Materiality

Theme

Objects that touch us must be tangible. That calls for greater naturalness in terms of materials, texture and colour.

There are two faces to lumi­naires in the urban envi­ron­ment. At night, their intan­gi­ble impact and the nature of their light dom­i­nate; during the day, they exist as spa­tial design objects. In a suc­cess­ful urban light­ing con­cept, these two per­sonae exist in har­mony with the atmos­phere that char­ac­terises the area, the prac­ti­cal and emo­tional needs of the res­i­dents, and the expec­ta­tions of vis­i­tors. The dis­trict, the quar­ter, the neigh­bour­hood have estab­lished them­selves as the ideal frame of ref­er­ence for iden­tity-form­ing light plan­ning of this type. The aim: to create unique atmos­pheres where people can spend qual­ity time. We achieve that through light­ing in a vast range of ver­sions in terms of both look and light­ing effect.

Advances in LED tech­nol­ogy and optics allow us to achieve increas­ingly dif­fer­en­ti­ated light­ing effects, while at the same time regain­ing con­trol over lumi­naire design: it’s an oppor­tu­nity to lib­er­ate the cityscape from the visual chaos that reigns in many places. We see colour and mate­ri­al­ity as strong design ele­ments in terms of express­ing local iden­tity and qual­i­ties on a sen­sory level. Once the dis­trict is per­ceived as a com­fort­able place to live, the hori­zons for diver­sity open up, as has long been a given in inte­rior design.

Metal

Metals such as steel and alu­minium – the most common mate­ri­als used for poles and lumi­naires in the urban land­scape – are gen­er­ally pow­der­coated to pro­tect against cor­ro­sion. With a com­pre­hen­sive colour palette avail­able, users have every oppor­tu­nity to steer the design, from har­mo­nious colour tones to high-con­trast accents. This can be used in addi­tion with var­i­ous reflec­tor colours such as gold or as a block colour for the hous­ing. The diver­sity of fin­ishes includes metal­lic sur­faces in tones such as bronze, gold or rosé which are cre­ated through a process of vapor­i­sa­tion. These sur­faces lend the prod­ucts a high-end look, and inter­act per­fectly with their envi­ron­ment.

Con­crete

It is still unusual to see con­crete lumi­naires, even though it is the most com­monly used con­struc­tion mate­r­ial in modern archi­tec­ture. Con­crete is some­thing of a chameleon: depend­ing on how it is processed, it can form either rough, or smooth cool sur­faces, and it can be coloured­matched to its sur­round­ings. In its typ­i­cal man­i­fes­ta­tion as slightly struc­tured exposed con­crete, it is plain, simple, and radi­ates calm. Colour accents such as golden reflec­tors can be used to create a charm­ing con­trast with the cool of the con­crete. From a prac­ti­cal per­spec­tive, this is a robust, durable and rugged mate­r­ial. In the cityscape, con­crete ele­ments are viewed less as tech­nol­ogy and more as archi­tec­ture – per­fect for a clear, iconic urban land­scape.

Wood

Just as modern plan­ning con­cepts are again embrac­ing nature as an inte­gral ele­ment of urban space, wood is also expe­ri­enc­ing a renais­sance. Its advan­tages extend far beyond the func­tional: wood arouses emo­tions, it emanates a sense of warmth and nat­u­ral­ness, it is relax­ing, and at the same time cre­ates a vibrant atmos­phere. Wood binds CO₂, pro­duces oxygen as it forms, and inte­grates beau­ti­fully with its sur­round­ings. As a mate­r­ial for lumi­naires and poles, wood is par­tic­u­larly suit­able for living spaces that are in har­mony with nature and that are designed to make people feel good. To get the right tech­ni­cal prop­er­ties, care­ful choice of the wood type, its ori­gins and the right sur­face treat­ment are cru­cial. This pro­tects the wood from the impacts of weather, ensures a long lifes­pan, as it also affects the appear­ance: for exam­ple with glaze effects that lighten or darken the nat­ural colour tone, or take it in a cooler or warmer direc­tion with­out mask­ing the wood’s nat­ural grain and organic char­ac­ter.

Glass and poly­car­bon­ate

We use glass to pro­tect our light­ing units. Its high light trans­mit­tance makes glass – this amor­phously solid­i­fied melt­ing of min­er­als – not just a favourite con­struc­tion mate­r­ial for archi­tects; its good refrac­tion index means it is used as a func­tional opti­cal mate­r­ial in light­ing tech­nol­ogy – think lenses, fil­ters or glass covers. Researchers and engi­neers have suc­cess­fully over­come its prover­bial fragility. Tem­pered glass ele­ments in lumi­naires can with­stand the high­est of loads – and are easily recy­clable at the end of the product’s life. As an alter­na­tive to glass, we use visu­ally iden­ti­cal trans­par­ent plas­tics such as acrylic glass (PMMA) or poly­car­bon­ate (PC). Their advan­tage is that they are lighter, more robust and, as ther­mo­plas­tics, they can be diecast to create com­plex com­po­nents, which in lumi­naires can serve as both visual and struc­tural ele­ments. This mul­ti­func­tion­al­ity, cou­pled with type-pure recy­cling oppor­tu­ni­ties, ensures opti­mal use of valu­able resources.

We selected some of our favourite projects to showcase how materiality can add value and depth to carefully curated spaces

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