In this movie filmed by Dezeen for Philips Lumiblade, German designer Daniel Lorch explains the ideas behind his desk lamp, which will be the first to use OLED technology when it goes into production next year.
OLEDs (organic light-emitting diodes) generate light when electricity is passed through layers of organic semiconductor material mounted on glass, so they can be very thin and emit even light from a flat surface rather than spreading it from a single point.
Called Moorea, Lorch‘s lamp incorporates two OLED panels side by side, supported on a sprung-steel stem. “I was really fascinated by this material – no matter how hard you bend it, it always goes back,” he says in the movie.
The curve of the lamp’s stem is held under tension by a rubber-coated power cable, which is clamped in a component normally used to hold ropes on a sailboat. The angle of the light is adjusted by sliding this cable through the clamp and the base of the lamp features a tab so the whole thing can easily be swivelled.
Lorch came up with the idea while attending a workshop with Philips: “I knew I needed to have at least two panels to have proper light for the desk and when I put two OLEDs together it immediately reminded me of the old bankers’ lamps because of the proportions – it was long and quite thin – so I decided to do a new interpretation of the banker’s lamp.”
The designer spoke to Dezeen at the Lumiblade Creative Lab in Aachen, Germany, where we were invited to make a film about OLED technology and its future uses. Watch Dietmar Thomas of Philips Lumiblade talk about how glowing walls, windows and furniture will replace light bulbs and LEDs in homes as OLED technology improves in our earlier movie.
Lumiblade is the brand name of Philips’ OLED lighting products and the Lumiblade Creative Lab is used to introduce designers to OLEDs and help them develop innovative uses for the technology.
Daniel Lorch Industrial Design was founded in Berlin in 2010 and past stories about its work on Dezeen include a chair made by splitting a steel tube and peeling back the legs, and metal lamps made by pinching a tube together at one end.
The music in the movie is a track called Mostly Always Right by 800xL. Listen to the track on Dezeen Music Project.
Here’s some more information about the lamp from Daniel Lorch Industrial Design:
Moorea is the first OLED desk lamp which – with 230 lm – surpasses the low-power range of ambient lighting. It vibrantly illuminates its surroundings, and makes the potential of this fascinating cutting edge technology tangible. The new adjustment mechanism foregoes joints. It is based on the elasticity of a thin strip made of shape memory alloy (SMA), which is bent into the desired position by means of a nylon strengthened power cable.
Since the power cable is an integral component of the adjustment mechanism, the problem of cable routing becomes redundant. For quick adjustments of lighting the lamp can also pivot around its own axis. The proportions of Moorea are based on the classic time-proven bankers lamp, never missing from lawyers’ desks in Hollywood films.
In collaboration with Philips Lumiblade.
Materials: Philips GL350 OLED, shape memory alloy (SMA), anodized aluminium, nylon-strengthened power cable.
The post “It will be the first proper
OLED desk lamp” appeared first on Dezeen.
