Redwoods Treewalk, New Zealand
The new night-time attraction at Redwoods Treewalk, New Zealand, required custom made lighting on a gigantic scale in order to bring mystery and magic to the forest experience. Luckily, the team at David Trubridge Design were up for the challenge.
Redwoods Treewalk and David Trubridge Design have partnered to create an iconic nocturnal tourism experience: the Redwoods Nightlights. Incorporating unique creations from Trubridge and his team; the Nightlights is New Zealand’s first design-led tourism experience.
The new night-time experience offers visitors and locals the opportunity to explore Rotorua’s majestic Redwood forest under the shroud of darkness, illuminated by Trubridge's bespoke designs that create an immersive and captivating environment.
“With 30 custom-made lanterns and a network of architectural lights, the night-time forest comes to life in a magical and surreal experience,” says Treewalk Director Kellie Thomasen. “Trubridge’s unique and inspiring lights add an amazing design element that is sure to become a much admired attraction within the forest.
“The idea to marry design and tourism remains relatively unexplored in New Zealand and enhancing an already magnificent environment like the Redwoods was no easy task,” continues Thomasen. “The Trubridge design team and the arborists at the Treewalk worked hard to place the 30, 2.5m tall lantern creations in areas embracing the natural beauty of the forest, to provide dramatic contrast for visitors. It will be an experience Rotorua can be proud of.”
In addition to the Trubridge lighting, over 40 infinite colour spots and feature lights illuminate the 115-year-old redwood trees, forest ferns and pungas.
“The Treewalk day walk has proven extremely popular and it was a natural progression to look for an innovative and world-class night-time product to offer additional opportunities for visitors to experience the city’s wonderful forest,” says Redwoods Treewalk General Manager Alex Schmid.
Located within Rotorua’s Redwood Forest, which attracts more than 500,000 visitors annually, the Redwood Treewalk is the world’s longest suspended walkway. The walk, consisting of 23 elevated swing-bridges and living platforms, showcases one of Rotorua’s most visited natural attractions.
Speaking with darc exclusively about the project, the David Trubridge team explained: “We became involved through a previous project with the owner of the Redwoods Treewalk. After experiencing how our existing range of lights come alive at night, they saw the potential of the night time experience in the treetops and asked us to turn their forest into a night-time wonderland!
“The initial brief was to design and produce a series of decorative lights to hang in the Redwood forest to create a night-time offshoot. It took almost twelve months from initial brief to the opening of the Night Walk experience to complete.”
As the project is outdoors, sourcing materials suitable for outdoor conditions was a challenge for the team, however during initial explorations for the project they found a new product that had just launched to the market that has a 30 year lifespan and is highly sustainable - the perfect solution, as the Rotorua geothermal enviornment has the added complication of corrosive sulpher fumes.
“The other big issue was the scale,” the team told darc. “The forest environment is vast compared to the architectural spaces we're used to and our normal lights would have been totally lost in it. As such, we had to design the lights in a larger form to compensate – they looked ridiculously enormous in our workshop!
“We had to move from our usual method of clipping together thin pieces of flexible plywood to bolting much thicker, rigid pieces onto a custom made stainless steel frame. As we built prototypes we learnt more about the structure and how to stabilise it.
“As well as the size and material issues, because of the fragile and dense nature of the forest floor, the large lights couldn’t be carried in, already assembled. We had to send up a shipping container with everything we might need packed inside, then assemble each light in situ right below where it hangs.
“The lower canopy of bush was thick and up to three-metres high and as such, the install team devised ways of swinging the lights into place using ropes so that the forest wasn’t damaged. Only fabric straps have been used, wrapped around the trees with the horizontal suspension lines connected to them, to ensure the trees can expand without any permanent fixtures or damage.”
A team of skilled climbing arborists were involved in the installation and continue to maintain the lights – some of which are up to 25m above the ground! As the project progressed, aspects of the initial agreement had to be negotiated; the number of lights had to be reduced to fit the budget for example, yet the arrangement still had to achieve the same aim of creating an exciting experience for visitors.
The decorative element of the lighting was the only driver for this project, with the installation of lights creating a whole new visual experience, emphasising the natural beauty of the forest by illuminating it in new ways. The intensity, specularity and direction of the light were key considerations throughout, as the team didn’t want to add to light pollution by aiming the light skyward.
“We discovered that much less light was actually needed in the darkened forest environment to achieve the desired lantern effect,” the team told darc. “Trying to control glare from the light sources while still maintaning the lovely shadow play on the forest floor was also a significant challenge.”
To overcome this, the team built three test versions, which were installed in the forest before completing the final order. This allowed them to ensure they had the correct light levels, that the concept worked and that the designs were as good as they could be.
In order to achieve their goals, the David Trubridge team also worked closely with New Zealand lighting manufacturer Hunza, which makes a waterproof downlight housing. The locally made products are precision engineered out of the highest quality materials and meshed well with the lighting design needs, they also fulfilled other considerations such as long life span and servicability.
Reflecting on the project, the installation was all the team had hoped for and more, as they explained: “None of us had anticipated just how well the lights would work in among the giant redwood trees. There is a reaching perspective, accentuated by the overlaying silhouettes of trunks and branches as the carefully placed groups of lights appear in the distance. The scale is so large and yet the effect so enveloping.”
There was no second chance for the team once they had strung all the wires - it had to be right first time! As such, the design team went around the walk, very carefully visualising how they would look in order to work out the best placements.
“Our lights have created a new sense of wonder in the natural environment and encourage people to enjoy and rethink the outdoors. The combined sensual experience of being in a forest at night, 25m high on a swaying platform looking out to seemingly weightless giant lanterns, illuminating the trees is memorable and romantic.”
