Verpan celebrates 50th anniversary
(Denmark) - Verpan hosts exclusive press trip for international journalists.
On 10 October, Verpan invited design journalists from Europe, America and Australia to visit its headquarters in Billund, Denmark, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of two of its most iconic Panton lighting products and the launch of a new one.
The VP Globe and Sprial pendant were both designed in 1969
by Danish Designer Verner Panton. “Only a few designs can stand the test of
time and become true icons. In a close partnership with the Panton estate, we
have reintroduced the two iconic pendants, which never cease to impress,” commented
Verpan CEO Peter Frandsen.
The VP Globe is one of the most iconic pieces of the Panton
catalogue. Its transparent acrylic outer sphere encases five internal
reflectors suspended by three steel chains. Patches of red and blue add to the
finishing touch of the futuristic orb design.
The Spiral lamp is a staple piece in the Panton collection
and is a great example of experimental colours and shapes Panton would explore,
along with how it interacts in its surroundings through sound and movement. The
pendant is comprised of a series of chrome-dipped acrylic spirals hung at
varying lengths, creating a statement piece.
During the event, darc magazine was invited to view
the Verpan HQ design house that it shares with brands Frandsen Retail and
Frandsen Project. The extensive tour, led by Peter Frandsen, covered the Verpan
showroom, manufacturing warehouse and the Frandsen Retail and Project
showrooms. Journalists were given a detailed account of the Verner Panton design
history, exclusives on new product releases and a presentation from the Frandsen
Retail and Project.
At the end of the tour, the group were introduced to the
newest addition to the lighting collection, the Sixty. The Sixty, originally
designed in 1985, is a pendant and wall lamp and was originally developed for
Royal Copenhagen but was first produced by Yamagiwa of Japan. Sixty consists of
a disc-shaped shade finished with a brushed antique brass surface and a smaller
reflector places below it to hide the light source. The hemispheric reflector
is made from opal glass and gives off a soft yet generous light. The Sixty will
be officially introduced in 2020.
To conclude the trip, journalists were welcomed to the Verna
Mansion for a dinner and presentation by Frandsen, detailing the historic
building that was once flamboyantly designed by Panton in the 1960s, but now
has a more classic scheme, lit with the more modest Moon and Pantop Table
lamps.
Verpan is a licensed manufacturer of designs by Danish architect and designer, Verner Panton. Working in close collaboration with the Panton estate – today managed by widow Marianne Panton – Verpan has the production and sales rights to a significant part of late Panton’s back catalogue of designs.
SBID 2019 winners announced
(UK) - The winners of the SBID International Design Awards 2019 revealed at Grosvenor House London, Mayfair.
With more entries than ever before, this year’s awards have been one of the most globally represented editions to date, with industry talent from over 48 countries across the globe.
The competition this year was as inspiring as ever, with winning projects from the UKi, Switzerland, Qatar, Poland, Barbados, Monaco, Japan, Indonesia, Brazil, Australia and more.
Click here to see the full list of winners.
Now in its ninth year, the SBID Awards are regarded as one of the most prestigious accolades for interior design. The SBID Awards were recently accredited as the first interior design awards scheme to achieve GOLD standard by The Independent Awards Standards Council and were commended as “exemplar in how awards should be operated”.
As a proudly independent contest, the SBID awards are driven purely by a desire to recognise talent and creativity, with every entry fairly and equally considered. The annual event continues to reward and celebrate outstanding projects and products from the industry at large.
The Overall Winner Award, is presented to the project that received the highest score after both tiers of judges choices, the public votes and SBID have considered the entries. This year the overall award was given to Mexican-based practice Roth Architects for its Uh May Residence in Mexico.
SBID Founder and CEO, Dr Vanessa Brady OBE said: “Each year the SBID International Design Awards continue to grow from strength to strength. With a sell-out ceremony and more countries represented this year than any other, it truly is held as the premier interior design awards by the global industry and SBID is proud to present it each year. This year’s Overall Winner demonstrates the seriousness in which the design industry at large is taking in the environmental conservation and project procurement.”
For more information, visit www.sbidawards.com
What does bespoke lighting mean to you?
