The incandescent bulb is nearing the end of its life. Across the world governments having been passing legislation in favour of more energy conserving alternatives; and here in Europe a ban on selling 100watt bulb has been in place for a year.

We’ve mostly switched to the rather ugly compact tube fluorescent tube (CTF) and the ban on the frosted incandescent so infuriated lighting designer Ingo Maurer he had to come up with the Euro Condom pictured above (not sure if come up was quite the right phrase there!) The opaque condoms fit over clear incandescent bulbs – which are not affected by the guidelines – to give a similar effect to the banned bulbs. Its an amusing poke at European bureaucracy but when you look at the carbon emissions saved by getting rid of the old bulbs never mind the money saved on your electricity bills it makes sense to make the move.

So here are a few lights that have taken a little inspiration from the old bulb but been updated to comply with strict EU guidelines – its quite heartening to think bureaucracy can move design! America take note your Federal bureaucracy is years behind….

I don’t think you could have failed to notice Hulger’s Plumen lightbulb launched this year and billed as the worlds first designer energy saving light bulb. It uses 80% less energy than the traditional incandescent light bulb; and just like its ugly older brother (the compact tube fluorescent) it keeps down electricity bills and lasts around 8 times longer.  Hulger’s work came from the frustrations of the CTF; not only did it look ugly but the kind of light they give off is pretty poor.

“Make the bulb attractive and people will spend a bit more and enjoy a better quality of light and a design they appreciate every day. Glass tubes can be bent is many different shapes so why are there thousands of manufacturers but only three designs? We believe the answer is in the design.” The bulb is available in Europe with plans to launch in the USA early 2011.

Marcus Tremento is an artist who uses light as a  medium to express his work. His highly graphic and illustration based pieces draw inspiration from French Pop comics of the 1960’s his use of simple lines suggest three-dimensional form but in keeping with his source of inspiration he actually uses paper  – of a rather special kind. These lights employ Electroluminescent paper, which consists of an organic material that emit photons (light) when excited by an electric current, sandwiched between two thin layers of plastic. This method of producing light is distinct from standard incandescent lights in that there is no emission of heat. Electroluminescence was first developed in 1960 for use in automotive instrument panel backlighting.

Diamond Light by Eric Therner is a particularly beautiful alternative to the old light bulbs

“I’d like to see them as sculptures, with a function. Diamond Lights play with the concept of the light bulb. Stylewise, the common light bulbs look brilliant. I’m not sure though, if it is the shape, or it’s iconic value that makes it so beautiful.

The fact that it was “a” first, and what it meant to people when it first arrived, has surely played an important role during the years from product to icon. Diamond Lights is not a tribute or an attempt at making a better light bulb than the already existing one. I simply want to offer another choice.”

The result is an environmentally friendly, e-27 halogen lightbulb with a warm 15 watt glow and 2000- lifehours.

Pieke Bergmans Light Bulbs

Pictures at the top of this post the Light Bulbs are a series of crystal lamps, designed by Pieke  in a collaboration with Royal Crystal Leerdam. The lamps are all unique handcrafted crystal pieces, equipped with leds by Solid Lighting Design. They followed on from Pieke’s “Virus” series where she manipulates molten glass over various objects letting them gently ooze in a organic satisfying way.

 Prosthes Coat Rack by Form Us With Love. Use a broom handle, a few sticks, anything a bit pointy to slot into the connecting joint and create your own Coat Rack

http://www.formuswithlove.se/flash.php

Clamped Table by Ryan Sorrell. Exhibited at this years New Designerss 09 the Kingston University graduate has designed a set of table legs that can be clamped to anything flat to form a table. Pictured here with a nice new bit of board you could easily follow the theme of th RCO chair and recycle anything to hand.  The legs can accommodate boards of varying thickness and are designed for creating temporary or seasonal or emergency furniture. They can easily be deconstructed and stacked away when not in use.

