Raouf Sarwari of Artisan Design Source creates laser-cut pendants and lamps using acrylic plastic and upcycled cardboard.
While these lights are technically upcycled and not recycled, I like the craftsmanship and quality of light to add Sarwari to my Green Lighting Spotlight.
Artisan Design Source’s lights come in a variety of fascinating shapes and colored acrylic. The pendants average size is 9″ x 18″.
Artisan Design Source, based in Brooklyn, debuted it’s lighting at the BKLYN Designs furniture festival this past May.
I’m curious to see what Sarwari could do with laser-cutting on a larger scale.
Laurence van Seventer, a Dutch designer and founder of Lolo Palazzo is a creative frontrunner in industrial design who is innovative in welding metal with recycled bicycles, car parts and other discarded metal.
From her Hague Studio, Laurence van Seventer creates chandeliers that remind me a bit of the Atlantis chandelier from Barlas Baylar Lighting. Her larger chandeliers can incorporate as many as 600 upcycled bicycle chains and weigh 275 pounds.
Her designs begin organically and she does not know when she begins a piece what outcome it will have. In Laurence’s view, we live in a world that has to involve recycling. As an artist she likes the contrast between soft and industrial materials. Playing with the lighting levels also creates an added element of light play and drama to her lighting sculptures.
The Ballroom Blitz chandelier was recently featured at Design London’s Superbrands Design Festival this past fall. Many of Laurence’s chandelier designs can be found hanging in prestigious hotels around the world.
Laurence is currently working on a new collection called ‘Killing me Softly’, which is a combination of recycled steel and recycled; in collaboration with Label Mademoiselle Cecile.
In the lamp collection Laurence is showcasing more of her welding and plasma cutting skills. The lamp bases are constructed from motor bike parts.
In addition to lighting, Lolo Palazzo also produces mirrors, and sculptural pieces that range from flower bouquets to animal sculptures.
I’ve heard that Tent London and Super Brands were even bigger and better shows this year. I always tend to gravitate toward the lighting exhibitors. It would have been nice to see the Lolo Palazzo pieces in person.
To see more amazing pieces, visit the Lolo Palazzo Pinterest Page.
“It takes true creativity and a strong imagination to transform an item into something else with a completely different function. And that’s exactly what artist Carolina Fontoura Alzaga does to create her “CONNECT Series” of lighting fixtures. She collects old bicycles from junkyards and dumpsters and uses the parts to create beautiful chandeliers and lamps.”
Carolina Fontoura Alzaga (Caro) is a multidisciplinary artist who operates under the name Facaro and is recognized internationally for her unique perspectives on medium and form.
In the CONNECT Series, Caro reimagines used bike parts to create luxurious, cascading chandeliers.
The lights are a careful balance of style and substance. Each piece is unique and no two quite the same. Photos of the Connect Series are of past stock and each piece is made to order and customizable in Caro’s Victorian Bike Punk style.
Some of the Connect upcycled chandeliers are massive and can take months for the artist to make in L.A. studio.
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“Making each chandelier an approximate perfection despite the imperfect nature of the material. I’ve had to surrender to the rhythm of creation and accept regressing in order to progress.”
Carolina Fontoura Alzaga was born in Mexico City, then moved to Denver, where she graduated East High School in 1999. She got her BFA from Metro State, where the chandeliers were her thesis piece, in 2007. Her very first chandelier was donated to Derailer, a bicycle collective that dissolved and gave birth to the Bike Pit, where the chandelier still hangs.
Caro’s Facaro studio focuses on art that explores of the “third function” of materials. She hopes that her creations will inspire dialogue about the importance of eco-friendly up-cycling.
Last year she was invited to show her work at Comme des Garçons Trading Museum in Japan, and she recently finished a ten-foot-long, four-foot-wide chandelier commissioned by Heineken.
For more information about Facaro and her work visit facaro.com.
As LED technology continues to evolve, so too grows the efficiency and lifespans of LED lamps. Because LEDs have such long lives (estimated at 35,000 to 100,000 hours), it’s rather challenging to measure precisely how long they really do last — few groups have the patience or resources to measure an LED in various environments for 5 or more years. However, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is currently working on such a project.
Without a predictable failure point, manufacturers decided to define LED life as the amount of time it takes for the light to fade to a certain percentage of its original strength. “Lumen depreciation is widely understood in the lighting community and is not unique to LEDs. But it doesn’t come into play when you have a light source that only lasts hundreds or thousands of hours, as with incandescents. On average, incandescents fail before the eye notices a difference in their output,” says Philips Marketing Communications Director Steve Landau.
People in an average office setting can’t tell there is a change in illumination until a lamp has dropped 30% in output. So it is not objectionable to wait until the LED is at 70% of its original spec before you replace the lamp.
This designation is represented by the letter ‘L’ followed by a set of numbers such as:
L70 = time to 70% of original light output. There are other ratings, but this is the most common rating and is universally accepted as the standard to measuring LED life.
For colored accent and exterior lighting, the lumen acceptable lumen drop-off threshold is often considered to be 50%.
Still, even these numbers are highly variable depending on how and where the LED was operated. Things that may influence the LED’s life are line current, ambient temperature, the type of luminaire and the quality of the material used. These differences make defining a LED’s service life even more challenging, since the lamp’s environment can drastically influence its lifespan.
Simply, we can’t determine the service life of an LED without considering its housing and application. This is the major reason why the NIST is conducting their LED study. They are monitoring LEDs in various scenarios with the goal of uncovering a reliable method of projecting how long LEDs will last.
HOW LONG is 100,000 HOURS?
Whether you believe 100,000 hours is realistic or not, I’ve included a chart to make understanding the life of a 100,000 hour rated bulb easier.
Hours of Operation: 100,000 hours is:
24 hours a day 11.4 years
18 hours per day 14.8 years
12 hours per day 22.8 years
8 hours per day 34.2 years
Although the lighting industry is still learning about the efficiency of LEDs, what we currently know holds real promise for major energy savings in the future. And while the LED bulb you pick off the store shelf may not entirely live up to its 100,000 hour rating, it will certainly outperform most traditional bulbs.
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