When people
think about bespoke lighting, they will have their own ideas on what that
means. For some it’s about standout chandeliers for hotel receptions or luxury
homes’ hallways. Often it will be about taking inspiration from the site and sometimes
there is a need to reflect the brand or owner’s personality.
Looking at a small selection of Dernier & Hamlyn’s recent commissions demonstrates the amazing creativity and imagination of the designers who come to the brand with their lighting challenges and how its team responds to them.
Take The Langley hotel; the statement reception chandelier’s 221 solid brass curved arms are hand finished in antique brass. Each is fitted with a handmade glass spear hand cut to form facets to either side to provide playful reference to the hotel’s setting as a former royal hunting ground.
The new Bob Bob Cité restaurant brings the traditional French brasserie into the 21st century and demanded ultra-high-quality bespoke lighting to underline its brand. More than 400 light fittings were manufactured and hand polished in Dernier & Hamlyn's factory using luxury finished metals complemented by a variety of handpicked glass panels. The brand's craftsmen also made decorative gantries with stainless steel tubing some 420m long and weighing in excess of half a tonne.
Bespoke doesn’t necessarily mean new it can mean remodelled or reinvigorated. As well as manufacturing new lighting, the studio often works with designers or clients to include items that have been sourced or hold memories for them. As part of a recent project for a beautiful residence that included a dramatic 69 arm pendant that extends almost 3.5-metres from the sloping ceiling at the top of the property to its entrance hall, the clients wanted vases converted to table lamps.
Fine Art Lamps Returns to Dallas Market Center
(USA) - Artistic lighting and innovative studio glass company to debut showroom at January Lightovation.
Fine Art Lamps returns to Dallas Market Center as Fine Art Handcrafted Lighting with a new showroom located in Trade Mart 4705. The company, which recently announced a brand refresh, will hold a grand opening during the January edition of Lightovation, January 8-12, 2020.
“This is a great time for Fine Art,” said Rene Quintana, Principal. “We are launching a complete brand refresh, have introduced some of the best product designs ever, and are thrilled to return to Dallas to serve new and loyal customers. Our new showroom will present an impressive collection of products across all categories, and will serve as a destination for buyers seeking exquisite handcrafted lighting. We feel strongly that the market for original designs made in America is better than ever, and Dallas is an essential marketplace, where we can showcase our unique capabilities and present handcrafted lighting that truly is fine art.”
Visit the Lightovation page of the Dallas Market Center website for more information about the show, including registration, and hotel and travel assistance. Note that for January a new, earlier date pattern for Lightovation will mean a head start on business for the new year: Lightovation will take place January 8-12, 2020.
Buzzishade XL & XXL - Buzzispace
(Germany) - BuzziSpace has introduced two larger-than-life acoustic lighting launches - BuzziShade XL and BuzziShade XXL.
Featuring the same craftsmanship and lacing as the brand's original BuzziShade pendant, both BuzziShade XL and XXL have been updated with plus-sized forms, making them ideal statement pieces for lobbies and reception areas while also providing ambient light and acoustic control.
Due to their large surface areas and concave shape, BuzziShade XL-XXL efficiently trap sound waves as they travel upwards, preventing them from bouncing and creating reverberation. Paired with the pendants’ BuzziFelt-upholstered bodies, BuzziSpace’s signature acoustic felt made of 100% upcycled plastic bottle waste, BuzziShade XL-XXL effectively combat mid and high-tones alike through the principles of diffusion and absorption, reducing external noise levels to a minimum for improved wellbeing and productivity in any communal setting.
www.buzzi.space
Flos appoints new design curators
(Italy) - Milanese architectural duo Fabio Calvi and Paolo Brambilla join Italian lighting brand.
This decision came as part of the company’s strategic reorganisation and development programme, drawn up and put in place by Roberta Silva, just a few months after she joined Flos as Chief Executive Officer.
The intention is to work comprehensively on product development, with the purpose of strengthening product range. This role will guarantee continuity with the past in terms of attention to the creative stage behind the idea, while at the same time ensuring a better structure.
