Alcova has returned to Miami for its second local edition. The Milan-based internationally focused fair, founded in Milan in 2018 by multihyphenate culture-makers Joseph Grima and Valentina Ciuffi, champions independent talents pushing the ever-stratified domain forward in various conceptual and critical directions and addressing relevant political, social, and environmental issues—just as design should be doing. “We’re always interested in presenting design that carries broader meaning,” Grima said in an interview.

Parasite 2.0’s installation. Photo: Piergiorgio Sorgetti/ ALCOVA

It’s becoming an established, scrappy counterpoint to Design Miami. Each showcase comprises an eclectic selection of experimental one-off furnishing, limited-edition accessories, and immersive installations. With an underlying focus on resourcefulness, radical upcycling, and ad hoc application, the exhibitors at this year’s succinct presentation do not disappoint.

These themes are also inherent in how and where Alcova chooses to mount its events. Avoiding the traditional white cube, the fair takes place in distinctive repurposed locales: past editions, all in Milan but for one last year in Miami, have taken up residence in palacios, former slaughterhouses and active military bases. “For us, it’s essential to exhibit in uncommon spaces that have architectural significance and that are worth seeing on their own,” Grima noted.

River Inn, Miami. Courtesy Alcova.

This time around, Ciuffi (founder of the multidisciplinary Studio Vedèt) and Grima (of architecture and research studio Space Caviar) opted for the Victorian-style River Inn, founded in 1908 as a boarding house and now comprising a cluster of pastel-hued structures; it’s located just south of downtown and near Little Havana, and is still in operation as a hotel.

“Surrounded by soaring high rises, the complex of bungalows is one of the last remaining vestiges of old Miami that hasn’t been torn down,” Grima said. Enclosing an especially verdant courtyard, the homes make for a unique viewing experience. All 43 exhibitors—an illustrious roster of up-and-coming and more established talents from Europe, Asia, and throughout the U.S.—made good use of what are normally guest rooms, suites, and even bathrooms. 

Lucas Muñoz Muñoz. Courtesy of Alcova.

Driving the theme of resourcefulness—finding clever ways to make do with what materials are immediately available—is Spanish designer Lucas Muñoz Muñoz. The emphatically experimental designer arrived in Miami 10 days early to scour construction material suppliers for discarded and off-cut elements: wood, metal, insulation foam, and various electronic components. The resulting outdoor installation comprises a full high-fidelity sound system utilized for various events as well as chairs and tables all assembled on site. (Unlike a few other exhibitors who ended up having their work held up in customs, Muñoz Muñoz obviously didn’t have to deal with any shipping issues.)

Studio Haos. Courtesy of Alcova

Lisbon-based French duo Studio Haos’s latest fiberglass-enclosed mesh metal furniture collection stems from a similar impetus: necessity. Haos developed this new material application when needing to quickly create a pendant lamp for their own studio, and did so using materials that were lying around. New York–based Greek duo Objects of Common Interest iterated their prismatic Reflections of Now vessels series, meant to evoke the sentiment of childhood memories, out of reworked glass elements in their workshop. Los Angeles–based Caleb Engstrom (Rest Energy) molded his Bottom of the Bucket tableware on the bottoms of industrial-grade mixing buckets.

Objects of Common Interest. Photo: Piergiorgio Sorgetti. ALCOVA

Perhaps the most emphatically ad hoc presentation is the Invento Spirit: Collective Experiments in Adaptive Creativity group installation, mounted by New York practice Ladies and Gentlemen Studio in collaboration with Cuban talent Danni Friedman. Building on a workshop that both studios conducted in 2018 in Havana, in which local talents revealed how they “invented” solutions out of upcycled elements around them—cutlery made from rebar metal rods, for instance—they invited a host of contemporary designers to present similar explorations. 

Exhibited concepts include a wheelbarrow chair, another one fashioned out of dented road signs, and handheld mirrors crafted to replace cars’ rearview mirrors, an ad hoc solution common in Miami, according to Ladies and Gentlemen Studio co-principal Jean Lee. “In talking to Joseph and Valentina, it felt right to showcase this project during this edition, especially given that we’re presenting in the Little Havana neighborhood,” she said. “There are strong ties between Miami and the Cuban capital.” 

Alcova remains on view at the River Inn, 437 SW 2nd St., Miami, through Sunday, December 8.