Smallsize-40 table lamp

From his “Dancing Walls” for Vitra to “A Piece of Sky” for Sky-Frame. A visit to the studio of Zurich-based designer Stephan Hürlemann.

Numerous innovative products are on show in the “Trendspot Design” in Hall 1 of the Light + Building in Frankfurt. We checked out some of the highlights from all categories specially at the booths.

At the Light + Building you can see how light, space and controls interact and what this spells for luminaire design. Moreover, there are some truly stunningly pioneering innovations on show.

Do you know your architecture and design? Do you read our News&Stories articles, regularly receive our Newsletter or use our database for research? And do you like tackling tricky questions?

On the silver screen and at Orgatec, office environments are depicted as having a life of their own. What kind of image of reality do they convey? A rummage through the film archives and walkabout in the trade fair halls.

This year’s Designers’ Saturday held in the Swiss town of Langenthal certainly confirmed the trade fair’s standing as one of the finest and most creative design events in the world.

What is the difference between light and lighting? With “Verto”, Naoto Fukasawa has designed a luminaire for Belux that is based upon the principle of reflection. Nina Reetzke met the Japanese designer for a chat.

The light bulb was once perceived as too bright by many. Today, the purportedly unseemly compact fluorescent lamp tends likewise to be hidden beneath most luminaire designs. With "Koi", Naoto Fukasawa has been the first designer to create an office luminaire series that emphasizes the unpopular lamp's intrinsic and aesthetic beauty.

Two luminaires. The one soft in terms of material properties, yet cubic and linear as regards the design. The other by contrast with a delicate design but made of firm materials. One by One and Disk by Belux.

The 12th Designers' Saturday in Langenthal - Suddenly you enjoy being in the factory on Saturday. But only because on Designers' Saturday tables, chairs, wallpaper, floor coverings, fittings, carpets, luminaires and much else besides enters the local design industry's workshops. The result: a festival for the design community, which presents the things embedded in the culture of how they are made.

Living light can be felt and experienced in various ways - as brightness and darkness, as concentrated rays or as reflections on a wall. Swiss designer Hannes Wettstein speaks in this context of "light semantics". And it was the key factor determining his design for the Scope family of luminaires.