Fabio Calvi and Paolo Brambilla, together, have a total of 20 years of collaboration with Flos, from the design of countless special installations for corporate events and new product launches, the planning of highly prestigious stands and display architecture, including Soft Wall, to recent refurbishment of the historic Milanese Flos flagship store in Corso Monforte.
This experience has afforded them an awareness of the brand’s philosophy and collections, hands-on experience with its evolution and a chance to get inside the relationship Flos enjoys with the creative talents on the international design scene.
Fabio Calvi and Paolo Brambilla commented: “Flos is a brand that has always turned trailblazing and design innovation into an element of differentiation and uniqueness. We are honoured by the confidence Roberta has shown in us and we are ready to step up to the plate in this exciting challenge. We like to imagine Flos as an art gallery and us as its curators, where the works of art are represented by poetical creations of light and the artists by the great designers who conceived them.”
Cloudesley Chandelier - CTO Lighting
CTO Lighting has announced the Cloudesley Chandelier. Reflecting on an era of grandiosity, the repetitive elliptical glass forms are arranged, in three different sizes, to suit any interior.
Experimenting with elliptic cloud-like forms of acid-etched glass shades, this has resulted in a curved statement piece, and where texture and light bring a modern approach to a classic arrangement.
Ingo Maurer dies age 87
(Germany) - On October 21, 2019, lighting icon Ingo Maurer passed away in Munich, Germany, surrounded by his family.
The luminaires and light objects of Maurer, who was born in 1932, are regarded as pioneering in design. Among his most famous designs are his first work ‘Bulb’ (1966), the low voltage halogen system ‘YaYaHo’ (1984, Ingo Maurer and Team), the winged light bulb ‘Lucellino’ (1992), the pendant lamp ‘Zettel’z’ (1997), ‘One From The Heart’ (1989) and ‘Porca Miseria!’ (1994).
His designs can be found in the collections of the world’s most important museums, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and at the time of printing, an exhibition was being prepared at the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, which will provide new insights into his work.
Maurer has received numerous prestigious awards, including the Design Prize of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Compasso d’Oro for his life’s work.
Always a pioneer in the development and use of the latest lighting innovations: as a great admirer of the light bulb, which he described as the “ideal symbiosis of poetry and technology”, he used low-voltage halogen systems in the 1980s. He went on to produce the first LED desk lamp in 2001, switching to OLED technology in 2006. Up to the present day, the potential offered by LED technology has always been demanded by Maurer, used in a versatile and creative way to achieve the best possible lighting effect.
His open mind led him abroad at an early age. Born on the island of Reichenau on Lake Constance, he went to the US in 1960 after completing an apprenticeship as a typesetter and studying commercial graphics. Until 1963 he worked there as a freelance graphic artist. Following his return to Munich, he travelled extensively in Japan, Brazil and other countries, as well as numerous trips to the US, where he eventually settled for a time - living in New York for over 40 years.
Since the 60s, Maurer had a very special relationship with the pulsating metropolis: “At home? Home is a place where I feel comfortable and inspired. That can be in New York, Paris, Tokyo, Sao Paulo or Munich,” he gladly emphasised. “I am at home when I am with good friends. I need provocation. That gives me the strength to be creative.”
Together with his long-standing colleagues, he developed iconic lamps at the interface between utility and art objects in the 'Designerei' in Munich-Schwabing. The special mixture of poetry and technology, pointed with an ironic twinkle in the eye, is a characteristic that epitomises Maurer’s design.
Development processes are playful, unconventional, always in search of an extraordinary solution. The smallest details are thought through and discussed on the model. The result is to find a special solution that captivates with its lightness and touches the human being like a spontaneous sketch. It is not uncommon for users to be involved right from the design stage and, as in 'Zettel’z' (1997), invited to help design the luminaire.
“First, the idea of an object arises in my head -like a dream. Only in the next step I search together with my team for ways to realise this. Sometimes it takes decades until the technical developments make our imagination possible,” he described the creative process.
In order to realise this vision uncompromisingly, Maurer decided as early as 1966 to manufacture his own products so that small series could also be produced. Even today, all luminaires are manufactured in Munich, Germany.