RCO Chair (Re-use Component Optimizer Chair) by Niklas Madsen & Per Eriksson.  “We though of creating one component that can be the main structure for putting old chairs or just junk together into a new chair. RCO are made out of steel welded together into a solid structure. The user will find parts that will make-up a new chair (a new product).
The RCO component will help people to think, recycle and to re-invent new products in the same time. So it’s a tool that will help the human race to save the planet in style!”

Pictured here at Milan 09 they’ve used a combination of found chair legs and a bike seat, you could go for a more comfortable option, the bracket allows you to screw a more conventional seat to the base. For more ideas and options to go their website.

http://www.mentaldesign.se/page.php?rt=page/sve/content

 Shown above Paper Collection  by Studio Job for Mooi. Created with a wooden core and cardboard the pieces are then lacquered to make a very durable and practical material. They initially created a chandelier and dining table and this year added a screen and side table to the range. 

Packaging Lamp David Gardner. Cleverly using the packaging as the components for the light, once assembled there’s nothing to throw away.

The use of pulped paper gives a wonderful texture, best seen when the light is on!

www.davidgardener.co.uk                                                                    

Above Papier bags by Saskia Diez Made using paper modeling techniques combined with a bit of gluing and sewing Saskia has been playing with the idea of traditional luxury. The paper used is Tyvek synthetic paper, its waterproof, tear proof and over time will crease and crumple. The shine of the paper has been removed by screen printing to give it back that feel of paper. It seems an elaborate process for a paper bag but then this isn’t a  traditional paper bag and this isn’t traditional luxury. http://www.saskia-diez.de/

Paper Table by Bas Van der Veer shows the strength of paper in combination with mathmatical models.

There is always something fascinating about the use of geometric construction in design. The extrapolation of a simple pattern into a more complex one tweaks the senses into looking more closely, trying to understand where the pattern begins and ends. As Karim Rashid said “It’s a way to move the eye and break up surfaces to bring illusion or entropy , to embellish and give richness to surfaces materials and objects. It can add emotion and meaning to the flat dull world”Islamic design has employed the mathematics of geometry to dramatic effect for centuries.  Here’s a few examples of how designer and artists have stripped back the ornamentation and used colour and geometry.

Above is the work of Matt W Moore the painter designer and illustrator. His work is inspired by sacred geometry, asymmetry and optical illusions. His Vectorfunk series uses a vivid colour palette.  “its about adding and refining layers to the point where I’ve got a well balanced, unique, powerful composition.          

www.mattwmoore.com

Coming up for AW09  Basso & Brooke Collection features their signature digital prints but this time with a distinctly geometric feel.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

 Swatch by Hella Jongerius  Identical in shape, sections of coloured tiles are set in walnut marquetry on a simple low table. The coloured sections are made of individually cast polyurethane. Within each colour, different hues can be seen, orange within red, blue greys within white. Light can flow through some sections but not others. The piece holds with Hella’s vision of design offering options and possibilities.   www.jongeriuslab.com 

 Above is Pentagon by Thomas Tritsch   Inspired by medieval fortresses it demonstrates the innumerous possibilties of geometry. Each of the elements can be slotted together to suit the space or your mood! You can create curves, circles, straight lines.

http://www2.quinzeandmilan.tv/#/en/home/

Of course geometry isn’t just about the creation of flat tesselated patterns. Messing about with the angles and you suddenly have a chair – oh it sounds so simple! Thomas Feichtner’s FX10 Lounge chair pictured below is an example. Invert an angle or two and you have a chiseled chunk of a chair. The designer likens it to the angles cut to make igloos, and although it does look rather hard edged, the soft upholstery doesn’t make the sitter feel their on a block of ice! It does look really cool though…. yeah bad joke

Clouds by Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec is a 3 dimensional installation that you construct yourself to create your own unique cloud. Using tiles that can be bent on the crease lines and elastic bands to join the tiles together the installation can either be hung from the wall or ceiling. You can rearrange your cloud or add to it create a multicoloured cloud. Its up to you how you use the pieces.

