Lighting’s next design classics
While preparing a talk for the Surfaces Design Show, which for the first time featured lighting, Iain Ruxton of Speirs + Major considered design classics
Design Classic is a well-worn moniker, applied to all sorts of products including the VW camper van, the Swiss Army Knife, the Coca-Cola logo, Ray-Ban Aviator sunglasses, a LOT of chairs (what is it with designers and chairs?) and some much-loved lights.
A design classic delivers the criteria of classic design - form and function with a large helping of style. It has a timeless aesthetic value and may reflect the era of its creation. It's one of the best of its type. And becoming a design classic takes time. It is about resisting the ebb and flow of taste and fashion, winning approval and slowly acquiring value.
While preparing for my Light School talk titled Light Years at the Surface Design Show, held last month at the Business Design Centre, London I considered classic designs in lighting and the designs of present and future.
The rapid changes in lighting technology and the agendas of sustainability and social responsibility mean that some classics may become obsolete as the lamps on which they depend on are being outlawed on grounds of efficiency. Some are being re-engineered to use new sources and some need to be, while others are not able to adapt.
My list of luminaires set to become modern classics starts with established designs which have been well-developed to use new technology.
Artemide Tolomeo LED
Tolomeo had been brought into the energy-efficient age by using an LED replacement lamp. However, Artemide grabbed the initiative and designed a properly engineered LED unit. The result is a much more efficient version of a well-loved friend
Flos Model 1063
Flos has recently reengineered its classic products designed by the late Gino Sarfatti. Model 1063 was originally designed for the now obsolete T12 fluorescent tube - and by creating an LED version, Flos has brought a great design back to life
What are the future classics in light design? Only time will tell, so here are a few personal ideas... ask anyone in lighting and they'll probably give a different list. Give it 10 years or so and we can compare notes...
Plumen 001
The re-imagined compact fluorescent lamp turned heads when it was launched, and a couple of years later it has carved out a place. By taking a visibly low-energy technology and reworking its design, it is becoming something of an icon.
Sattler Circolo
Another light which could only really be made with LEDs. Cleverly engineered and so clean and simple in form and finish. It really has a decent chance of achieving 'timelessness'.
Luxo Ninety LED
There are a lot of LED task lights out there now, but this is probably my favourite. It puts the right light in the right place, has a distinctive yet subtle style, and a fantastic mechanism for adjustment that you want to play with all day.
Tom Dixon Void Light (main picture
A beautiful sculpted object which makes a strong design statement but that I can imagine remaining popular for a long time. Although designed around the soon -to-be-phased-out G9 halogen capsule, LED retrofit lamps bring it into the low -energy age. The stainlesssteel version is probably the classic, but in copper and brass is pretty sexy.
iGuzzini PizzaKobra
A light which could only be created with LED technology. Part task light, part decorative object, all fun!
And then there are some fantastic lights which would be a sad loss to the world of design if they were to be outlawed because of the technology they were designed around. Whether it's achieved through modifying the design of the light itself or through the development and improvement of substitute lamps, these are a couple of the ones I would hate to lose...
Ingo Maurer Lucellino Tisch
Maurer's witty little winged lamp is all about the bulb... and a pearl one at that. Any CFL or LED retrofit is going to look ridiculous in it. I could imagine a version where the 'bulb' is a diffuse cover with a small LED unit inside it... but once you fake the lamp, have you lost the point of the joke? Maybe the Lucellino will finally flap off into the sunset...
Louis Poulsen PH5
Poul Henningsen's iconic designs for Louis Poulsen are undeniably in the 'design classic' category. They give a lovely quality of light, are glare-free and look stunning. However, they are very optically inefficient due to all that inter-reflection and the avoidance of any direct component - energy efficiency wasn't that big a deal in the Fifties. Even in the more efficient PH5 Plus version, it's not easy to get enough lumens in there with a CFL or LED replacement lamp. Time for some ingenious LED and optical design?
Iain Ruxton is an associate at Speirs + Major, a design practice working with light. In his 18 years at the firm he has worked on lighting projects of all types and scales in locations around the world, during the biggest changes in lighting technology for a century. Speirs + Major applies light in architecture, public realm, product, urban strategy, branding and art.