The lighting created by the David Trubridge team is the entire design and defines – in fact, creates – the space and the experience. Some of the lights hang inbetween the trees, casting patterned shadows on the ground below – not unlike the nearby spreading Punga Tree ferns.
“The most successful light for us, is the tree-hugging Titi, which has been built around the tree trunk,” the team added. “It is partly inspired by the bracket fungi that similarly grows on tree trunks and was David's idea, but he had to fight hard to keep it when it was becoming difficult to make and install!
“Because it is more expensive, we had to compromise with less of them. The most challenging part was working out how to install the horizontal luminaires so that they weren't directed at the walkways.
“We are proud of the natural cohesion happening between the lights and the forest and are especially proud that we completed this demanding project ahead of time and within budget.”
Kebaya Restaurant, The Netherlands
Dutch design studio UXUS created a space for passengers to idle in Kebaya, Schiphol airport’s Asian offering that provides both home comforts and foreign delights to international travellers.
Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, has a reputation for going above and beyond what passengers expect of a transport hub in organisation, flow, retail and culinary delights. Restaurants in airports don’t typically have a good reputation, but Schiphol offers something remarkable in Kebaya for customers to enjoy in solitude or share with their fellow travellers.
With a large and growing number of Asian travellers passing through Schiphol as a transit destination, or a gateway to Europe, Schiphol is competing to become the most preferred airport in the world. This was the core of Amsterdam-based design studio UXUS’ brief, as they pitched their idea to travel food and beverage provider HMS Host for an airport restaurant that was more akin to something one might find in a city centre.
UXUS Chief Creative Officer Oliver Michell told darc: “We were invited by the operators of the restaurant to pitch for Schiphol to create a new flagship focal restaurant in what is their new Holland Boulevard centrepiece, a connector between departure lounges two and three. This is an important corridor that connects two major international hubs within the airport, and caters to most of the transfer passengers going from one continent to another. With increasing numbers of Asian travellers, we knew from the start that it was catering for an international audience with an Asian focus.”
Further refined to that, Michell and lead designer on the project Wai Cheung worked with a food consultant to understand how the menu might come together. With the consultant based in Singapore, the focus naturally became South East Asia. “We came to understand that Singapore is very much a melting pot of Asian cuisine in South East Asia because of the cosmopolitan nature of the city and the openness to street food,” said Michell.
This concept is strongly reflected in the restaurant’s name, Kebaya, a traditional dress worn in South East Asia, mostly by Malays, Thais, and Vietnamese people. The layered garment is mostly worn by women, and although it is one type of garment, it takes on different characteristics depending on the country and culture wearing it. The fabrics and patterns tend to be different, but the overall structure of the way it is laid tends to stay the same.
Michell continued: “So with that, we really picked up on this idea that the restaurant wasn’t one platform, not just one Asian offering, but it brought together lots of different influences from different cultures. There are a lot of textiles in there but all underlined with this very clean environment.”
UXUS set out to create contrast by offering something unexpected to stumble across in an airport. “Schiphol is a great airport; it’s functional and the overall architecture is very clean, using materials such as concrete and glass. So we used warm materials, a lot of dark wood and copper, that really offset from what you would expect to see in the rest of the airport.”
This desire to create contrast was met with a need to emphasise the natural light of the space that floods in from the tarmac. In this light, UXUS designed with the idea of bringing indoor and outdoor together. “In Asia there are a lot of these indoor / outdoor spaces where you can enjoy street food and are sheltered from the sun and rain but still within the elements, so the whole space has the feel of being in a gazebo or pergola,” said Michell.
One of the main aspects to consider in designing this restaurant was understanding the flow of passengers coming through, and how people behave in airports.
Cheung told darc of the importance of creating somewhere for passengers who have time on their hands: “Most of the passengers travelling internationally will be there for about three hours on average, which is a long time, so you want to make it comfortable and give them something to enjoy. We created several different seating opportunities, at the bar, in the lounge and at the restaurant, or you can take away if you’re in a hurry, so it caters for everyone.”
Placed at an intersection, the restaurant can be approached from two different angles. Understanding this flow played a significant role in designing the layout of the restaurant, as UXUS decided to make a visible kitchen right in its centre. This presented challenges in deciding which parts of the kitchen they wanted on show, and what should be out of view from diners. “As an airport, Schiphol is particularly transparent, so preserving skylight was very important. We had to find the right balance between showcasing the exciting elements of the kitchen but hiding more mundane parts without obstructing the light,” said Cheung. “We also had to consider this in our choice of decorative lighting, as we didn’t want them to obstruct the skylight.”
Decorative lighting played a crucial role in Kebaya in creating atmosphere and defining spaces within the restaurant. “It’s one thing to have beautiful materials and use colours, but actually, the lighting is what creates the drama,” said Michell. “We made a point of the kitchen being quite bright as the chefs need functional lighting, and then we used Moooi's Emporer fixtures elsewhere. As the space is so vast, these large pendants create a lantern-like effect, which we then accentuated with a series of canopies that go around the glass box of the kitchen with linear lights that diffuse light from the ceiling. The result is a really bright focal point in an otherwise dark space, with wood slats on the ceiling to conceal the spotlights that create focused bits of light around the tables.”
Originally made to hang from the ceiling, UXUS adapted the Moooi pendants into more of a standing lamp, hung from a wooden arc to create a pavilion feel all the way along the façade, akin to something found on a veranda. “Decoratively they’re very sculptural, but simple in shape," said Michell. “They have that kind of woven look, which is very similar to the baskets used in the kitchen, and fishing baskets you might see in South East Asia.”
