Nice triangulated pendants hand made via a simple mold (plastic sheet scribed, bent randomly and folded) and water-based quick cure resin by artist Phil Cuttance. See the full post from Core77.
Archive for the 'Creative Manufacturers' Category
04
Feb
12
“faceture” pendants
06
Jan
12
bocci
Bocci is a design firm in Vancouver, Canada with a couple lines of decorative pendants. Very nice photography…clearly, they love depth of field…or lack thereof.
Lalvani Studio explores morphogenomics as used in sculputure and architecture. Check out Haresh Lalvani’s TEDx Talk. The pieces in the pictures here are made in collaboration with the metal shop Milgo Bufkin.
28
Nov
11
chrysalis project
SolidSmack has an interesting article about the “Chrysalis Project” on Kickstarter, an effort by architect/programming experimenter Chris Chalmers. To summarize the article, Chris is developing an export function from Rhino’s Grasshopper add-on, to allow designers to export parametric models – and their controls — to a Processing language-based website. Above is a mockup of what his web storefront “Fabripod” might look like for creating a customized light fixture.
Chalmers made an excellent introductory video explaining how these technologies work: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1419987702/chrysalis-grasshopper-processing-for-online-making/widget/video.html
Below are some of the many parametric variations permissable from just this one model:
05
Nov
11
ango
Via Cool Hunter, I stumbled across Ango, a small company in Thailand that uses unique materials to great effect, including raw silk cocoons, rattan, hand soldered wire cages, and hand built-up polymer substrates. Sounds labor intensive, but the end results are organic…both literally and aesthetically.
While Howard Brandston makes a fool of himself demanding his “moral choice” to use 19th-century lighting technology, impoverished villagers in South America, India, and elsewhere are upgrading their entire standard of living by skipping from 17th-century oil lamps to 21st-century solar-LED systems.
Continue reading ‘lighting for the 1 in 4 humans with no electric lighting’
09
Jun
11
acuity’s revel OLED fixture
Acuity’s OLED Lighting Design Center launched a couple products at Lightfair 2011, most notably the Revel fixture.
There’s quite the parade of OLED fixtures being “launched” these days. “Launched” is a somewhat dubious term for many of these, as they are really just prototype projects…manufacturers dipping their toes into the OLED waters. (See my other post on the OSRAM Airabesc). At best, these first generation fixtures will wind up being the signature piece above the reception desk or in the executive conference room…certainly not the general illumination over your cheap little cubicle!
Nevertheless, I applaud manufacturers for doing these sorts of “showcar” projects, especially the large, well funded leaders of the industry. They need to be more daring. For Acuity, putting a little chutzpah into their lineup resulted in winning Lightfair’s Most Innovative Product of the Year. Congrats to the OLED team at Acuity.
OSRAM launched a stylish combination OLED + LED pendant fixture called the “Airabesc” at the recent iSalone/Euroluce show.
OSRAM has been experimenting with OLED technology for well over a decade now (I personally saw back in 1999 an early OSRAM prototype OLED while at Harvard’s School of Design ). Its nice to see OLEDs finally reaching the output levels needed for general illumination. And the fixture is definitely following the du jour architectural trends of biomimetic, swoopy styling enabled by digital design and fabrication.
13
May
11
modular lighting: scotty
I’ve discussed previously how sci-fi movies of the past provide terrific guidance as to the future of lighting, but this might be taking that a bit too literally: Modular Lighting has introduced “Scotty“, a recessed “downlight” version of their highly innovative “Spock” fixture (which I covered in this post). I put “downlight” in quotes very purposefully: This fixture is nothing like the downlight your grandfather used.
25
Mar
11
EXOtique Student Installation
Core77 posted an interesting little project called “EXOtique” from a group of four recent graduates of Ball State University’s College of Architecture and Planning. They produced a ceiling cloud structure for Ball State’s Institute for Digital Fabrication, made of styrene panels, acrylic panel clips, and suspended by the cords of old fashioned Edison sockets with threaded collars.
10
Jan
11
i.Materialise
An update to my previous post on Materialise’s 3D printing tech: Late last year, the Beligum-based Materialise launched a new site called iMaterialise that seems poised to compete directly with Shapeways.com web-based 3D printing service.
One thing that differentiates them from Shapeways: They’ve developed direct plug-ins for Rhino, Blender and Google SketchUp. I haven’t had a chance to use any of them yet, but that seems to be the key bridging piece needed to eliminate the major headaches of exporting and fixing STL models.
Pictured above is the Flickr set of a SketchUp lamp competition they held. They currently have a Rhino lamp design challenge in process.
03
Jan
11
on line by Bart Lens
Daily Icon has a post with a very slick LED-based linear track system design from LensAss, a Belgium architecture firm that works in conjunction with Eden Design.
02
Sep
10
modular lighting/couvreur.devos
Belgian-based Modular Lighting Instruments have released two stunning fixture designs by the Belgian design duo Couvreur.Devos.
24
Aug
10
novaled OLED prototype fixture
Inhabitat has a post showing a snazzy OLED fixture prototype from Dresden, Germany’s Novaled.
01
Jul
10
christie’s microtiles
Launched back in November 2009, Christie is selling an innovative back-lit display system called MicroTiles that combine DLP + LED technologies in a unitized 12″ high x 16″ wide x 10″ deep block.
I found this older post on Design Boom: Sculptor Olafur Eliasson from Copenhagen created an interesting configurable geometric system prototype for sculptural pendant fixtures.
12
Jan
10
simple wooden pendants
Adam Brackney is a designer in Minneapolis with a small storefront called Workerman. He has for sale a refreshingly simple pendant: A walnut block, Edison socket, and retro carbon-filament incandescent A-lamp. Ahhhh….the good old days.
Incandescence: We Salute You!
via NotCot.org
24
Sep
09
mark braun: pyrus lamp
Mark Braun is a Berlin designer who has recently shown a molded pulp-paper lamp shade at several design shows.
I love how it looks like concrete, yet is thin and light enough to be used as a shade. This another great example of sustainable biomass materials in light fixtures.
16
Sep
09
interlam wall panel systems
You know you want to: Go ahead, reach out and touch the walls.
Interlam is a Virginia-based fabricator of three-dimensional, cut-to-order wall panels. Using thick sheets of various fiberboard products, they CNC router-cut panels with a variety of patterns of varying depth and relief. It is really amazing the impact one new tool, such as large-format CNC router tables, can have on the abilities of designers to infuse their spaces with new forms of visual richness.
All of these products are complemented nicely with linear grazing light sources, positioned just a few inches off the surface, such as Color Kinetics’ Graze fixture or Focal Point’s Mini-Grazer.
13
Sep
09
freedom of creation
Freedom of Creation is an Amsterdam firm that has explored rapid manufacturing techniques for nearly a decade. FOC launched a series of decorative light fixtures that push the possibilities of the technology: Their pendants, surface mounted fixtures, and table lamps have rich, highly sculptural, biomorphic shapes.
