Category: Reparable

A trip to toast - a few M&O snapshots

23/1/2019

Launch Wren & Kiwi during M&O jan '19 | photograph by House of Thol

A flying visit to make a toast

This past weekend (18-22 January) Ay Illuminate launched our Wren and Kiwi lamps at Paris tradefair Maison & Objet.

Although it wasn't desperately necessary for us to be there, we definitely didn't want to miss seeing our lamps shining in the Ay Illuminate booth!

It took some organizational skill and a lot of family help to schedule ourselves kid-free and in the south of the country on Saturday and be able to take a day-trip to Paris.

That's making it sound a lot more romantic than it was: What it came down to, was us spending 9 hours in the car for 5 hours at Parc Expositions Villepinte (+ a short joyful stop at a hypermarché).

It was all worth it.
We brought Champagne and cheese to officially celebrate the Wren and Kiwi launch and shared a festive toast with Ay Lin, Casper and the Ay Illuminate crew.

Seeing our designs displayed in the Ay Illuminate booth and how well they fit in with the rest of the Ay Illuminate collection made it all come together, and it was wonderful to experience the response of the M&O public.

After enjoying the company at the booth for a while, we did a quick (three hour) round of the fair that was way too short to see anything yet left us both with sore feet (11.000+ steps according to my phone).

All in all this flying visit took us 14 hours, and i'm so happy we went.
Below you'll find a few more snapshots of the booth and our trip.

Have you been to M&O?
What did you like best?

A toast with Ay Lin of Ay Illuminate during M&O jan '19 | photograph by House of Thol

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New New New! Wren & Kiwi for Ay Illuminate

17/1/2019

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Finally lifting the veil

We had to bite our tongues for sooo long and keep this project under wraps...
But the day has come: We can finally proudly present to you the Wren and Kiwi lightshades we designed for Dutch lighting brand Ay Illuminate.

Over the past two Years, we've been working together with the lovely people from eco- and socially conscious label Ay Illuminate to design a lightshade that would not only be sustainable and reparable, but would also be suitable for production at a social workplace in the Netherlands.

Our workshop is filled with the models and prototypes we made during the different stages of the design and product development proces.

Our brief was simple, yet challenging: design a lamp that is made of sustainable, preferably recycled materials and take into account it has to be produced in the Netherlands by people working at a sheltered work environment.
And of course it has to fit in with the Ay Illuminate collection, best known for its tropical natural feel and artisan craft production methods.

models and material research | photograph by House of Thol

98% recycled aluminum slats

After exploring several material options we came across Luxaflex: the horizontal aluminum window slats are often discarded from office buildings and can be found in many thriftstores.

we quickly figured out that to set up a continuous production of lamps, it's impossible to rely on discarded window dressings.
When we studied into the aluminum slats a bit more, we discovered they are in fact made of 98% recycled aluminum. A great material to put to use in a new product.

Unfortunately it turned out to be quite an adventure to get the aluminum slats we needed on a lengthy roll.

By stubbornly e-mailing, calling, e-mailing again, calling again for many months by Thomas, we finally got through to the right people and received the right material to produce our prototypes with.

(Unfortunately we pretty much had to go through the same ordeal to get the material for production.)

Wren + Kiwi prototypes | photograph by House of Thol

the puzzle

And thus began the final puzzle: we designed frames in different shapes, with the slats running over them, through them, under them. We let the slats travel back up for a nice finish and layered look, used our Solidworks skills to pretty much draw out every silhouette we could think of.

We tried all kinds of different metal thingies (by lack of a better word) to secure the aluminum bands without glue or fasteners and went through lengths getting the right size delivered.

We designed the frame as a flat pack kit, clicking into eachother as a puzzle. Happy to be working together with the lovely people from Samosa Nijmegen for excellent and fast lasercutting.

We used 6 mm poplar multiplex, tried 5 mm and went back to 6 mm Ecoplex when the final 5 mm testpiece came out wobbly.

So many little things were adjusted and tweaked before the Wren and Kiwi were finally deemed fit for production.

Final details | photograph by House of Thol

At the social workplace

Thomas spent quite a few days at the Tomin Group deliberating and explaning the way the lamps should be finished and assembled.

Luckily the lovely mentors of the sheltered employment workshop were quick to recognize what needed to be done and turn it into a workable step by step assembly process.

Production at Tomin Group | photograph by House of Thol

Kiwi by House of Thol for Ay Illuminate | photograph by House of Thol

Wren by House of Thol for Ay Illuminate | photograph by House of Thol

Paris Paris

These next few days the Wren and Kiwi lamps will be on display during Maison & Objet in Paris.
For this special occasion they will be joined by their larger sibling, the Wren XL.
We installed the XL in our living room a few weeks ago to test te effect, and its impressive size dwarfed quite a few of our pieces of furniture.

After all our hard work, we're excited about the launch of the lamps in Paris and will be at the fair to see them with our own eyes this Saturday.

Come say hi if you're at Maison et Objet this weekend, we'd love to see you!
Ay Illuminate can be found in Hall 5A, R54/S53