Elsewhere in the restaurant, Seren & Lily's Cabrillo pendants work alongside Habitat's Birman suspension lamps to bring together the warm, natural tones of the interior.
“The way we selected the lighting was that per area, we actually had a very distinctive look, so the lighting enhances the look for each space,” said Cheung. “This helps people define the spaces and understand the intended purpose behind each one.”
The Mora S pendants by Zuiver do just this by creating a different zone in the lounge, making customers aware that each space is intended for a different atmopshere.
Another design element was the different roles that decorative lighting played in the transitions between day and night. At an airport, naturally the restaurant aims to draw people in at all hours as they travel between time zones. Michell told darc: “During the day, the fixtures are very sculptural, which helps create a focus around the seating areas, but they don’t really do much from a lighting point of view. At night, it’s the opposite. They become even more visual in their drama with light filtering through to create shadows, so they have two different decorative purposes.”
Involved in nearly every aspect of the project from interior design to food consulting, Kebaya was a dream job for UXUS. Michell added: “We had the time to work through any issues so what came out was really very close to what we were expecting and hoping for.”
Michell had the pleasure of stumbling across Kebaya as any other customer when he was in the airport and heard it had opened.
“I happened to be at Schiphol but didn’t know what the actual opening date was. I was going to my gate, and there it was! I was actually amazed at how similar it looked to our renders. The lighting was the most surprising part in that it worked exactly how we were hoping.
“I’ve now eaten there three times and it’s a really enjoyable experience. You have everything you might expect from a food court in Singapore where you find different cultures mingling around all this great street food there to be enjoyed. It’s a place where people can enjoy new things or find home comforts, and that is what travel, and essentially airports, are all about.”
Schiphol has fully understood the volume of overseas travellers coming through Europe, and caters for that customer profile.
With a growing number of travellers coming through from China and South East Asia to all over the world, they need their home comforts while travelling. Equally, western travellers are preferring to eat food that they feel is more exciting.
Many passengers have a choice in the modern day world of travel of which hub they pass through, if they are flexible with time and budget. Things like food and beverage experience play a vital role in that decision. On a subtle level, it affects how travellers think about airports, and Schiphol has been diligent about introducing that kind of innovation. Schiphol has a captive audience and UXUS has given travellers the opportunity to make tasteful and lasting memories.
CitizenM, UK
concrete design studio collaborates once again with hotel group CitizenM on its Tower of London project, using light to help guests find their rhythm away from routine.
As co-creators of CitizenM hotel concepts since the hospitality group’s conception in 2005, Amsterdam-based studio concrete stands as part of CitizenM’s Creative Board. Meeting every month to look over all on-going projects, CitizenM’s Tower of London hotel was no exception to the creative achievements of this collaboration.
With open design briefs from the start, concrete has always worked to the idea that CitizenM is not a hotel. Over the years, this idea has given them the freedom to reconsider every aspect of what a hotel should be, and change things along the way. The same approach was taken with Tower of London, as the team worked intently on every creative element of the project - from the concept design of the architecture to the interior design of all public areas and guestrooms.
While every CitizenM hotel has the same DNA, they are always unique in their adaptation of local context and changing needs. As a follow up to the successful CitizenM Bankside in London, Tower of London is a bigger and improved version, now standing as CitizenM’s flagship hotel in London.
Tower of London’s lighting design consists of a series of layers, starting with downlighting for ambient lighting, indirect lighting of cabinet and art walls, accent lighting for playful accents and a series of designer and bespoke pendant lighting to highlight the different areas within the hotel. All lighting is part of a lighting management system developed by TDE lighting, which enables CitizenM to have different light settings through the day.
The lighting helps guide guests to make their way through the lobby to the hotel’s living room, where Tom Dixon’s copper and brass Etch shades offer a warm glow to make guests feel instantly at home in a thoughtful and modern setting. The ground floor also hosts one of CitizenM’s latest ideas, the CoffeeM café, where Modernica’s Nelson Bubble lamps and Gubi’s BL2 table lamps offer a little something extra as CitizenM maintains its strong lighting plan that uses decorative lighting to provide accentuation and personality where necessary.
The surprises continue upstairs to the hotel’s rooftop, as CitizenM’s SocietyM bar transforms the rooftop into a bar at night, boasting views of London’s cityscape to make the most of the hotel’s surroundings. For this space, concrete designed large bespoke lanterns, produced and developed by Frandsen lighting, which are visible from street level, marking the rooftop from a distance. Elsewhere in the rooftop bar, Anglepoise’s Giant 1227 pendant and Moooi’s Proplight and Dear Ingo fixtures feature to perfect the space’s ambient evening glow.
As with all CitizenM hotels, each guest room is controlled with a tablet mood pad, allowing guests control over their individual environment. They can dim or colour the lights, close the curtains and maintain climate control all from one device, giving them freedom to feel at home away from home. This synchronicity with a circadian rhythm helps guests combat the disruption from routine that travel often brings, using light to help them find comfort and relaxation.
concrete’s Project Architect Maarten de Geus said: “With CitizenM, we always try to create a home away from home: a living room feel filled with art, books and colourful surprises to elevate and inspire our guests.”
Tower of London is a perfect example of this in its use of decorative lighting to create an atmosphere that allows guests to find their place of comfort away from all their comforts.
When Lighting Goes Al Fresco
The lighting of outdoor eating areas, bars and social areas needs careful thought. Lighting designer Mark Sutton Vane shares his expertise in exterior lighting and tells darc, how the right decorative lighting product can add to that all-important ambience.
