The streets of New York City are full of surprises, but none quite as beautiful as the latest project from Lewis Miller Design. Through the city-wide project “Flower Flashes,” the LMD crew turns ordinary objects like trash cans and phone booths into breathtaking bouquets.
“Gifting flowers to New Yorkers is a simple idea that I have been thinking about for years,” floral designer Lewis Miller says on his team’s website. “We are in the business of fantasy and flowers; transforming key life moments in our client’s lives into magical, everlasting memories. We wanted to recreate a similar feeling for the everyday city-dwellers and tourists of New York City.”
Using one of the city’s few remaining phone booths, Miller launched “Flower Flashes” project on the Upper West Side, with a dazzling arrangement of colorful flowers, set against the contrasting backdrop of brick buildings and city life. Miller has also turned garbage cans and subway stations into captivating floral displays, saying he wanted to ”create an emotional response through flowers.”
Each display is impressively large, often spilling over into the street around it. The flowers are all repurposed from the installations Miller creates for corporate events.
In addition to the large-scale displays around the city, Miller and his team leave cut flowers and arrangements on sculptures and other public works of art.
The best part of Miller’s project is that the flowers themselves are free for the taking. The Lewis Miller Design team photographs each installation to document its original form, but they fully expect admirers to take a flower or two as they pass by. In one of the busiest cities in the world, Lewis Miller is encouraging society to slow down and (literally) stop to smell the roses.