science and chemistry. A graduate of the Royal College of Art Design Products and the Rietveld Academy Design LAB, Aubel has collaborated with manufacturers, designers, and scientists and has exhibited at the V&A and the Design Museum in London, with permanent collections at MoMA New York and the Vitra Design Museum. 

Her work is solution-based, conceived through researching scientific precision with sensory responsiveness to produce a series of inventive materials including foam porcelain and solar cells.

Jimenez Lai, founder of Bureau Spectacular, the architectural affairs firm in Los Angeles bases his designs in storytelling. Developed from character traits, relationships, attitudes and curiosities, the stories are fused into cartoon narratives of theory, taste, and history to eventually evolve into architectural installations. 

A master list of inspirations from sociology and graphic design to technology and politics propel Lai’s concepts, resulting in extravagant and visionary productions. Jimenez Lai's current exhibition titled insideoutsidebetweenbeyond at SFMOMA requestions banality of typical urban environment, which will be on view until August 13, 2017. 

Together, Atsushi Honda, Yoshitaka Ito, Satoshi Yoshiizumi, and Takeshi Miyazaki founded Takt Project, the multidisciplinary studio based in Tokyo. Constantly reinventing the wheel, the team have created commodities that allow at-home users to modify retail purchases with 3-D components as well as special objects that alter ordinary acrylic storage boxes with a connecting bracket or lighting unit. 

Takt Project looks to increase the possibilities of the usual by adding their own creative spin and novel interpretation to current perceptions.

Established in 2006, the Swarovski Designers of the Future Award seeks to offer the next generation of emerging talent the opportunity to introduce their work to the most formidable collectors, gallerists and international journalists in the industry, all the while encouraging the significance of technological and conceptual progression in product and furniture design. 

Recipients are given the chance to achieve these ambitions by visiting Wattens, Austria, Swarovski’s historic headquarters, to explore and be inspired by the brand’s laboratories, archives, and cultural programs. In discovering Swarovski’s rich heritage, along with gaining access to the scientific and aesthetic properties of its crystals, designers are capable of producing pioneering concepts and distinctive, innovative ideas.

All images courtesy of Swarovski

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