Outdoorsy, cabin-esque living hardly evokes imagery of modern living (I think animal skin rugs, Lincoln log paneling and dusty knick-knacks, at best). I think that’s why I was so enamored with this recent project from our trade partner Jordan Iverson, where he managed to merge his contemporary talents with a woodsy wonder in Eugene, Oregon. The property has a natural rustic makeup, surrounded by tall trees and with enviable, endless views, but sharp lines on the outside and modern, minimal finishes on the inside gives the project an eclectic edge.
Most of the home’s light fixtures are from ET2 Lighting, save for two fixtures Iverson designed himself: A cluster of exposed pendants on red cords in the dining space and two caged wall sconces that perfectly bookend the fireplace and TV set up:
Even though the interior has a modern sensibility about it, the bucolic setting shines through in small touches like the reclaimed wood wall, fireplaces throughout and dark wood cabinetry. Big, glorious windows bring the outside in with fresh-feeling views of Eugene’s scenery.
Seriously enviable views from one of the property’s bedrooms. We also spot a Flux Chair and Mini Cord Lamp by Design House Stockholm.
A sunken bath with a view of outside sounds like a perfect way to unwind. The vanity showcases two Alpha V Bath Bars by ET2 Lighting.
A comfortably modern kitchen highlighted by the Starburst Multipoint Pendant by ET2 Lighting.
An open floor plan lets the living room, dining room and kitchen all flow together.
A clean-lined facade with wood accents fit in perfectly with the rustic setting.
For more on the 1151 Crenshaw Project, check out Jordan’s website.
“Obvious and simple” functionality is at the heart of Fabien Dumas’ TamTam design for Marset, but don’t confuse “simple” with “simplistic.” Inspired by kids playing bongos in the park near his Berlin flat, Dumas worked closely with the team at Marset to develop this entirely unique and totally versatile design. A light with a sense of movement (each “drum” turns 360° to point light in any direction), it also comes a variety of color and size options. Dumas’ family relocated frequently while he was growing up, from Martinique to the French Riviera to Tahiti, and so his design sensibility has evolved to reflect constant movement, sense of possibility and a globally conscious aesthetic.
Get a feel for the TamTam Collection—and check out Dumas living, designing and eating in Berlin—in this video by the light’s Barcelona-based manufacturer, Marset.
This month, we’re celebrating all things modern design here on the blog, highlighting pieces that have made design history, new and buzzworthy introductions and the stories behind contemporary work from all over the globe. Be sure to check back all month long, and stop by The Design Event at Lumens.com, our semi-annual sale on 12+ modern design brands.
When you hear the term mirror ball, the first thing that used to come to mind are those spinning spheres covered in mosaic mirror. (Cue the Donna Summer music.)
Mirror Ball Pendant
But Tom Dixon has changed that first impression with his iconic line of Mirror Balls. They are still spherical but, instead of being made of individual tiles, are perfectly smooth. Their form was inspired by space helmets, and the process used to make them is just as space-age.
These metallic spheres are made using the process of vacuum metallization, a process normally reserved for more industrial applications like chroming plastic car parts, toys or flashlight reflectors. Inside a vacuum chamber, aluminum is heated until it vaporizes. In that state, the metal vapor is then essentially sucked in perfectly even, microscopically thin layers to the internal surface of a clear polycarbonate globe. This outer globe is what gives a Mirror Ball its smooth shape and protects the thin metal coating within.
Copper Shade Pendants (inset: Bronze Copper Shade Pendant)
First created in 2003, the Mirror Ball eventually reached such levels of success that it encouraged Dixon to experiment with other metals. Hence, the Copper Shade Pendant, which has copper vacuum metallized to the inside of an open polycarbonate globe. And then, from that success, the Bronze Copper Shade Pendant, with copper vacuum metallized to the inside and brass on the outside for a rich two-toned effect.
