Design Miami/, a global forum for design held in Miami Beach November 29 to December 4, has named David Adjaye its Designer of the Year. The principal architect of Adjaye Associates will create a triangular welcome pavilion called Genesis at the annual event.
Composed of hundreds of vertical wooden planks morphing into organic interior seating and opening up to the sky and surrounding environment, the space will also serve as a community gathering area and a place for respite. Choreographing these diverse functions in one structure exhibits Adjaye’s ability to organize space in a way that effortlessly guides the user and creates an engaging spatial experience through a transcendent use of materials, according to Design Miami/ organizers. The internal space is formed by carving out an oversized ovoid shape, set at an angle that abuts the perimeter to form the exit, entrance, and window. The seating is established by a secondary subtraction from the interior, which repeats the distorted ovoid, creating a platform along the cut-away timber frames. While compressed and joined together with additional filler pieces, the timber frames are not completely fused. This allows light to filter inside from the exterior and roof, providing a dynamic juxtaposition of light and shadow. Light is further brought inside via an opening in the roof, which acts as a dramatic light well.
Tanzanian-born and of Ghanaian descent, London-based Adjaye has spent 10 years traveling to 53 cities throughout Africa to document the continent within an urban context and address much of the world’s lack of knowledge of the built environment throughout the disparate countries of the continent. The resulting project, “Urban Africa: David Adjaye’s Photographic Survey,” includes over 36,000 pictures, 3,000 of which were displayed at London’s Design Museum before traveling to other locations around the world.
