Apple showcases upcycled found furniture and banana palm-paper lantern at Designers of Tomorrow show
Designers Parafernalia, Yoonjeong Lee, Salem S Charabi and Isabel Rower will celebrate "the art in the making" at technology brand Apple's Designers of Tomorrow exhibition at Design Miami.Paris.
The emerging designers, who have all designed furniture or lighting, were chosen by exhibition curator Rodman Primack, together with a jury that included Design Miami president Jennifer Roberts and designer Nifemi Marcus-Bello.
For its latest edition of the exhibition, which opens today, Apple wanted to showcase how its products are used by emerging designers in the process of creating their pieces.
"Designers of Tomorrow celebrates the process – the art in the making," Apple said in a statement.
"Each of the designers use Apple products in a variety of ways within their creative processes, from early ideation to creation," the company continued.
"Apple has long believed that the full potential of their products is only fully realised when put in the hands of the world’s most talented creatives."
Among the works on show will be Egyptian-Danish designer Charabi's delicate lamp, made from date palm from Saqqara, limestone from the Galala Mountains and paper made from banana palms in the Nile Delta.
The theme of the exhibition this year was Design for Presence, which Charabi took into consideration by pondering "what is present?"
"A structure inspired by the date palm-cleaving methods of the qafassin, makers of boxes and trays used in the country’s souks and bakeries," the designer said.
"A skin created by multiple layerings of banana stems, found in Beheira, in the Nile Delta of Egypt," he continued. "A mass carved from limestone from the Galala Mountains, carrying the trace of its making through repetitive patterns."
Seoul-based artist Lee, meanwhile, explored how objects can change their functions by using a pencil to nail paper to a surface, before taking the idea further by creating a lamp.
"For this project, I took that approach further, using wood to build a table that holds the pencil nail and paper, completing the piece as a three-dimensional lamp," Lee explained.
"To make the table, I repeatedly stacked thin sheets of veneer to build a new, solid piece of wood – approximately 5,000 layers, perhaps more."
Designer Rower used upcycled furniture for her piece, which she then decorated with ceramic beads.
"The chair was made using found furniture left on the curb near my studio in Brooklyn, reconstituted into a wooden armature onto which I built up layers of papier-mâché and a pulp composite containing wood glue, sawdust, and paper pulp made from shredded waste paper," Rower said.
After spraying the surface of the chair with black paint, she glued 1,500 handmade ceramic beads to it.
The final designers taking part, Sebastián Zorrilla and Genki Matsumura of studio Parafernalia, created their design, MonoAmbiente 1, as a "landscape".
"Its acid-etched stainless steel surfaces invite closer observation as light reveals and conceals details across them," the designers said.
"As it unfolds, the landscape unfolds with it: rocks become stools and a table, turning a distant scene into a place for two to converse, play, or share a drink," the designers continued.
Apple first launched Designers of Tomorrow at Design Miami.Paris last year, when it showed pieces including a table designed to look like butter.
Designers of Tomorrow takes place at Design Miami.Paris 2026 from 21 to 25 October 2026 at L’hôtel de Maisons, 51 Rue de l’Université, 75007 Paris, France. See Dezeen Events Guide for more design events and exhibitions around the world.
The post Apple showcases upcycled found furniture and banana palm-paper lantern at Designers of Tomorrow show appeared first on Dezeen.
