Lights We Love: The Sentry
Metalarte's Sentry pendant, available at LightForm
Why we love it: designed by Canadians Paul & Christopher Massie. The Sentry is an incredibly versatile pendant with a simple architectural form. Comes in matte finish, white or black. Starting at $296. Email us for more details.
Metalarte & LightForm: Nourishing the Soul
Left: Metalarte’s Triana available at LightForm, Right: Metalarte’s Oslo available at LightForm
Metalarte is one of the newest additions to LightForm’s portfolio of lines, coming to us from the Land of Lovers-Spain. Since its beginnings in 1932, Metalarte has been creating award-winning designs year after year, many of them borne from the creative powers of internationally renowned Jaime Hayon, who designs lighting exclusively for Metalarte.
Metalarte is a welcome addition to LightForm primarily because the people behind Metalarte posses an outlook on life very much like our own. Metalarte’s current creative director, the quiet and effortlessly suave Roman Riera, passionately launches new projects with the belief that a business is more than just a balance sheet-a belief shared by LightForm founder, Richard Assaly. “The first time I met Roman,” recalls Assaly, “he invited me to Spain to witness first-hand the creation of their fixtures. “After four days living the Metalarte way of life-scotch, delicious meals, and beautiful design-I was convinced that Metalarte, much like LightForm, stood for a way of living that values, above all else, how simple beauty nourishes the soul.”
For the first time in history, interior designers, architects, and contractors in Canada can now access this versatile decorative line: our Canadian warehouse is fully stocked and ready to ship. Stop by our showrooms to see new Metalarte fixtures in person.
Better yet, request the new
Metalarte catalogue.
Free.
“Castor is French for Beaver”
Left: LightForm guests listen as Richer and Ng talk about their collection, Right: Castor’s Tank Lights (left) and Tube Light (right) on display in LightForm’s Vancouver showroom. (Photos: Heather Merenda)
Canadian designer Brian Richer grins mischievously whenever he says it (which happens to be quite often). Richer and partner, Kei Ng, the duo otherwise known as Castor Design, was in Vancouver recently to launch their lighting collection with LightForm. The event, held in the LightForm Vancouver showroom, treated those in attendance to a private viewing of the collection and some face time with the understated designers.
“We basically asked ourselves, ‘what is there a lot of?’ and then proceeded to design using the materials that were already out there in abundance” shared Richer to an audience of Vancouver’s most influential architects and interior designers. The resulting fixtures, made from recycled fluorescent and halogen lights, fire extinguishers, and guitar foot pedals, not only make strong and playful statements, but also meet LEED Platinum standards. Castor works out of Toronto, which means that lead time is quite fast and custom pieces are an option.
The launch of Castor’s collection was an intimate and casual event, the first of a series of private launches for the “Made in North America” lines joining LightForm’s portfolio this year. “We do our part to support Canadian design by connecting you to designers like Brian and Kei,” shared Assaly to the audience of architects and interior designers, “but in reality, it’s you, as influencers to the public, who have the power to make or break Canadian design by bringing them to your clients’ attention.”
Judging from the feedback of those in attendance, we’ll be seeing more beaver in the near future.
Care to be on the invite list for the next launch party? Follow us on twitter for regular updates.
To receive Castor’s new catalogue, email us.
1200 wind-powered LEDs:
Jason Bruges’ Aeolian Tower
Bruges Studio Creates Possibilities with Wind-Powered LEDs
LightForm sponsored British designer Jason Bruges at the IDS11 recently held in Toronto. Since its inception in 2001, the Jason Bruges Studio has been creating interactive installations and public artwork that engage, intrigue, and inspire. Richard Assaly introduced the innovative designer at the Symposium of Speakers, commending his studio’s body of work as “masterful combinations of art design and technology that encourage us to reconnect with the world around us.”
Bruges explained to the audience how his Studio’s work draws inspiration from new interactive technologies to elicit public engagement, with the goal of helping us become aware of and celebrate the ways in which we interact with and influence our environments. Bruges’ much-loved The Aeolian Tower, an installation composed of 1200 wind-powered LEDs, not only demonstrates how renewable energy can be used to power sustainable art and design, but also intrigues those who have the pleasure of watching it light up the sky.
Know of a project that used light technology in an unusual or thought-provoking way? Send us an email and tell us about it! We’ll do our best to include it in our next newsletter or on the LightForm Journal.
Have a speaker that you’d like to hear at the next IDS or LightForm Lecture? Send us an email outlining who and why you’d like to have them, and we’ll do our best to include them in next year’s lineup.
Crowdsourcing—what does it mean to design?
Crowdsourcing was the prominent theme at the IDS11 Symposium of Speakers, as each presenter weighed in on their experiences with this open-source approach to problem solving and production, and whether or not they believed it has significantly changed the way the designers work.
Simply defined, crowdsourcing is the act of outsourcing tasks, traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, to a large, undefined group of people or community through an open call. Websites like crowdSPRING and 99designs serve as a forum for people looking to outsource their logo or website design, while Kickstarter and IndieGoGo help entrepreneurs and artists raise funds for their projects. Big Oil BP and the British government have even tried crowdsourcing as a means of problem solving and fostering a sense of public engagement.
Crowdsourcing enthusiasts celebrate the trend, pointing to how it has helped amateurs get their work recognized and projects funded. Critics fear that these sites undermine the work of professionals in photography, graphic design, and writing, arguing that websites like iStockphoto have threatened the livelihood of professional photographers by offering photos for as little as $1 each.
While the debate rages on, designers at IDS11 commended crowdsourcing as a means of finding solutions to design challenges they might not otherwise have known how to solve. One speaker shared that he had been having trouble finding a way to bind a mechanism to one of his creations. When he sent out an open call to a specialized community, he was delighted to find that someone, somewhere, knew just what he needed to do.
Judging from the stories shared by the Symposium’s speakers, crowdsourcing has worked well for those who use it as a tool for sharing knowledge.
What do you think—is crowdsourcing a threat or a tool for the design industry?
Scheming for Paris: What Really Goes on at IDS
How to build a prefab home in Paris with Jean-Marie Massaud: go to IDS; sneak into a cool after party; get your drink on; befriend the guy who’s wearing a similar sweater (who also happens to be one of the greatest designers alive); agree to collaborate with him on his next great project; qualify your agreement on the condition that the project be located close to a Parisian bakery; get photographic evidence.
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