(US) – Swarovski celebrates ten year partnership with Design Miami/ in making a geodesic sun-like installation.

Austrian glass experts commissioned Mexico-based architecture and design practice Fernando Romero Enterprise (FR-EE) to create an installation exploring mans relationship with the sun. Entitled El Sol, the installation is a vast geodesic structure, designed to scale, one billion times small than the sun, and composed of 2,880 custom-made precision-cut Swarovsi crystals.

El Sol is inspired by the sacred geometry used by the ancient Aztecs and Mayans in constructing their pyramids as a means to monitor celestial events. FR-EE’s Founder and Creative Director Fernando Romero endeavoured to pay homage to this legacy while also employing modern technologies in creating the structure, which required over 250 hours of engineering work and three months of design and technical development.

Featuring a spherical cut-out internal structure, El Sol has a smooth outer surface made up of an intricate puzzle of four different types of specially developed precision-cut crystals covered in Swarovski’s iconic Aurora Borealis coating. Faceted internally, the crystals augment the light emitting from the installation’s core; spherical pool of LEDs whose light is refracted by the facets of the crystals, evoking the sun’s gaseous, moving terrain.

The installation also features a soundscape, the “sound” of the Sun, made in a collaborative effort between Swarovksi and the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Birmingham, UK.

Romero commented on the installation: “It is an honour to collaborate with Swarovski on El Sol. The project has allowed me explore mathematics in relation to nature and my Mexican ancestry, which is very important and personal to my practice.”

Member of Swarovski Executive Board Nadja Swarovski commented: “We are delighted to celebrate ten years of partnership with Design Miami/ and to collaborate with Fernando Romero on a work that is both visually and technically awe-inspiring. Truly challenging our product development team, Fernando has explored themes associated with heritage and nature to create El Sol, an immersive installation on a vast scale, and we look forward to seeing the final result in Miami.”

“The geometric patterns presented in El Sol mirror those found in the natural world and remind us that certain proportions are woven into the very fabric of nature,” Romero added. “The final product is meant to capture this sense of the curious synchronicity of the universe, an elusive balance between chaos and order.”

Visitors will be offered an alternative view of the installation through a specially developed crystal lenses for their phone’s camera that, when the photo is taken, will refract light, creating a kaleidoscopic effect. The second interactive user experience incorporates Videri’s high visual fidelity, ultra-thin digital displays, and a new early stage innovation from Swarovski’s R&D labs, functional crystals, which will offer a new way to interact with digital media.

El Sol will be on display at Design Miami/, from December 2-6, 2015.

www.swarovski.com