FIU’s Festival of the Trees kick starts the holiday season

Proceeds from the Nov. 12 art opening – a blue-and-gold tradition more than two decades old – go toward interior design scholarships.

By Martin Haro

More than 500 FIU faculty, students, alumni, administrators, friends and family, as well as community supporters and art aficionados attended the opening of the 23^rd Annual Festival of the Trees at Coverings Etc. in Miami on Nov. 12.

Fourteen trees designed by leading design and architectural firms were displayed at the event hosted by the College of Architecture + the Arts’ Interior Design Department. Guests were encouraged to bid on the original creations, which were designed keeping in mind this year’s theme of sustainability, in order to raise funds for FIU’s Interior Design Endowed Scholarship Fund.

The trees were judged in five categories by a group of people that included Sasha Dolgicer of The Beacon Council, Metro 1 Properties’ Carl Hildebrand, Miami Herald architecture critic Beth Dunlop and David and Marianne Russell, the owners of Arango.

The winners were:

Most Repurposeful: Light Bright by ADD, Inc.

Most Achieving New Zero: GeoReneris by Leo A. Daly

Most Humanitarian: Reverie by AECOM

Most Local: Glister by Heery – S&G

People’s Choice: Sustainable Visions by Pavlik Design