Light + building, Frankfurt - report
Light + building in Frankfurt was an overture to an increase in design diversity.
The Trend Forum, a focal point at the Light + Building show in Frankfurt, distils the up-and-coming (with emphasis on the coming) ideas in lighting into four spaces. And this year's forum served to illustrate how eclectic lighting design has become. Curated by the show organisers and the style studio bora.herke.palmisano, each space provided an unusual setting for lighting to interplay with furniture and other interior furnishings to encapsulate a design direction.
The four living environments, respectively designated constructed space, selected space, unaffected scene, and singular spot, showed how minimalism, reinterpreted tradition, organic and exotic are all valid influences for a contemporary lighting scheme.
The Trend Forum tends both to confirm and challenge your perceptions. It's reassuring when your design ideas chime with what you see - particularly if your products are included in the spaces. But you are always challenged, too, and left with new ideas to explore. And this is, after all, why you bother to pack your toothbrush and head to Frankfurt in the first place.
The Trend Forum is like Light + Building's overture - an inspired summation. But it is out in the halls that the subtleties and nuances of the lighting trends emerge. One of them - the repetition of individual modules to create a single product - proved to be a dominant theme at the event. As an example, a pattern of identical wall lights might be placed together to form a single wall sculpture as the ensuing light and shadow blurs the boundaries between the individual luminaires within the scheme.
The combination of identical elements in this way can create something which is altogether greater than the sum of its parts.
Power of the pendant
The power of the collective was also evident in another pervasive presence at Light + Building - the pendant. Many new pendant designs rely to a greater or lesser extent on a cluster, row or other pattern of identical lighting elements.
Pendants were among many lighting categories which served at this year's show to illustrate the shift of glass, brass and copper into the mainstream. All have been exerting their influence on lighting design in the past few years, but the increase in their presence compared with 2012 was palpable. The partnership of brushed brass with white was one fresh twist to emerge.
Glass was predominantly clear and coloured, while an increased use of texture and pattern across all these materials was consistent with a slightly more decorative approach being taken by many lighting designers. Folded paper and creased metal were further examples of a desire to exploit the potential of texture more fully.
Traditional materials
Other elements gaining ground include wood (finely finished rather than rustic), earthenware and ceramics. All these material developments are linked at some level to a renewed interest in traditional materials, and all of the Trend Forum's spaces alluded to this at some level, with many contemporary designs containing vintage echoes.
The development of LED in terms of colour and light output options means it dominated Light + Building even more than in 2012, when the technology was already established and widespread. There are shapes of luminaires that are only possible, and spaces which can only be lit, thanks to LED. From grand chandeliers to pinpricks of light along a shelf profile, this technology has taken the lighting world by storm. The latest innovation is the mid-power LED; expect to see great things as designers explore its potential.
Astro Lighting's Eclipse and The Edge wall lights appeared in the 'constructed space' living environment of the Light + Building Trend Forum.
