Photo by Gesy Schilling – Courtesy of Perrier Jouët.

At DesignMiami/ 2014, Perrier-Jouët presented Ephemerā, a mishievious installation by Vienna based design studio mischer’traxler that meshes the champagne Art Nouveau heritage with contemporary design and plays on the magical dialogue between mankind and nature.

Photo by Daniel Gebhart de Koekkoek – Courtesy of Perrier Jouët.

A great table enchants the audience with a delicate game of hide-and-seek, played out through a mechanical ornamental garden botanical motifs on its top. It appears alive when seen from afar, as plants and insects move, following their own gentle choreography. However when someone comes close, the garden disappears shyly.

Photo by Gesy Schilling – Courtesy of Perrier Jouët.

A mirror with a life of its own stands out in the room. From a distance, flowers grow across the glass, up and even out of the wooden frame, extending to the wall. On closer inspection, the plant will retract, and the mirror becomes just that, a mirror.

Detail f the graphic design from the booklet of Ephemerā exhibition at DesignMiami/ 2015 – Courtesy of Perrier Jouët.

RELATED STORY: When furniture misbehaves. Weng Xinyu designed an angry lamp switches itself off when left alone in the room, a picture frame that blurr pimages if not caressed and a a suicidal (and cheeky) wall clock that secretly attempts to saw its face off as soon as everybody leaves it alone.

Photo by Gesy Schilling – Courtesy of Perrier Jouët.