Tom Dixon, bending metal
This blending of science with design is a signature approach of Tom Dixon’s. In fact, Dixon has made a name for himself as a sort of master metallurgist, using a variety of advanced tools and techniques to bend metal to his will. While the Mirror Ball remains the most popular example, there are also lacy, geometry-inspired pieces made out of acid-etched metal (the Etch collection), metal that has been pressed, spun and brazed to create smooth indentations (Void collection) and metal that is both spun and hand-beaten for a smooth exterior and textured interior (Beat collection).
And that doesn’t even touch on the things he can do with glass…
This month, we’re celebrating all things modern design here on the blog, highlighting pieces that have made design history, new and buzzworthy introductions and the stories behind contemporary work from all over the globe. Be sure to check back all month long, and stop byThe Design Event at Lumens.com, our semi-annual sale on 12+ modern design brands.
How do you begin the process to design a product (or two, or hundreds)? “Start from scratch. Stick to common sense. Know your goals and means.” That was the way of thinking for Italian design pioneer Achille Castiglioni, who, with his brothers Livio and Pier Giacomo, worked from the viewpoint that design must restructure an object’s function, form and production process.
Castiglioni was often inspired by materials others would consider mundane—from a tractor seat used in his Mezzadro Stool, a car reflector in the Toio Lamp, to a leather bike saddle in the Sella Stool. As a professor of industrial design, Castiglioni undoubtedly inspired generations of designers to be creative and find beauty and inspiration in ordinary things.
Even with that philosophy, we can’t help but consider our favorite Castiglioni pieces anything but ordinary. Here’s a look at a few:
Fucsia Collection for Flos
Designed in 1996, the Fucsia Pendant collection sought to solve the problem of having uniform, direct and diffused light on varying surfaces. The design and dimensions of each pendant works individually or as many clustered together—each body houses a cylindrical aluminum tube under a hand-blown glass cone with sanded edges to shield the eyes from glare. The idea is to create more than one light point, inspired by chandeliers of yesteryear, and especially one designed by Castiglioni’s father in the 1930s.
Snoopy Table Lamp for Flos
Named after the shape of the famous Beagle’s snout, The Snoopy Table Lamp was reintroduced in 2003 from its original 1967 design. The base is built from white marble, under a black enamel shade over a thick disc of glass (which helps to counterbalance the weight of both components, making the lamp much more stable than it appears).
Arco Floor Lamp
This dramatic fixture has been often imitated, never duplicated. Inspired by a streetlight, the Arco’s dramatic arc filled a need for an overhead fixture that didn’t require installation or suspension. Fitted with a marble base, the Arco weighs in at a whopping 78 pounds—which is why you’ll find a hole in the base, which the Castiglioni brothers envisioned could be used to slip a broom handle through to carry it. The piece was just re-released with LED technology, but the original made its production debut in 1962—which is why you’ll appropriately see Mad Men’s Roger Sterling sporting one in his office at Sterling Cooper Draper Price.
Keeping the Legacy Alive
Castiglioni’s wife and daughter, Irma and Giovanna, have worked to preserve the designer’s Milan studio, managing guided tours to share Castiglioni’s way of thinking, teaching and working. The tour invites guests to have an inside look at the room where models and prototypes are kept, the room with drafting machines, a room of Castiglioni’s collections, and the “architect’s room.”
This month, we’re celebrating all things modern design here on the blog, highlighting pieces that have made design history, new and buzzworthy introductions and the stories behind contemporary work from all over the globe. Be sure to check back all month long, and stop by The Design Event at Lumens.com, our semi-annual sale on 12+ modern design brands.
Love it or hate it, there’s no denying the impact that the work of the Memphis Group continues to have on the design world.
Memphis Group design collection
The inspiration for the name came from a Bob Dylan song, “Stuck Inside Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again.” According to legend, this song was played repeatedly at the first meeting of the Group, organized by Ettore Sottsass. It was December 11, 1980, and invitees included a handful of other like-minded young Italian designers, such as Michele de Lucchi and Matteo Thun. (It has also been suggested that the name also refers to the ancient cultural capital of Egypt as well as Elvis’ birthplace. This is just conjecture, of course.)