“Illuminating a building’s exterior is an exciting challenge for lighting designers. The requirements are quite different to that of an interior scheme, as a building’s exterior is often high profile and on public display. It can be decorative or functional, and serve a multitude of purposes, often intended to present a message about the building or space, or about what happens inside the building itself.
With such a variety of reasons for deploying a full outdoor lighting scheme, the first decision to make in the planning stages of a scheme is whether it should be lit at all, and if so, why. It may tell the story of the building, or sell the brand of the owners. It may emphasise a new vision for the building, such as when a historic building has been given a new lease of life to be used for a modern activity. Often the lighting is used to simply express the beauty of the architectural structure itself, thereby demonstrating the power of lighting to depict the way a building is perceived.
The next consideration is whether these messages are best conveyed through decorative or architectural lighting. Decorative fittings can be placed on the outside of buildings to stand as glowing message in themselves. They may provide no illumination to the building or the surroundings, but the glow of the illuminated fitting is the message. An extreme example of this is the gas flares that some buildings feature on their external walls. These large, bare flames look exciting, they burn a lot of energy and have little effect in terms of actual illumination, but they attract attention with their movement and offer an air of sophistication.
Until the invention of bright electric lighting, the outsides of buildings were not lit. The only fixed exterior lighting on buildings was practical and was there to light entrances. Decorative fittings that aim to achieve a historic look are suited to this pattern and are most effective near entrances or archways. They should aim to match either the period of the building or, if that is not possible, they must fit in with the style and scale of the building. The selection of decorative fittings depends on the message or sentiment that the designer wants to project. Now with the smaller size of LED fittings, it’s easier to achieve more effective lighting from a decorative lamp without revealing the light source.
When lighting the outside of a building, hiding the source of this illumination can have a magical impact. If no fittings can be seen during the day, passers-by do not know there is a lighting scheme and it does not clutter the façade. In contrast, at night the building is lit as if by magic from the hidden lights.
The effect of this illumination on passers-by is also a fundamental consideration in lighting scheme design. A well-lit building can engender feelings of civic pride and reduce the fear of crime. By making the area brighter, it can encourage people to linger and enjoy the space, thereby boosting the evening economy.
Lighting the outside of a building can also add to the light levels of the surrounding areas, such as the Titanic building in Belfast, Northern Ireland, which stands as a tall beacon for the city covered in shiny metal with outward tilting façades. When Sutton Vane Associates designed the exterior lighting, the building had to be bright to stand out to sell its nautical shape, branding and unique metallic finish. Bright yet discrete lighting was designed that reflected off the building to light the surrounding area. This eliminated the need for lamp posts or columns to light the surrounding area so the views of the building were not cluttered.
A good exterior lighting scheme can also add to the value of the building, making it stand out as a point on the map. The building can become a beacon and a way finding point for people to use it to give directions, making it stand out from its neighbours.
In a multiple occupancy building the designer has to consider whether each occupier will have the same lighting scheme as viewed from the outside. The designer must remember that ceilings and the lighting in them, is what is seen from outside so they can decide whether they want the view to be uniform or not. Where uniformity is wanted - landlords have insisted that, for example, the lighting of the first two metres back from all windows must be of a certain type so that all lit windows look the same.
Similarly it usually makes commercial sense to leave shop window lights on all evening, after the shop has shut. It makes the street look more attractive and allows customers to window shop at night, encouraging them to come back to purchase something the next day. An easy solution is to put the lighting of the merchandise in the window on a different circuit from the rest of the shop and have a timer that keeps it on until around midnight.
The lighting of outdoor eating spaces, bars and social areas also needs careful thought. Unlike the indoor versions of these areas, where lighting will probably also be used for breakfast and lunch, the outdoor lighting schemes will only be used in the hours of darkness for evening dining, drinking and socialising. This means that the lighting will tend towards more atmospheric, less bright and possibly romantic moods.
As with all environments the lighting in outdoor spaces must also provide practical illumination as well. The bar staff must have adequate light to do their job, the bar should be well lit to advertise the bottles and diners must be able to read their menus. I recall eating at an outdoor restaurant in Lebanon where the dining experience was enhanced by battery powered lights clipped onto diners’ menus.
Glare is also a significant consideration for decorative lighting in an outdoor eating or bar area. In an outdoor environment, due to a lack of walls or ceilings to reflect light back and soften it, the lighting can easily have uncomfortable levels of glare and levels of contrast that are too high for comfort. In a traditional setting, exterior style lanterns can reinforce the atmosphere well, but can also create glare and don’t offer much illumination. It is often good lighting design practise to allow the decorative fixtures to be just that – decorative, glowing, good looking objects that give the right atmosphere - then use suitably shielded, hidden spot lights (dimmed down to the right mood) to provide the functional light.
We were commissioned to design the lighting for a very upmarket outdoor dining area, where the client wanted outdoor chandeliers, which needed to be waterproof, kept clean, protected from insects and so on. We were able to design safe low voltage chandeliers that could be easily detached and unplugged and were robust enough to be moved indoors at the end of every evening.
Compared to interior lighting, exterior lighting faces many more environmental challenges: driving rain, snow, frost, dust, birds, insects and vandals. A high Ingress Protection (IP) rating of say IP65 or higher is usual, and this must apply to not only the light fittings but to the whole electrical installation. While the lighting designer must consider all of this, albeit a daunting task, a well-lit exterior that expresses the heart of the space or the building is a pleasure for everyone to see and enjoy.”
