Unbuilt, the 2015 Design Miami entry pavilion designed by a Harvard Graduate School of Design student team, was named a finalist in Fast Company’s 2016 Innovation by Design Awards. This year’s Innovation by Design competition drew more than 1,700 entries from 41 different countries, with 15 winners and 231 finalists named across 15 categories. (Unbuilt was one of 16 finalists named in the Students category.)
Unbuilt was a first-of-its-kind collaboration, marking the first time that Design Miami commissioned a student team to design its much celebrated entry pavilion. Unbuilt was selected in May 2015 through a GSD-wide competition that drew 32 teams comprising 100 GSD students, and was revealed to the public on December 1, 2015, at the start of the fair.
The Unbuilt design team comprised Joanne Cheung, Jenny Shen, Steven Meyer, Doug Harsevoort, and Yiliu Shen-Burke (all MArch ’18). The student team was advised by Luis Callejas, lecturer in architecture and landscape architecture; Hanif Kara, professor in practice of architectural technology; and Dan Borelli (MDes ’12), director of exhibitions.
The installation consisted of 198 models based on designs representing conceptualized but unbuilt work, collected from an open call for submissions at the GSD. The models were milled in pink foam and structured on a metal grid, providing Design Miami visitors an immersive encounter with design ideas and imagination.
An interactive digital platform, created by Modelo, supplemented the physical installation, inviting visitors to explore each of the 198 designs through touch screens.
As Borelli told Wired magazine, the jury chose Unbuilt because “we felt it really reflected the identity of who we are: a graduate center for Masters, Doctoral, and PhD candidates, and architects, landscape designers, practitioners, theorists, historians, all coming together in one environment.”
Learn more about Unbuilt, and see the full roster of this year’s winners and finalists in Fast Company’s Innovation by Design Awards.
Select media coverage of Unbuilt:
“Class act: Harvard students honour architecture’s unrealised back catalogue with a pavilion for Design Miami,” Wallpaper.
“This Year’s Design Miami Pavilion Has Odd Looks—and Unexpected Creators,” Wired.
“The Most Interesting Projects From a Newly Inclusive Design Miami,” T: The New York Times Style Magazine.
“200 concept models form a pink canopy in harvard GSD’s UNBUILT pavilion for design miami/,” DesignBoom.
“Harvard students create pink pavilion of 200 elevated models outside Design Miami,” Dezeen.