Lara Bohinc’s fantastical furniture often feels like it arrived straight from the future—or perhaps a distant universe. While the Slovenia-born talent has been a Design Miami/ standout in years past, she’s now bringing her otherworldly creations to Miami Art Week for all earthlings to enjoy. Mushrooming across the Miami Design District with a kind yet mysterious presence is “Utopia,” a series of bulbous sculptures Bohinc created to evoke cellular life forms, mycelium, and even the geometry of Buckminster Fuller’s nearby Fly’s Eye dome.
Commissioned by the Design Miami/ Curatorial Lab to illustrate a future-focused vision of sustainable living, Bohinc fashioned stools, armchairs, tables, and solar panel–equipped light sculptures from cork—a natural, waterproof material native to Portugal—and built them using a 5D robotic milling machine. She then hand-painted each in pastel pistachio, aqua, lavender, cherry blossom, and eggshell blue hues, an homage to the color palette of Miami’s Art Deco architecture. The centerpiece? A seven-foot-tall elliptical sculpture that nods to the 900 egg-shaped birdhouses interspersed among the Design District’s tree branches as part of the series. Make sure you also catch them at the entrance to Design Miami/, which opens today.