Designing Emotions
Masters of the chandelier, Lolli e Memmoli will present their latest creation at this year’s Euroluce. Helen Fletcher gets to grips with the duo’s inspiration and how working with crystal is an art in itself.
For Italian architects Ivan Lolli and Mario Memmoli, light is space, colour, imagination and emotion. It is the sign of time passing by, a language of symbolic references and philosophical reflections on which the duo has laid the foundations for their personal vision of lighting design.
Since the early 90s, the duo have worked alongside their team of 20 at their ‘lighting laboratory’ in southern Milan to widen their collection of light sculptures, all defined by the ‘Made in Italy’ stamp of approval.
“We try to set ourselves apart by reinventing the classic chandelier design, hiding the heavy metal structure in order to convey the visual effect of an object made completely of crystals,” Ivan tells darc. “The materials gain an unusual light and a softer feeling through our individual manufacturing techniques.”
“During the first few years of our career we focussed our attention on the object itself,” adds Mario. “We started to develop our own designs while completing our studies at the Polytechnic of Milan. We wanted to revitalise the chandelier’s prestige. Over the years, a new trend brought the chandelier back into the limelight and in some of the most prestigious interior design projects it became a bit of a cult object; it was even considered an ‘essential’ element of a room in some cases.”
It was thanks to the keen eye of talent agent Teresa Ginori that Lolli e Memmoli’s stunning designs were first noticed; one of their blue crystal chandeliers had been installed as part of a renovation project in Milan. Curious to learn more about their work, Ginori offered the designers the opportunity to work on several more projects and together they developed an exclusive chandelier that would later feature in Moschino showrooms all over the world.
This was the catapult to further success for Lolli e Memmoli, going on to complete lighting projects around the world, including: the Plaza Hotel in New York; the Radisson Hotel in Dusseldorf; the showroom for well-known fashion brand Escada; as well as the famous jeweller Graff Diamonds, which chose their lamps to light up stores all over the world.
“We’ve also worked on the meeting rooms at Abu Dhabi Ministry of Environment and private houses of several American artists in Los Angeles and New York,” says Mario. “It is a rewarding feeling knowing that our creations are a part of some of the most prestigious interior designs in the world.
“Our most recent work in the contract market later became a source of inspiration for the creation of a product specifically designed for this market, which we introduced at Salone del Mobile 2016. It was an extremely large chandelier, designed for the new A.Roma Lifestyle Hotel in Rome. Its exceptional size forced us to design a modular system made of a thin crystal net. We designed it in such a way that it can be customised with endless combinations to fit even wider spaces.”
The ‘double curl’ technique is at the base of Lolli e Memmoli’s assembly process for their crystal pendants. An ancient union system of two pendants, made by two small curly spikes in order to create a moving link within the crystals, it is a system as old as the history of crystal pendants themselves. It requires manual skills and specific knowledge that lends a lightness to the object that can’t be reached with industrialised systems.
“With crystal we invented a new assembly system using the material as if it were a textile,” says Ivan. “sometimes elastic, sometimes as a dropping drapery, or woven in order to create a weft and a warp.”
It is difficult to think of another material so suited to light. Crystal pendants are born with the aim of gathering the light and reflecting it in a spectacular way. “The story of crystals is one that is five centuries old and has been passed down to us in the form of heritage techniques and materials,” continues Ivan.
“When realising a new model we make use of our artisan experience in order to better emphasise all of the material’s characteristics,” says Mario. “All parts of the product, from the electrical system and the suspension, to the crystal and metal structure, is manually assembled in our lab, following our own guidelines for every model. The finishing process is made with personalised aesthetic criteria, which makes every lamp different. Every single product has its own identifying mark, reproduced on a hologram and recorded in our personal archive.”
Commenting on design trends within the lighting industry and how this shapes their work, Ivan tells darc: “Lighting design has changed dramatically over the years. In the ‘90s, the main light source in a room was being overlooked and interior designers were opting for spot lighting, with the addition of floor and table lamps. The source of light wasn’t even being taken into consideration. Today, pendant lighting has become an essential decorative object filling the empty space of minimalistic interior designs. Trends will change again though as lighting design looks to blend memory and technological innovation.”
And, with a shared passion for travel, particularly to the Far East, Ivan and Mario draw inspiration for their designs from all around. “We are the kind of travellers who will stop in a place and delve deep into its culture and habits of its population,” Mario says. “The Far East has become our second home with Bangkok the city we know best, we’ve also been visiting the Strait of Malacca a lot recently. The contrast between eastern and western culture inspires new projects in us. Sometimes, it’s the west creating a new eastern aesthetic and sometimes it is the other way around.”
At this year’s Euroluce, Lolli e Memmoli will once again be back in the spotlight with their latest pendant lamp U-Line. A unique project, extraordinary and consistent, that came to life thanks to the company’s creative approach of turning light into a sensory experience, it is a masterpiece featuring the highest quality manufacturing. Drawn from traditional artistic chandeliers, reinvented and stylised to reflect the enchanting light of gleaming crystal drops, U-Line is a horizontal line floating lightly in space. Crystal drops are freed in random harmony from a dense wire mesh covering the source of light yet revealing, as if by magic, the extraordinary play of light multiplied by a myriad of sparkles within the crystal’s clearness.
Available in different lengths and colours the chandelier can be combined in pairs or in compositions of different elements to illuminate large areas, while still conveying its sculptural force. The careful selection of crystals, the uniqueness of each design and the skills of master craftsmen reveal the unparalleled value of the ‘Made in Italy’ stamp.
With one eye on tradition and the other on the future, the work of Lolli e Memmoli offers a new, erudite interpretation of the past, transforming it without destroying its original character.
