In the Details is our weekly look at one especially smart, innovative or unusual detail of a new design.
About a year ago, James Smith set out to design a lamp with what turned out to be a challenging set of parameters. With a bachelor’s degree in product design and sustainability, and an apprenticeship in cabinetmaking, Smith, who is based Cornwall, England, aimed for something with a simple, stripped-down appearance that was made sustainably. “I wanted to try and create a lamp that has the same sort of functionality as angle pulleys—and to do it all using timber and as many natural materials as possible,” Smith says. “It was an exercise in structure and engineering to see what I could achieve without any mechanical components.”
Smith chose ash wood as the base material—not only because it’s fast growing and indigenous to the UK, but also because he could source the strips from a place he has a connection to: his parents’ farm, which has some forestland as well as livestock. When a tree needs to come down, Smith buys the lumber from his father.
All photos by Artur Tixliski
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