Carlton Room Divider (1981) by Ettore Sottsass
The 1970s were awash in Post-Bauhaus minimalism. (This was minimalism taken to the extreme; let’s call it…minimalist minimalism.) The result was a design world stuck on creating black, nondescript and fairly humorless products. Ettore Sottsass and his young proteges sought to change all that, and to reinvigorate the Radical Design movement that had stalled in the late ’70s. So at that first meeting, another rather radical philosophy was adopted. Their designs would be the exact opposite of the norm: loud, colorful and geometrically improbable.
With that, the very height of the Postmodern design movement began. After their initial get-together, the collaborative reconvened in February to go over their design sketches. There were hundreds. They blended Art Deco and Pop Art influences with materials like glossy laminate usually reserved for kitchen countertops. And the colors! A more dazzling display you would never see.
Callimaco Floor Lamp (1982) by Ettore Sottsass for Artemide
When the Group rolled out their wild array of furniture and lighting at the 1981 Salon De Mobile in Milan, the reaction to it was either red-hot or so cold as to be nearly hypothermic. On the one hand, the idea of putting form before function chafed certain design veterans (and what forms they were!), while others loved the freedom of expression, the ironic sense of humor and willingness to experiment with known forms.
The Memphis Group is the ideal example of what can happen with design that comes at the most fortuitous moment possible, both meeting and influencing the expectations of the era in which it was conceived. The ’80s were all about pop culture and rock and roll and sticking it to the establishment. Disco was dead, and rebellious punks with their neon-colored mohawks were clamoring for something new and exciting and shocking. In other words, it was prime time for the Memphis Group.
First Chair (1983) by Michele De Lucchi
Their look moved far beyond furniture into architecture, art (Patrick Nagel), music (the album cover for Duran Duran’s “Rio” comes immediately to mind) and even fashion. If there could be something identifiable as the ’80s “look,” it would be the aesthetic established by the Memphis Group.
Sottsass dismantled the Memphis Group in 1988. While the movement was, by design, short-lived, it had the ripple-effect Sottsass had been looking for. Designers since have embraced the freedom that the Memphis Group espoused. They willingly adopt the mindset of seeing things differently and are not so easily constrained by what’s expected or “normal.”
This month, we’re celebrating all things modern design here on the blog, highlighting pieces that have made design history, new and buzzworthy introductions and the stories behind contemporary work from all over the globe. Be sure to check back all month long, and stop by The Design Event at Lumens.com, our semi-annual sale on 12+ modern design brands.
Swan Chair
They came at about the same time, actually. Both the Egg Chair and the Swan Chair were designed by Arne Jacobsen in 1958 to furnish a hotel that he had also designed, the SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen.
Egg Chair
The hotel is itself the epitome of austere modern Danish design, all clean lines and airy, open spaces. Jacobsen designed the Egg Chair and the Swan Chair to directly contrast with and balance that straight-lined aesthetic. So, with the exception of their bases, the chairs were all curves, soft and rounded and just begging for someone to sit in them.
In addition to wanting to contrast with the architecture of the hotel’s spaces, Jacobsen took into account the openness of it. While open spaces are prized for their sense of freedom, they can also make people tend to feel vulnerable. So, like a mama bird or the interior of an egg, the chairs were designed to envelop their occupants, to protect and embrace them. The inwardly curving lines also effectively created a sense of privacy and encouraged intimate conversations, to Jacobsen’s mind an absolute necessity in vast open spaces. Of the two, the Egg Chair could be considered the more “protective,” with a fuller body in contrast to the Swan Chair’s more tapered “wings.”
Royal Hotel lobby
So, how were these super-curvaceous beauties made? As it so turns out, the process used to produce the Egg Chair and the Swan Chair was just as innovative as the resulting forms. In his search for the perfect shapes, Jacobsen actually first experimented with clay at his home. Once he found the forms that satisfied him, Jacobsen used a similarly soft-to-hard material to sculpt the actual chairs: a strong molded foam inner shell underneath fabric or leather upholstery. It was the first time anyone had ever tried that technique. And you’d be hard-pressed to find pieces since that have used it so well.