The Art of Motion
Nebula is a range of kinetic lighting sculptures from British artist Ivan Black. Helen Fletcher takes a closer look at the man behind the design and why the tranquil Welsh countryside has a lot to answer for.
INK is a new British design studio bringing together art, design and technology to create interactive kinetic lights. Launching with its Nebula range, consisting of the Orb, Ellipse and Ellipsoid, conceived to work in concert or individually, the lights are evocative of distant celestial bodies and in their spiralling motion reminiscent of the DNA helix.
Designed by renowned kinetic artist and INK co-founder Ivan Black, the Nebula lights have evolved from the mathematically inspired sculptures that Black has been creating over the last two decades. These are at the forefront of the ‘connected home’ movement – their patterns of rotation and luminosity controllable through a proprietary iOS app and integrated motor system.
But what of the man behind the design - what does he hope for in his latest collection and where does his story begin?
Born in London in 1972, Black has always been surrounded by artistry and creativity, with his mother also an artist and his father a dealer in Persian carpets. Surrounded by beautiful antiques, his creative flair surfaced at an early age and Black made his first sculpture at around the age of fifteen; going on to hold his first exhibition at the tender age of seventeen in a café in Portobello.
Speaking with darc ahead of the official Nebula launch in London, Black reflects on this time in his life: “I sold a bunch of stuff and one of my friends told me it was beginner’s luck! It sounds a bit cruel but I think he was just trying to build up a bit of grounding in me because the art world is a hard one to make any headway in… But it was all I wanted to do. I was making more and more sculptures at school and went on to do a foundation course at Middlesex Polytechnic, one of the best foundation courses in the country at the time. I didn’t have any other interests that gave me as much pleasure as art did, it’s as if it’s inbuilt in me and I was determined that art would be a career and not just a hobby.”
While Black describes his time doing the foundation course as a “fantastic experience”, meeting some great people and learning a lot, he tells darc how he wasn’t quite as well suited to the educational system as most: “I was always arguing with the teachers and was very idiosyncratic – always wanting to do my own thing and that wasn’t always the popular choice with others! During the course I felt as though I was being pushed towards the business side of art and being more conceptual - having to justify everything that I was doing and working within acceptable parameters. I just wanted to do work I felt like doing at the time and didn’t want to be constricted.”
Having made the decision to travel around India and Thailand rather than head to university following his foundation course, this was an opportunity for Black to build on his artistic skills: “It was an incredibly informative experience,” he says. “There were no mobile phones or internet in those days and it really was like going to another planet! Whenever we found ourselves among people who were making things we would always get involved - we did some stone carving in India in fact.”
An inherent problem solver, who confesses to picking up new skills rather easily, Black continued to amass multi disciplinary skills on his return to the UK, working with his father, David Black, restoring Persian rugs. “It is a very exacting and difficult trade but I found it fascinating,” he says. “It’s back breaking work hunched over a carpet all day long and when I look back at my time doing this now, I can kind of see my initiation and fascination with craft and repetition.
“You look back on your past and you see these moments where you perhaps had formative experiences… working with Persian rugs was definitely one of them.”
Black continued to work hard at building his skill set, completing an apprenticeship as a carpenter - a job he held for eight years, before meeting his wife and making the life changing decision to move away from the chaos of London and head to the serene surroundings of the Welsh countryside.
Once in Wales, liberated from the need to work - thanks to a very successful ‘final exhibition’ held in London - Black found himself in one of the most creative periods of his life, and for three months the ideas spilled out, he was making something new almost every day.
“I’d go to bed with an idea and wake up the next day to make it,” he says. This, is where the story of Nebula begins...
Motion had by this time, become central to Black’s work, adding another layer of complexity and interest to his experiments. Using his unique methodology to create forms that mutate upon the introduction of energy, the repetition of identical elements is a recurrent theme in Black’s work and as such, he builds complex fluid structures. Each work is a section of a potentially continuous sequence, generated in form by the application of systematic rules to his geometry.
“I’d always been interested in making mobiles,” Black tells darc. “There are very few dominant figures in the world of mobiles and their work is endlessly copied and recycled. Every time I see another Alexander Calder knock off I feel it’s a shame people aren’t driven to try and find their own angle.
“I loved making mobiles but I’d only ever made small numbers of them; it’s difficult to get away from Calder’s legacy, he’s really cornered the market and while I was developing my ideas it felt as though there was almost nothing he hadn’t done. It was difficult – even if you think you’re coming up with an original, you then end up seeing something that he’s done that is similar.”
However, Black managed just that when he started exploring the spiralling patterns, which have become a hallmark of much of his work.
“It was one of those things – I thought to myself, it’s so simple it can’t be original - someone else must have thought of this because there’s nothing to it…But at the same time, it was so interesting and was creating something amazing.”
Black thus spent several years developing and evolving his signature style, with his work being bought by collectors and public bodies around the world. It was the realisation that the introduction of light would add another dimension to his work, but also create sculptures that were as functional as they were beautiful, that led to the creation of the Nebula range.
“It’s the spine of the sculptures and its interaction with the forces of inertia, gravity and momentum that is the key to the changes in shape. A chain of connected, off-set vertebrae rotate in series and deliver the transformation between the sculptures’ spiralling patterns and its celestial static form.
“But it is the light that enhances and accentuates the aspect of the sculpture that I find most interesting, which is the movement and alignment of the parts. With the addition of lighting, the structures disappear and all you see is spirals of light. In the dark it creates a continuous line - a trail of beads almost.”