Maurer set international standards with design commissions in both the private and public sectors. The lighting of the underground stations 'Westfriedhof (1998) and Münchner Freiheit (2009) in Munich, as well as the pendulum 'Flying to Peace' for Messe Frankfurt (2018), are just a few highlights of a long list of commissioned works. In 2018 he completed one of his most multifaceted projects - an overall concept for the Tsinandali Winery in Georgia, USA. More recently, the Residenztheater in Munich has been shining in a new light, with the iconic work of 'Silver Cloud'.
The team at [d]arc media, passes its condolences to the family and employees of Ingo Maurer, who bid farewell to a special person that has inspired, challenged and surprised everyone time and again.
Ingo Maurer wrote over 50 years of light history and will always remain a lighting icon.
Angels -Le Klint
(Denmark) - Le Klint has introduced a number of brand new designs for its Seasonal Folds collection this year.
'Angels' are the creation of designer Tine Mouritsen who has a great love and passion for Christmas. These new designs are contributors to The Love & Light Project, where a percentage of the profits goes to charity.
Mouritsen found a way for the Pleating technicians to re-shape Le Klint's high quality materials while retaining the traditional techniques to create a clean and simple design.
They are masculine and feminine angels in memory of the designer's parents, Mouritsen wanted the design concept to remind us all of the obvious symbolisms of the festive season - love compassion and just doing good.
The Angels are supplied with lamp fixtures, light source and light oak atop two types of pleating designs in three sizes. The designs are handmade in the same principles used for Le Klint lampshades and in the same high quality materials.
Mouritsen graduated from the Danish Royal Academy of Fine Arts' School of Architecture in 2000. Since 2003 she has worked as a freelance architect, and also as a furniture and interior designer.
Apart from Le Klint her customers include Grid Montana, Luceplan, Copenhagen City and Port Development, Erik Jørgensen and Fona.
Masquespacio designs Piur’s first restaurant in Valencia
(Spain) The design company has completed another restaurant design in Valencia
Masquespacio has completed another restaurant project for Piur, a Valencian pizza chain. The concept began by paying homage to its core values and a focus on the family, as well as an emphasis on its Valencian origins. The design pays tribute to various signficant pieces of architecture by Valencia, with references to the central market square, with a wide variety of lighting to create personalised corners in the restaurants.
David Trubridge wins big
(New Zealand) - Designers Institute of New Zealand announces its 2019 winners.
The Best Design Awards is an annual showcase of excellence in graphic, spatial, product, interactive and motion design along with four boutique awards.
The National Graphic Design Awards were established in the mid 70s to celebrate New Zealand’s best graphic design. Attracting 300 entries, the awards exhibited 130 works as part of a touring exhibition and lecture series.
In 1988 the name was changed to the New Zealand Best Design Awards and enabled a growing community to benefit from the experience of a jury of international peers.
In 1992 the awards were expanded to include Spatial and Product design and by 1998 the Best Design Awards became an annual awards programme.
In 2010, Interactive was established as a distinct discipline. The Ngā Aho Award and Best Effect Award were added in 2012 and Public Good along with Moving Image in 2015. In 2017 the User Experience Award was introduced.
The Gold Pin is coveted under each category as best in category, but its the very best piece of design in each discipline that is given the supreme Purple Pin and held up as work that raises the bar of New Zealand design.
Lighting brand David Trubridge has been awarded the following for 2019:
Maru Light: Gold
Baskets of Light: Bronze
Kina Ottoman: Silver
Steens Honey Packaging: Silver, Gold, Gold
Spokes III - Foscarini
A conceptual and utilitarian design by Garcia Cumini, Spokes's silhouette evokes that of a birdcage or a lantern. With a discreet LED lighting source positioned at the bottom of the lamp, its spoke-like rods project kaleidoscopic shadows to surrounding areas when lit up.
The lighting design has been reinvented with an oblong version to extend its range of applications. Available in three colourways -- copper, graphite, and silver -- Spokes III can be hung alone or grouped with existing Spokes shapes to provide useless interior possibilities.