In the more than 50 years since Jacobsen’s vision first came to life, the Royal Hotel (now the Radisson Royal Hotel) has updated the majority of its interiors. One notable exception is Room 606, also known as the Arne Jacobsen Room, a Danish modern time capsule filled with a veritable flock of Egg Chairs and Swan Chairs.
Today, all Swan Chairs and Egg Chairs (and many other Arne Jacobsen furniture designs) are available through the Republic of Fritz Hansen.
Room 606, the “Arne Jacobsen Room”
Arne Jacobsen, SAS Royal Hotel, 1960
This month, we’re celebrating all things modern design here on the blog, highlighting pieces that have made design history, new and buzzworthy introductions and the stories behind contemporary work from all over the globe. Be sure to check back all month long, and stop by The Design Event at Lumens.com, our semi-annual sale on 12+ modern design brands.
A 2009 design, Luceplan’s Hope Suspension Light was immediately recognized for its stunning design–the fixture won a Good Design Award, a Red Dot Design Award and a Compasso d’oro Award all in its first year. Hope was created by Argentinian designer Francisco Gomez Paz and Luceplan co-founder Paolo Rizzatto and was inspired (and named after) the brilliant 45-carat Hope Diamond–alleged curses not included, of course. And even though the design itself feels ultra glam, the Hope Suspension fits right in with a multitude of styles and spaces–a light and airy addition to a contemporary space or a bit of bling for a rustic room. In fact, seeing Hope on its own doesn’t quite do it justice–it’s presence in a room is really what makes it shine.
So, with many thanks to Pinterest, we rounded up a few samplings of how Hope brings some serious wow factor to a space:
I love how this is a relatively modest, modern space that allows Hope to really take center stage. Via Contemporist.
A spot near a big window lets the fixture reflect natural light as well, so it shines when turned on or off. Via Contemporist.
This light and airy space is perfect for a light and airy hope — we’re guessing it looks gorgeous at night! Via Pinterest.
Hellooooo, beautiful. Remember what we said about those windows? Here, Hope uses them to even pick up the brilliant colors in the sunset. via Luceplan.
Opposites attract: A rustic modern space is a perfect contrast to the delicacy of the Hope Suspension. Via Pinterest.
The Hope Suspension comes in three sizes–the largest spanning 43 inches–which makes it a great statement-maker for grand entryways like this one. Via Pinterest.
Loving the combination here between the dark cabinetry, pop of color over head and Hope’s edgy glamour. Via Contemporist.
Feeling inspired yet? The Hope Suspension (plus all Luceplan lighting) is on sale during The Design Event thought March 25.
This month, we’re celebrating all things modern design here on the blog, highlighting pieces that have made design history, new and buzzworthy introductions and the stories behind contemporary work from all over the globe. Be sure to check back all month long, and stop by The Design Event at Lumens.com, our semi-annual sale on 12+ modern design brands.
Good design amazes. It’s beautiful, mesmerizing and evokes an emotional response. It improves whatever space it’s in with its sheer presence.
But good design can go much further. It can make tasks easier and more fun to perform. And under the right circumstances, good design can completely change people’s perspectives and how they live day-to-day. Consider the wheel, the light bulb, the computer. In these cases, good design is absolutely revolutionary.
Good design constantly evolves and improves, over time eradicating the bad. A designer sees an existing product and reimagines it–with smoother lines, lighter materials, brighter colors–to make it better. Case in point, the Juicy Salif.
In 1990, Philippe Starck had only recently begun designing products for the Italian home furnishings company, Alessi. While on holiday on the Italian coast, he was inspired to reinvent that most common of kitchen objects: the juicer. He wondered, why does a juicer have to look like a juicer, anyway?
Starck was thus compelled to come up with something entirely new. He sketched his basic ideas on a napkin and handed it over to Alberto Alessi to produce (in charcteristic defiance of the company’s request for a stainless steel tray). 
The final piece that emerged from those initial lines and squiggles, the Juicy Salif Citrus Juicer, looks much like a spaceship or some alien creature. It’s sharp and beautiful, at once dangerous and enticing and entirely unexpected on a kitchen countertop.