Whilst the addition of light had originally been an experiment it soon became clear that it would open up many more possibilities. “Not every room needs a sculpture but every room needs light,” says Black. “Why not make that light a work of art? I realised no-one else in the world of lighting was exploring movement in a major way, so I concluded I was on to something unique.
“It was initially a real learning curve working with light, but I was fortunate to have some fantastic craftsmen and engineers to support me through the process. I always want to make sure the skills we have in Pembrokeshire are put to good use. This is at the heart of how I want to work.”
Interaction with the light sculptures is also a major part of their appeal for Black and being able to directly control the movement of the lights creates much greater engagement. They are not distant and untouchable like a museum piece, you can manipulate and play with their form - thus getting a much more connected experience.
As such, Black initially developed a smartphone app to enable the speed, pattern and direction of rotation to be played with, but has since taken this a step further, introducing a gesture-control system that allows the movement of the sculpture to be dictated by hand or arm movements - you can literally conduct the light with your body. This all serves to create an experience, not just a piece to look at or illuminate a room.
Talking inspiration and influences, Black sees his work as more of a progression and conversation with himself, always looking to see where he can take his sculptures next. “If you look at my work chronologically you can see it evolving into different areas. I was quite deliberate about developing my own style. I decided to concentrate on kinetic work because I wanted it to be very much my own, I wanted to create an identity for the work I was doing – I wanted something recognisable.”
“There are other kinetic artists out there that I admire but rather than be inspired by them, I’ve always seen their work as directions I can’t go with my own... it’s almost like an anti-inspiration in some ways, it can be very frustrating at times!”
For INK, Nebula is just the beginning and there are already plans to reinterpret many of Black’s existing designs with the addition of light. Now at the beginning of a commercial journey with the three Nebula designs, looking ahead, Black is interested to see where the sculptures will naturally fit and what opportunities might lie ahead: “I can see the lights working in lots of different environments – they’re very classical and simple and I can’t see them clashing with much. I’ve seen them in modern settings and more elaborate settings and the juxtaposition works rather well.
I think we’ve found a niche in the market, that’s for sure.”
Plastic Fantastic
Inspired by ancient obelisks, the sculptural Menhir collection by jewellery designers Boris de Beijer and Benedikt Fischer turns light into precious works of art, as Maria Elena Oberti discovers.
I think it’s safe to say that, when it comes to the world of interiors and design, lighting is our crown jewel. Lights do more than just illuminate, they supply that special touch, the sparkle that makes a room truly outshine the rest. Evidently, we’re not the only ones to think so. For Dutch-Austrian team Boris de De Beijer and Benedikt Fischer, both graduates of Amsterdam’s Rietveld School of Art & Design, jewellery and lighting design go hand in hand. With studios in Amsterdam and Haarlem, the young designers met during their studies at the academy, where they each earned degrees in jewellery design. The shift from jewellery to lighting came gradually, and, as I come to learn, somewhat by chance. I climbed aboard the SS Rotterdam earlier this January to meet the duo at the Object Rotterdam fair, where their aptly titled Menhir collection of decorative floor lamps was on show. Following a dazzling tour of the lights on display, we make our way to the ship’s luxurious Captain Lounge, where we get to talking about beginnings, lighting design, materials and much more.
“I guess it all started when I was fourteen, with jewellery,” says the softly-spoken Fischer. After attending a technical school for youths in his native country Austria, Fischer started his first job working for a high-end jeweller in Vienna.
“It was the kind of place where you had to ring a bell to get in,” he recalls. “It was very different to the sort of thing I do now. After a while,though, I felt the need to do something a bit different, so I looked at schools that offered a more artistic approach to jewellery design.”
After deliberating between schools in Germany and The Netherlands, he settled on Amsterdam’s Rietveld School of Art & Design.
“I was familiar with the work that was coming out of the school and always really liked the kind of materials they used and their conceptual approach to design,” Fischer tells me.
“I didn’t know what to do for a really long time” confesses De Beijer. After a few years of soul searching, he too eventually ‘found’ himself in art school, and like Fischer, at the Rietveld School of Art & Design in Amsterdam.
“I ended up taking this one-year orientation program at the academy, and it was during that period that I discovered jewellery design” De Beijer says. “The decision to study art was in part inspired by my father, who is himself an artist. He’s always been really into materials and techniques, so I grew familiar to this way of working.”
After a year of studying the ins and outs of the art world, the time eventually came to select a specialisation. “The jewellery course was really in line with what I saw my dad doing at his studio. It was far more technical than the other courses they had on offer, and it was also really free in that you could choose how far to delve into things. It felt like a perfect fit, so I signed up!”
The decision to study jewellery design eventually led De Beijer to another defining discovery, one that would ultimately serve as the foundation for the sculptural Menhir series. “At some point, almost by accident, I started experimenting with plastic and resin,” he says. “It was for a school project that didn’t go so well at first. Even still, I really liked what you could do with the material, so I kept experimenting with it and applying it to my work.”
After graduating from the academy in 2011, the young designers – both in their early thirties – went their separate ways. De Beijer remained in Holland, whereas Fischer moved to neighbouring Germany. Even when apart, the two friends remained extremely close. “I always admired Benedikt’s work,” says De Beijer. “We’ve always had a dialogue going. Even before working together, we were constantly sharing and discussing our projects and ideas. We thought about working together for a long time, but somehow never quite came around to it.”
“We were just waiting for the right moment,” adds Fischer. That moment finally came in 2015 in the form of a conversation. “It was actually Benedikt’s idea to make a light,” De Beijer says. “I’d been working on a material, similar to the one we used for this project, for a really long time, and Benedikt knew all about it. At the time, the sculptures I was making were much smaller in scale. I would occasionally hold them up against the light and see this colourful effect, what you see now with the lights, but hadn’t really thought too much about it. One day Benedikt came to me and asked ‘Why don’t you put a light behind it? I was like, yeah, that makes a lot of sense!”
