BASEL, Switzerland--June 11, 2012--Continuing its dedication and passion for innovation in design, W Hotels Worldwide today unveiled the works of the 2012 W Hotels Designers of the Future Award winners during Design Miami/ Basel. Now in its third year, the successful alliance between W Hotels and Design Miami/ seeks to expand the benefits that the Award brings to the winners, giving the emerging designers a global platform from which to showcase their work.

“The W Hotels Designers of the Future Award allows us to recognize the best up-and-coming design talent from around the world,” said Vincent Gillet, Global Brand Leader, W Hotels Worldwide and Le Méridien. “Together, we are able to create forward-thinking and innovative design solutions for our hotels, while also showcasing their unique works to both W guests and locals around the world.”

“The W Hotels Designers of the Future Award has become an incubator for emerging talents, which allows the winners to directly interact with the receptive audience at Design Miami/ Basel,” said Marianne Goebl, Director of Design Miami/. “We are pleased to challenge our visitors this year with three intriguing projects, which allow them to participate very actively in the design process.”

For this year’s commission, the winners, including Tom Foulsham (UK), Markus Kayser (Germany) and Philippe Malouin (Canada), have unveiled their interpretation of the brief, ‘From Spark to Finish’, which encouraged the designers to create work that sheds light on their own creative process and demonstrate how the spark of inspiration evolves into material designs. The projects each involve an interactive element, encouraging visitors to experience the creative impulse for themselves.

Interpreting the idea of a spark as the generation of energy, Tom Foulsham has created Go-Round, a device that balances on a single sharpened point. The simple act of breathing produces small, usually unseen forces, and Go-Round attempts to visualize this energy. Visitors can propel themselves with everyday objects, such as hairdryers, fans, balloon dresses, or by simply exhaling. Foulsham describes his project as “delicately balanced, nothing fixed, a point of rest, just at the edge of slipping apart.”

LIGHTzeit by Markus Kayser explores how natural light constantly changes through motion, intensity and color rendering, whereas most artificial light sources are entirely static. LIGHTzeit is a minimal light installation resembling the ever-static tubular lights widely used in offices and public spaces. But this light picks up the notion of light in transition by constantly, but unnoticeably, travelling in a 24-hour cycle, 360-degrees around its axle like clockwork. While the position of the light changes, the light’s qualities adjust in color temperature and intensity throughout the day, reconnecting it to the natural rhythm. The user can set the place and time of day by an interactive switch in the form of an abstract world globe.

Philippe Malouin has unveiled Daylight, a series of lamps or artificial windows inspired by plantation shutters. Rather than mounted, the shutters are secured to a bare wall and contain an artificial light source. Each individual slat is lined with LEDs that replicate the color temperature of daylight. The light emitted is reflected back from the wall on which the window is mounted to produce the impression that a real window lies behind. Light intensity can be adjusted by manipulating the angle of the shutters. The shapes of the lamps are based on the Tangram: a Chinese dissection puzzle. Each geometric shape of the Tangram shares a set of common proportions, allowing the lamps to be arranged in multiple, complementary configurations. Also on display from Malouin are a selection of drawings; failed and working prototypes, artefacts and pictures; which map out the design process timeline from the "spark" of the initial concept to "finished" design.

The 2012 W Hotels Designers of the Future Award winners were selected by an international jury, including Tord Boontje of Royal College of Art; Wava Carpenter of Design Miami/; Aric Chen of BeijingDesign Week; Ilse Crawford of Design Academy Eindhoven; designer Konstantin Grcic; Xiaowei Hu of Surface China; curator and writer Benjamin Loyauté; Zoe Ryan of Art Institute Chicago; and Mike Tiedy, Senior Vice President of Brand Design and Innovation for Starwood Hotels & Resorts.

Previous winners of the W Hotels Designer of the Future Award, include Asif Khan, Beta Tank, Graham Hudson, mischer’traxler, Random International, studio juju, and Zigelbaum & Coelho. W Hotels guides each Award winner from the conceptual stage to ultimately providing a global platform that exposes their work to W guests and local design enthusiasts alike.

When the W brand opened its first hotel in New York in 1998, it transformed the meaning of hotels and established itself as the clear leader in the contemporary lifestyle hotel space. W Hotels strives for cutting-edge, forward-thinking design, inspired by location and executed through unique collaborations with both emerging and well-known creative talents. From the nature meets urban style of W Taipei to the design inspired by the dual personality of the British man at W London - Leicester Square, each new W Hotel is guided by Starwood’s in-house design team and fuelled by a unique collaboration between designers, architects, graphic designers, photographers, stylists and the W brand’s Global Fashion and Music Directors.
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About W Hotels Worldwide
W Hotels is a contemporary, design-led lifestyle brand and the industry innovator with 42 hotels and retreats, including 14 W-branded residences, in the most vibrant cities and exotic destinations around the world. Inspiring, iconic, innovative and influential, W Hotels provides the ultimate in insider access, offering a unique mix of cutting-edge design and passions around fashion, music and entertainment. W Hotels offers a holistic lifestyle experience that is integrated into the brand’s sensibility through contemporary restaurant concepts, glamorous entertainment experiences, stylish retail concepts, signature spas and inspiring residences. With more than 13 years of proven success, W Hotels is on track to reach 60 hotels by the end of 2015. W Hotels have been announced for Guangzhou, Singapore, Milan, Shanghai, Abu Dhabi, Bangkok, Athens – Astir Palace, Muscat, Mumbai, and Sante Fe, Mexico, while upcoming W Retreat & Spas® include Verbier and Mexico’s Riviera Maya. For more information, visit www.whotels.com. To live the W Hotels lifestyle 24/7/365, visit www.wresidences.com.

About Design Miami/
Design Miami/ is the global forum for design. Each fair brings together the most influential collectors, gallerists, designers, curators and critics from around the world in celebration of design culture and commerce. Occurring alongside the Art Basel fairs in Miami, USA each December and Basel, Switzerland each June, Design Miami/ has become the premier venue for collecting, exhibiting, discussing and creating collectible design. For more information, please visit www.designmiami.com and www.designmiami.com/designlog.

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