If you didn’t already know what the Juicy Salif was, it could be a challenge discerning its practical use. And once you did figure it out, you’d logically assume the outcome would be a big mess, juice everywhere. However, physics plays an important role in keeping that from happening. Any juice extracted by the bulbous top is drawn down the ridges via capillary action. The fluid adheres to the body as it slides down to the narrowest point, where it flows smoothly and splatter-free into a glass placed underneath.
While there remains some debate about the functionality of the Juicy Salif over other juicers, one thing’s for certain: before the Juicy Salif, juicers never did provoke much thought.
And that’s exactly what good design does, whether it’s of modern lighting or furniture, a luxury car or a humble juicer.
Here at Lumens HQ, today marks the start of one of our biggest events of the year: The Design Event. Our semi-annual sale brings in big names, the best brands, and celebrates some of our modern favorites with savings up to 40% off list prices.
Here’s a peek at what you’ll find in our sale:
- Free gift with Flos Lighting purchase—receive a free Dressed Tray by Alessi (a Marcel Wanders design) with $400 purchase of Flos’ contemporary lighting.
- 20% off all lighting by Luceplan, including the Hope Suspension Light (above), designed by Francisco Gomez Paz and Paolo Rizzatto. The Hope design won a Compasso d’Oro Award (a top honor for Italian design) in 2011, among several other awards.
- 15% off all furniture and more by Fritz Hansen, a veritable treasure trove of modern danish design.
The sale runs through March 25, so for the next few weeks, we’ll be celebrating all things modern design here on the blog—highlighting pieces that have made design history, new and buzzworthy introductions and the stories behind contemporary work from all over the globe. Be sure to check back all month long!
DISC Scraplights by Graypants
When it comes to turning trash into treasure, we’ve seen lighting created from a bevy of unconventional materials. Everything from concrete, to egg cartons, to soda bottles has become the foundation of a new modern fixture. But The 3-man design team at Seattle-based Graypants takes sustainable sourcing and turns it on its head. The pieces in the collection are aptly called “scrap lights,” and can be found in a number of Starbucks stores across the country.
Graypants was founded by architects who wanted to return to what they loved about their craft: design, drawing and making things by hand. The company now literally turns trash into treasured modern lighting, using discarded cardboard boxes, newspapers and wood and making daily dumpster dives to salvage clean cardboard for their aptly named “scraplights.The cardboard material comes from various businesses around Seattle and is taken back to the studio to be laser cut, glued together, coated for fire resistance and outfitted with bulbs and wiring. The shapes and corrugated cardboard create intricate cutouts that play with light and shadow when lit. Here’s a quick illustrative guide to the process:
The name “Graypants” was a joke at first; founders Jonathan Junker and Seth Grizzle were schoolmakes who consistently rocked the same pair of gray pants to the point of notoritey among their friends. When it came time for a company moniker, a friend suggested their long-standing nickname, and Graypants was born.
MOON Scraplights by Graypants. The intricate cuts in the corrugated cardboard make a unique diffusion of light.
We caught up with Principal and Design Director Jonathan Junker to learn more about this Seattle-based studio:
Where do you find inspiration? The nature surrounding Seattle is one of the most inspiring environments on our planet! The water, mountains, and forests are breathtaking. I’m also very inspired by my travels. Recently I took a train from coast to coast, stopping at the Grand Canyon along the way. It’s easy to forget how incredible the hidden parts of our own country are when most of us travel by air. I finished that trip inspired, grounded, and feeling very creative.
What is important to you in design? We always talk about “responsible design” in our studio. Being sustainable is much more than just using a recycled material. We’ve been able to maintain our core values as a design studio and manufacturer by producing our products locally, with local talent and local materials. One year ago we opened a second studio in Amsterdam so we could produce locally for the European market as well. In Europe, we’ve been able to take it a step further and support social works programs to help employ people with disabilities who have a hard time finding hands-on creative jobs. In today’s environment, I think all designers should be thinking this way.
How does your design process work? We have a saying in our studio: “Dream, Scribble, Make.” Basically, we never shy away from trying something new! We’re always getting our hands dirty and always amazing ourselves with the unexpected places that approach leads.
Click here to read the full Q&A with the Graypants gang.
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