I’ll be reviewing one of Kovacs-designed lamps soon. So some background on him before I do:

One of the most recognizable names in the lighting industry, George Kovacs wore many hats throughout his forty-plus year career. Part lighting designer, part lighting manufacturer, part lighting importer – Kovacs’ design aesthetic stood out above the rest and helped to define modern lighting as we know it today.

Born in Vienna, Kovacs moved to the United States after the Second World War, finding work at a lamp store in Manhattan. It was most likely here that Kovacs was bitten by the lighting bug, soon after which he started his own business selling Kalmar lamps. The perfect blend of both form and function, his vast collection included everything from table and floor lamps to hanging pendants and wall sconces. His creativity and skill attracted other prominent modern designers including the likes of Karim Rashid and Ingo Maurer, amongst others.

As much an innovator as he was a creative genius, Kovacs introduced the first American-made halogen torchiere to market in the early 1970s. Popular in Europe since the 1960s, Halogen lamps were far longer-lasting and able to illuminate an entire room with one bulb. Soon after Kovacs started manufacturing Halogen lamps, other manufactures began to follow suit.

For many years, Kovacs designed and manufactured his products from his own Brooklyn-based facility but in 2000 he sold his studio, designs and naming rights to lighting manufacturer the Minka Group. Kovacs passed away in 2007 at the age of 80. A true design visionary, Kovacs left a lasting impression on the lighting industry and the design community as a whole.

Technically this is a blog related to urban planning but at heart, I’ve always been a designer and absolutely love innovative and creative solutions to everyday problems. Unclutterer mentions that this idea was first implemented on yachts where space is at a premium.

When I first saw the ‘storage under the staircase’, my first thought was – how cool is that! This solves the problem of trying to find a place for your shoes near the place where you actually wear them. Isn’t it tedious to haul in your shoes from some inside closet to near the door where you wear them before heading out? I wonder why no one thought of this before with all that space under the stair and the rise of the staircase doubling up as a drawer.

Via Treehugger, I get this news that New York is getting a major upgrade in its street furniture. Apartment Therapy gives us more insight on the public toilets:

“These state-of-the-art facilities offer comfort, hygiene, accessibility, and security to the public, within a modern design. Designed to self-sanitize after each use, the APTs will also be serviced twice a day for inspection and system maintenance, affording the people of New York a safe and valuable convenience.”

Any decent, aesthetically-pleasing, and of course, functional street furniture is always welcome in an urban environment. Hopefully these will be self-financed by the advertisement space they offer so as not to be a burden on the tax payers. Cemusa, a Spanish Outdoor firm has reportedly won a $1billion contract to sell ads on New York’s street furniture.

The advent of the web may have made this exercise redundant but it was always fun to browse through latest products in one huge place. You almost had instant ideas for your designs that you couldn’t wait to implement or sometimes saw an innovative product that redefined your perspective for treating interior space; be it a new material or bathroom fittings. But the best display was always by light equipment and fittings. In this light (no pun intended), I was asked to review the website for Starry Nights Lights. Note that this is a part of ReviewMe’s Paid Reviews for this blog. Remember that this is not a review of their products which I haven’t sampled but that of their website.

At first impression, the Starry Nights Lights’ website looks clean and simple to navigate. The name, Starry Nights (remember Van Gogh?) might seem paradoxical because you may not need lights on a fine starry night but they show support for reducing light pollution. The main body of the website displays their product offerings categorized broadly into interior lighting and outdoor lighting. Strangely the interior light products seem to be properly categorized into sub-categories like wall scones, chandeliers, ceiling mount fixtures, bath/vanity lights, etc, the outdoor section is not organized similarly and instead goes to the generic ‘store front’. They run their store based on Yahoo! Shopping and have a customized look but is powered by Yahoo at the backend. Alternatively, you can directly access the different types of light fittings from the sidebar where they are listed by name and brand.

But the feature that impressed me most was their emphatic coverage on light pollution and although being a light fixtures company, they provide advise on using their products with ‘responsibility’. This might be in line with the latest corporate trend of being socially responsible. You can read more about Light Pollution and browse through the news stories on the topic. They also provide information on how the company provides lighting solutions and customer testimonials to win you over.

Since blogs are such a trendy way to disseminate information, Starry Nights Lights has a blog too. The blog was started in March of 2006 and has been since infrequently updated with aspects of outdoor lighting, reviews of new products, and general news in the field of outdoor lighting. Their specific post on relating light pollution and human health is interesting. It collates interesting links from news media that focus on this largely ignored aspect. Natual light has always been suited for human existence and personally, I have alway favored using natural light and opening up your design instead of consuming energy. It also makes economic sense as energy costs continue to spiral upwards.

But considering Starry Nights focus on outdoor sustainable light, their store front on outdoor lighting seems lot to be desired. Also, they could do with more focus on selling energy-efficient products. If they serve as a front to sell energy efficient lights, some consumers might even stick around and buy some of their fixtures and fittings.

Overall, Starry Nights Lights provides a useful service couple with information on sustainable lighting solutions. However, the experience would be greatly enhanced if they also provided a savings calculator for different energy uses and even a special focus on the new energy saver bulbs that Walmart is trying to promote. The store interface also could be improved so as to make it more customizable. Currently, they are offering free UPS Ground Shipping on all orders of $100 or more. Check them out.

Technorati Tags: lighting, fixtures, outdoor lighting, light pollution, Starry Nights

I have always loved abstract and unsymmetrical furniture designs. I had designed a bookshelf at home using parts of a old dismantled wallshelf but it wasn’t half as good as the ones featured at Tangram.

Technorati Tags: tangram, bookcase, furniture, art, abstract, design

Considering that the Internet is touted as the developing countries’ tool to leapfrog into the 21st century, the power that runs the Internet is sadly lacking in such countries. Well, thanks to a Bay Area nonprofit, wireless Internet access can now be powered by solar energy. As seen above:

“The latest version of the organization’s Wi-Fi’s access node, which
consists of a small solar panel, a heavy-duty battery, a router and an
“intelligent” charge controller that moderates power use based on
sunlight intensity. The network is designed to automatically limit
broadband access when solar-power levels are low, which enables the
system to stay in continuous operation for as long as a month in weak
sunlight” [source].

Technorati Tags: green, technology, wifi, Internet, solar energy, networking, electicity, developing countries, sunlight

Technorati Tags: biodegradable, environment, product design

More here.