SCAD Leads the Show at Design Miami.Paris Blending Classic and High-Tech Design 

 
SCAD Leads the Show at Design Miami.Paris Blending Classic and High-Tech Design 

Design Miami has arrived in Paris for a second time to showcase design galleries featuring modern interior creations at the L’Hôtel de Maisons, an 18th century mansion in the Saint-Germain des Près area.  

The focus is on historic and contemporary collectable interior design from over 20 worldwide galleries, but what is visually experienced is the blend of creative design with high technology craftwork techniques. The result is innovative versions of textures, fibers and materials that bring luxurious refinement to the look and feel of many pieces. 

This is immediately experienced at the entrance of Design Miami.Paris with the spotlight on four alumni artists from the Savanna College of Art and Design (SCAD), which is the official university partner of Design Miami. The grand staircase greets you with a floor cover that winds upward in vivid colors, abstract forms and multi-height levels of tufting woven by a robot. Hanging in the center space of the winding stairs up to the first floor is a red and white fabric bubble sculpture designed using 3D drawing and printing. At the top of the first floor is a couch with a great grandmother-style frame covered with sublimination printed fabric that makes the ancient frame strikingly modern. Beside the couch are tables with thick rounded legs and tops that evoke both strength and softness. They were inspired by 19th century drawings of human cells.   

The interior design from all three SCAD artists seen at the top of the staircase © Martha Sessums

“SCAD is engaged with cutting edge technology,” said Dan Palmer, Chief Curator at SCAD. “We’re a vital institution that develops artists in fibers, textiles, furniture design and much more that have the energy of today’s generation using high tech to enhance their designs.” 

SCAD is a private, nonprofit, accredited university, offering more than 100 graduate and undergraduate degree programs across locations in Atlanta and Savannah, Georgia; Lacoste, France; and online via SCADnow. SCAD enrolls more than 18,500 undergraduate and graduate students from more than 110 countries and has earned top rankings for degree programs in interior design, architecture, film, fashion, digital media, and more. 

This is the second edition of the Design Miami.Paris show and will run from October 16 – 20, 2024. Design Miami brings together galleries, designers, brands, experts, collectors, and enthusiasts of artistic interior design. Each edition of Design Miami features furniture, lighting, and objets d’art from the world’s top galleries. Design Miami’s flagship fairs take place alongside Art Basel in Miami, Florida, each December; in Basel, Switzerland, each June; in Paris, France, each October in conjunction with Art Basel Paris, and in Los Angeles in May.

Artist Trish Andersen stands on her stairway cover © Martha Sessums

The Design Miami.Paris exhibit rooms are full of both historic and contemporary design. To be seen are Jean Touret’s minimalist creations of wood and iron. Virgil Abloh’s Tower Hills bronze chair featuring a surface like the texture of OSB packing crates. Raw cardboard is the product used to create tables displaying jewelry. Organic shapes, hanging glass lights that take over a room, sculptural ceramics, cultural influences between designers and their craft and more will greet potential collectors who want to make statements and support artists. Many of the modern versions of interior design use modern technology to help design and create the art. 

Back to the SCAD artists, the winding staircase cover is designed by Trish Andersen who received her B.F.A. in Fibers from SCAD in 2005. The stair cover is 1,200 square feet and uses hand-died wool from Monaco. The variety of shapes were inspired by the staircase design of the Hôtel de Maisons. She knew she couldn’t create the huge covering with her single needle tufting gun, so she used a tufting robot which was programmed to weave each colored section.  

“I like working big,” Andersen said. “The robot delineated each shape quickly and accurately based on my programmed design. This could never have happened with traditional weaving techniques, not even using my single needle tufting gun. I had to use the robot.”

The shapes in the stair cover were inspired by the curves and lines of the hand rail © Martha Sessums

Laerke Lillelund is the SCAD graduate that designed the hanging mobile sculpture. She earned her B.F. A. in Fibers in 2016 and combines traditional techniques of weaving, beading and shibori dying with digital technologies that help create her art.  

“I used 3D drawing and printing to create the sculpture,” Lillelund said. “I developed the frame first in four pieces then designed the cloth and carbon fiber to fill in the frame. It had to be lightweight to hang safely and I used heat to manipulate the fabric so it would keep its shape. I designed this in the low ceiling cave area of SCAD’s Lacoste school so it was done in four pieces. This is the first time I’ve seen it in one piece.” 

Bradley Bowers is the designer of the couch. He received his M.A. in Furniture Design in 2012 from SCAD. Modern printing technology gave his fabric the in-depth blue, green and gold colors that are bold yet soft. Sublimation printing is a digital process that uses high heat and specialized printing paper to transfer dye from the paper to the fabric. 

“Sublimation print allows tight details and is faster,” said Bowers. “Also, soft gradients require high tech printing. On this project, I got excited about the fabric first but I also loved the historic frame. It’s the heritage blend of old and new.”  

The tufting robot creating the 1.200 foot staircase cover © Martha Sessums

Eny Lee Parker is the designer of the tables. She earned her M.F.A. from SCAD in Furniture Design in 2018. Her style is to create objects with a sense of humanity that provides a familiar, warm response. She too uses high tech software to develop designs that have a commonality with humans from microscopic to easily seen.  

Paris is full of old and new, and Design Miami.Paris is a great example of this, starting with a walk up the grand staircase. The artist’s blending of high technology with traditional design illustrates how the subtle blend of high tech helps create interestingly shaped and refined objects with special size, textures, fibers and materials. As Design Miami CEO Jen Roberts says, the show “captures the past, present and future of collectable design.”  

The couch with an old frame and modern fabric © Martha Sessums

Lead photo credit : The interior design from two SCAD artists seen at the top of the staircase © Martha Sessums

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Martha Sessums is the France Today Ambassador for San Francisco. Intrigued by France since her first stroll along the Seine, Martha and her husband often travel to Paris to explore the city and beyond. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, delighting in its strong Francophone and French culture community. She was a high-tech public relations executive and currently runs a non-profit continuing education organization.

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