A nice glass of champers can go a long way to reviving the spirits during an arduous day flitting from exhibit to exhibit at Design Miami/, and this year organisers decided to bring their exclusive Collector’s Lounge on a par with the rest of the event with a specially-commissioned space from Olson Kundig Architects and Spearhead.

There will be no prizes for guessing how many bits of wood were used in constructing the lounge known as 38 Beams; the timbers are glued and laminated (known in the biz as “glulams”), and are the lynchpins of a concept that aims to highlight designers and makers of the Pacific Northwest. Those hefty beams – measuring up to 30 feet in length – began life in one of the region’s Douglas fir forests, and were salvaged for this project from a premises in Los Angeles. Their Design Miami/ appearance is not the end of the road though, as once this event is finished Olson Kundig will recycle the beams once again on a future build. Guests need somewhere to sit while they quaff their fizz of course, and the furniture here features among others the 1940s Domus lounge chair from Artek. Overhead hangs a great light tube chandelier from Northwest designers Lilienthal | Zamora, and other contributors from that neck of the woods include Seattle’s Totokaelo and Sub Pop Records.

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Photography, Gesi Schilling