Keep it simple. Not always the simplest thing to do, but Omer Arbel is a master of the minimal. The creative director of manufacturing and design company Bocci, as well as head of Omer Arbel Office, the Vancouver-based innovator is best-known for sculptural lighting fixtures – simple but by no means simplistic, the result of extensive experimentation – that have won numerous design awards. These include three series of pendants, whose numbers signify their position in Arbel’s ongoing list of design projects: 14 (an articulated, seamed, cast-glass sphere with a frosted, cylindrical void that houses either a low-voltage xenon lamp or proprietary and replaceable LED – resembling a glowing far-away planet); 21 (a low-voltage xenon lamp wrapped in a frosted-glass, inverted trumpet diffuser covered with raw porcelain -– imagine a brown paper bag or crêpe Bretonne magically transformed); and 28 (a distorted spherical pendant with a composed collection of inner shapes, one of which is made of opaque milk glass housing a low-voltage xenon lamp – the result of a complex blowing technique). Handmade, imperfect by nature, each pendant produced is unique. In clusters, they create an organic, one-of-a-kind chandelier.
Arbel’s latest fixture is an addition to his 28 series – in this case a desk lamp. Designed to sit on a horizontal surface (a desk, table or shelf, or even the floor), 28d consists of a single illuminated 28 piece wired to a flexible grey crochet memory cable. It’s up to the user to coil the cable into a shapely pattern to provide a cushioned surface on which the glass rests.
Sophisticated. Sculptural. Simple. cI