They both laugh... “So, we decided to try it out,” he adds. By that point, Fischer had already made his return to The Netherlands, and was working on some of his own personal projects, most of which were still in jewellery.
“I’d say our roles were really equal thoughout the qhole process,” says Fischer. “Of course we each have our skills, but from a design and decision-making perspective, we were making them together.
“Benedikt was better at things like making the scale models and taking care of the finer details,” adds De De Beijer. “Where as I was better at handling the power tools. He goes on to underscore the way in which the collaboration both expanded and enriched his work. “I went from working on a really small scale to taking a more applied approach,” he says, referring to his earlier sculptures. “We started making more conscious decisions about things, like what colours to mix, as well as what materials were used and where to put them. Everything you see in the lights is an object that we designed and made ourselves.
“In most cases, we actually had to make individual moulds for them. One of the earlier lights, for example, was supposed to resemble a kind of tundra. It sounds a bit tacky, now that I say it aloud, but the basic idea was to create a sort of frozen landscape, with the colours and kind of rocks you might find in nature. We collected 20 stones and made moulds from them and then casted the stones in resin. It suddenly all became a very conscious choice, how we made and put the lamps together.”
The move from jewellery to lighting design proved to be a fluid, if not intuitive, experience. “There are a lot of similarities between the two,” says Fischer. “In that they’re both applied. You make them for a specific reason, be it for a body or a home.There are specific guidelines and practical elements that require you to master certain techniques, which is the same with jewellery design.”
“Our technical background in jewellery design taught us to be very precise” adds De Beijer. “We spent days perfecting the lamps, trying to get things just right. I think that’s a trick you inherit from jewellery design.”
Inspired by the monoliths and obelisks that enchant people worldwide, the Menhir luminaries have a monumental, almost mystical quality to them. When seen in concert, the effect is like that of stepping into an ancient temple, only that instead of marble or stone, the monuments are built on colour and light.
“These monolithic structures have a really strong presence,” says De Beijer. “They don’t serve a particular purpose per se, except to impress. We wanted to create that same effect with the lights.”
Clearly adding to each lamp’s allure is its soft, ethereal glow. Concealed in each is a fluorescent tube, chosen for its gentle homogeneous light. “We weren’t so technical in the beginning about the solutions for the light itself, so the fluorescent light made sense,” continues De Beijer. “Ultimately, though, it depends on what people want. It could be that someone wants it to be dimmable, for example. For now at least, the lights are more sculptural than functional.”
As I soon learn, a tremendous amount of work goes into sculpting each lamp. Though careful not to reveal too much, the duo agrees to shed a light on their process with a few basic steps: “It’s all about timing,” adds De Beijer. “The raw material is liquid; it comes in two cans, one of which you add colour to. Once you mix the two components together, they get really hot, and then there’s this one magical moment, when the two liquids collide and become solid.”
Once set, the resin blocks still need to be cut, filled and polished. The polishing itself can take an entire day. “It doesn’t look like anything much at first,” he continues. “You have this big, massive block. It’s almost boring to look at; it’s only when you start cutting it open that you see what’s inside.” “It’s a great moment,” adds Fischer. “It’s almost like cracking open a rock and finding a fossil.” “The process took us approximately a month to get right,” says De Beijer.
“We’re getting a bit faster now, but we had to figure out a lot in the beginning, especially the more technical parts,” adds Fischer. One of the biggest challenges for the pair was finding someone to take on the laborious task of cutting the solid resin blocks into workable pieces, something they couldn’t do themselves.
“Nobody wanted to help us at first because it’s quite a specific task, and it’s also pretty bad for the saw blazes,” says De Beijer. Yet with time, and a bit of persistence, they found someone in Amsterdam with the right skills and tools for the job.
“It’s all about knowing the resin material,” he continues. “The fumes are pretty toxic though, so it’s not something you want to do everyday.”
It’s almost impossible to talk plastic without talking sustainability. Could there be a new purpose for my plastic refuse? I ask. “We used plastic trash for one of our earlier models,” De Beijer tells me, adding that they used rubbish - stuff they had lying around - out of convenience more than for recycling purposes. “It would be nice, of course, but recycling isn’t really our goal” he continues. “It’s not that we wouldn’t want to, it’s just that it’s not always possible, especially when you take a more curated approach to the design” adds Fischer. “There are a lot of different types of plastics, and they don’t always react well together. That said, we’re definitely looking at ways to develop things further. I could see us making it into a larger collection. It’s a very versatile material, so there are a lot of different directions we could go in.”
When it comes to planning for the future, each is excited by the prospect of diving deeper into unknown. “Where do I see myself in the future? I’d like to be rich and famous, that’s for sure” says De Beijer. We all laugh... He takes a sip of coffee and resumes to answer the question, this time in a more serious tone: “I’d really like to maintain my current level of freedom, and keep maneuvering between different disciplines. I like the idea of not belonging to just one. That said, sometimes it can be a bit problematic because, for example, galleries might not know where to place you or understand where you stand.”
Fischer sees no problem in that. “I’m definitely open to new adventures,” he says. “I think it’s very human, to have these different dimensions. In terms of our work together, though, we don’t have any specific plans in the pipeline, but we’d certainly like to keep collaborating. We have a lot of ideas in mind that we’d love to bring into fruition.”
www.cargocollective.com/benediktfischer