www.kvadratclouds.com

 And should you wish to have a play with geometry you can’t go wrong with David Sutton’s beautiful little book Islamic Design  A genius for Geometry. Available through Wooden Books  www.woodenbooks.com

At last years Salone Internazionale del Mobile Tord Boonje introduced his beautiful Fig Leaf Wardrobe. Perhaps more of an art piece than a functional wardrobe it still got me thinking about how designers have used trees as inspiration. So here’s a serise of products  on this woody leafy theme. 

Vegetal by Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec for Vitra

The original source of inspiration for the chair came from the work created by aboursmith Axel Erlandson. Aboursmithing is an ancient form of tree manipulation, creating furniture and other structures by bending young tree branches and allowing time and growth to create a more stable structure. In the 4 years the chair has taken to develop I doubt they’d have had a usable tree chair in that time!

The challenge for Vitra was to retain the natural structure of the trunks and branches but still produce an item that is commercially viable. The use of injection moulded plastic in a product so linked to nature seems at odds with the concept but it works on a number for a number of reasons. Its affordable, the chair can be used outdoors as well as indoors and it challenges the idea of a plastic chair being a throw away item.  

Jakob Solgren – Wood You Like a Cup of Tea.  This is Jakob’s contribution to the tradition of bizarre teapots, although I don’t really think this is bizarre, its rather lovely. Delicately sculpted from black stoneware its the colour of the dried tea its meant to brew. 

jakob.solgren@konstfack.se

Snowdon Flood produced these stunning silhouette tree glasses.

http://www.snowdenflood.com/

Leaf -it Post it note by Sangwoo Nam. Beautifully packaged post-it notes. You can have your desk scattered with leaves rather than those horrible fluorescent things. Heres a link but I think the product is too new to show up yet!

http://www.designfountain.com

Tree by Katrin Olina Petursdottir and Michael Young for Swedese.  Since its introduction in 2005 the coat hanger has become a classic for Swedese. Freestanding or wall mounted the branches form the hangers.  www.swedese.se

Twig Bench by Pinch. Originally designed for Neals Yard Remedies the bench went into production after a so much interest in the design. Made of hazel twigs stacked the bench is intended for indoor use only.

Wooden Usb by Oooms Theres something rather nice about sticking a stick in your computer, and it is a real stick. Collected from the woods and carefully crafted into a USB they’re all uniquely beautiful.  http://www.oooms.nl/wooden-usb-stick/

 Imbalance – are we all feeling a little off balance?  The world has gone a bit out of sync, a little bit wonky and so have some designs.There’s perfection in imperfection. Proportions are twisted , bent and stretched. Here’s a few examples of this imbalanced imperfect world.

 Peter Marigold Split Box Shelves. The boxes use a single piece of wood split into four as the corner supports the cut pieces that form the box are not calculated. The angles on the inside of each shelf always add up to 360 degrees, this along with the irregular cut pieces result in an irregular shape.  Each box is produced in the same way, the angles can be interchanged and shelf sides of different lengths creating a build up of unique boxes always applying the same principle.  

http://www.petermarigold.com/split2.htm

 Roy McMakin’s untitled piece for Established and Son. Amazing workmanship on a shaker style dresser. I imagine its rather like a concert pianist deliberately playing a tune out of key,  it seems simple but its incredibly hard to do. That’s the way I think of this piece. It looks so simple but to get the sizing of the draws and the miss matching draw pulls looking great rather than a mess is a lot harder than it looks.

