23 October 2017

Blueprint Awards 2017: The winners

Best Project Design

Winner: Neri&Hu Design and Research Office, China
Yanzi Light

Yanzi Light by Neri&Hu Design and Research Office, China

Judges’ Comments

‘A very poetic interpretation of lighting design that transmits an ephemeral moment into light.’Ben van Berkell

Yanzi Light by Neri&Hu Design and Research Office, China

Shanghai studio Neri&Hu based the playful design of the Yanzi lighting collection on scenes from the Chinese city’s streetlife. The image of swallows perched on scaffolding poles, or in woven bamboo cages, is typical of urban Shanghai and is evoked by the forms of the brushed-brass “birds” sitting on a framework of slender steel rods.

The designers used Artemide’s philosophy of “The Human Light” as the starting point for a poetic range of products that display a distinctly zoomorphic character. The name “Yanzi” means swallow, and the streamlined pro le of the birds is recalled in the shape of the brass fixtures, which have illuminated globes as heads. The range includes floor, table or pendant versions, each comprising one or more lamps attached to the metal perches. The table lamp features a single Yanzi resting on a simple support, as if ready to take flight.

The suspended track system of the pendant lamps resembles overhead electrical wires, with hoop-shaped perches and the possibility to group multiple lamps providing limitless configuration options. The floor lamp uses the same hooped frames as the pendants. “With elegant lines and minimal shapes, Yanzi pays homage to both the urban and the natural, the rigid and the organic, while injecting a sense of playfulness into the design,” say the designers.