Public Art in the Miami Design District | Diamantina by The Campana Brothers (2008) Fernando and Humberto Campana

A Must-See in the Miami Design District, Diamantina by The Campana Brothers (2008) Fernando and Humberto Campana located in the Lobby at 4141 NE 2nd Avenue - Miami, FL 33137. Winner of the 2008 Design Miami/ Designer of the Year Award. Fernando and Humberto Campana of Estudio Campana create singularly joyful and expressive designs that bridge handcraft, limited edition, and mass production, frequently using discarded and mundane materials. For Design Miami/ 2008 the Campana brothers created Diamantina using the native Brazilian plant Apui, which grows on and eventually chokes rainforest trees. This rattan-like fiber is woven around plastic garden chairs and other ready-made plastic objects, such as discarded toys, dolls, flip-flops, and tires. Like the rainforest trees, the man-made objects are almost entirely swallowed up by the organic material, symbolizing nature's triumph over the synthetic world. With Diamantina, the Campana brothers expanded on this concept by introducing native Brazilian amethyst crystals into the woven structure, creating a series of biomorphic islands that visitors were encouraged to sit on and explore.

Public Art in the Miami Design District | Buckminster Fuller: Fly's Eye Dome 1979/80-2014

 

A Must-See in the Miami Design District, Buckminster Fuller: Fly's Eye Dome 1979/80-2014, located at 140 NE 39th Street in Miami, Florida 33137, known as Palm Plaza. In 1965 Buckminster Fuller designed and patented the Fly’s Eye Dome, which he called an “autonomous dwelling machine”. Prototypes began to be built by hand in 1977, and by 1983 three of the fiberglass spheres in various sizes (12-foot, 24-foot, 50-foot) had been produced. Fuller died before he was able to realize his vision for the structure. However, almost 50 years later, the design, a Monohex variation of the geodesic dome, can clearly be seen as a forerunner of today’s green building movement. In 2011, collector Craig Robins acquired the 24-foot prototype to exhibit it and use it as inspiration for a key element of the Miami Design District. The following year, The Buckminster Fuller Institute, in partnership with Goetz Composites, ConformLab, and DRDesign, began the development of a program to complete Fuller’s vision, using advanced technologies and materials not available to Fuller in the 1970s. BFI was then commissioned to produce a Fly’s Eye Dome utilizing state-of-the-art materials, intelligence, and techniques, to be prominently incorporated in the Miami Design District.