Nicolas Bovesse’s collection “basculements” (”switches”)is a result of his fascination with ideas of balance or equilibrium. The concept of switching comes from the way in which the pieces switch from unstable to stable. The coatstand Mikado is constructed of simple pieces of wood that are fixed together to form a stable functional piece. Other pieces in the collection include a mirror that appears to have slipped and a table that although level on top has a random construction underneath.

http://www.nicolasbovesse.be/

 Hannes Grebin’s Ohrensessel Chair. Hannes wanted to rethink the traditional but still keeping the comfort and familiarity we associate with traditional chairs – hence the choice of upholstery and the doily and even the fringe around the base.

 www.grebin.de

Ulrik Stool by Alex Hellum for SCP. A gentle tweak to a simple stool, the angle of the base gives a little lift and support to your derriere. The design brief from SCP was for a piece of furniture that could be easily carried home by the customer.   

http://www.alexhellum.com/

There have been so many images of the over sized cast iron dinner service and the stained glass windows I thought I’d post some images of the porcelain dinner service also shown here.

The Last Supper is truly a remarkable achievement. The production of this 12 piece dinner service marks technical development in the traditional Delftware technique where only a small amount of colours can be used. The collaboration between Studio Job and Royal Tichelaar Makkum led to the development of numerous new colours allowing a bright re-interpretation of traditional technique of Faience.

This mixing of old and new was continued into decoration of the pieces, mixing religious iconography with images of the modern day.  Each piece is hand painted and edged with 24c gold lustre

Piet has spent his career working with reclaimed materials. A graduate of the Design School in Eindhoven, in 1990 he produced his first work made entirely from recycled wood and has built his career around the concept of reusing, adapting and recycling. Its not just his desire to be ecological its more a thought process beginning with the material around him.

Pictured above is detail from a lamp he produced for Spazio Rossana Orlandi.  Formally a tie factory the store had rolls of unused tie fabric in the loft. Piet has used the fabric to create lampshades over a simple wire frame.  Shown here are the two sizes of lamp base and a large pendant shade.

 Also displayed were the 99% cabinets. Continuing on a philosophy of the most efficient use of material and labour, the production of the cabinets leaves less than 1% wastage from the original sheet of metal. The cabinet is available in white coated aluminium, copper or the brass version pictured below.

The plank chair was a personal favourite of mine. Born out of an irritation at mediocre design sold at a ridiculous price, Piet decided at Salone 2008 to create an inexpensive high quality product. Not only that, you can actually produce this chair yourself, plans and instructions were provided.  I nabbed a copy but my photo of them is a little too small to be of use – the plans will be available from his website in the future.

It does look incredibly simple to do (certainly compared to a dress pattern!) but unfortunately the instructions are in Dutch so I’m getting a friend of mine to translate before I attempt it.

Also shown was a collection based on his work with scrap pieces of wood. The Dark coffee table, bench and chairs were all made using doors and wood panelling found in an old watermill. The pictures here are taken from his website, I’m afraid I got distracted by his book and forgot to take the pics myself!

 Shown here is a close up of how the scrap collection is put together and lacquered. Ten layers of high gloss lacquer are applied to the pieces giving a beautiful water effect, and an amazing silky feel.  

For more information on his work  (and better pictures) here’s the link to his website

 http://www.pietheineek.nl/

Here are couple of interviews Peit did for Dwell and also Design.nl giving a more detailed insight  into the production of this collection.

http://design.nl/item/five_minutes_in_milan___piet_hein_eek

http://www.dwell.com/articles/interview-piet-hein-eek.html

Here’s a link for the book by Max Fraser covering the first 15 years of his work – sorry its amazon- other book stores are available! just use the isbn no.   

http://www.amazon.com/Boek-Piet-Hein-Max-Fraser/dp/9063691483

Or, even better, if you email here  apparently you can get a signed copy Well it says so on his website!

http://www.pietheineek.nl/en/book

Studio Job: Beautiful setting, a sanctuary from the rest of the busy venues.

African artists created furniture, furnishings and installations curated by Patrizia Moroso

Piet Hein Eek’s installation at Spazio Rossana Orlandi

 Jaime Hayon’s work for Baccarat at Spazio Rossana Orlandi

Dedon goes plaid.