2017's Award Winning Designer Lights | Part 2

PART 2: 2017 was a great year for many of our lighting partners, whose lighting designs were recognized with awards from numerous industry publications and associations. We're thrilled to shine a spotlight on their great work and well-deserved accolades, so here are the best award winning lights from 2017's major award shows (to see more award-winning lights go here).

Red Dot Design Award

Red Dot's Product Design competition has existed since 1954. Its award, the Red Dot, is an internationally recognized quality seal. The Red Dot logo and seal serves consumers as orientation, as it ensures that a brand is associated with excellent design quality in the long term.

Lighting Design:

Innermost's YOYWall Sconce by YOY Studio

Innermost's YoyWall wall light cleverly projects an image of a lamp shade onto the wall

The YOYWall is a decorative LED wall sconce that cleverly projects the shape of a lamp shade. Designed by YOY Studio for Innermost. YOYWall is a simple idea very well executed often makes the best product, and this minimal wall light makes a great talking point. It is arguably the most minimal wall sconce possible, interacting with and using the wall in more than just a supporting role. The detail within YOYWall is cleverly hidden; a single LED unit that casts a very powerful glow through an aperture to create the optical illusion.

SLAMP's Veli Suspension Light by Adriano Rachele

The Veli chandelier from SLAMP

A soft finish that was inspired by modern fabric textures. Veli chandelier from SLAMP fills and envelops any space, setting it apart with its aesthetics and lush decorative characteristics. The suspension’s red, wrapped cable increases the handmade lamps’ modernity, taking a cue from the world of haute couture.

AZ Awards

For this prestigious award, the editors of AZURE and a panel of international experts drawn from each of the disciplines meets together to review the product and project submissions and select the winners for the AZ Awards. The general public also has their say, voting for the AZ People's Choice Award. Winners of all awards are revealed during a beautiful gala held every June in Toronto.

People’s Choice Award:

Davide Groppi's Infinito Wall Light

Infinito from Davide Groppi: essence and absence.

Infinito is a spatial concept; it is continuous light. A thin strip made of stainless steel a mere 18 mm in width “cuts” a space to produce indirect light. The graphic force of this system is surprising. It can be integrated into space, but at the same time it becomes part of that space.

The Infinito and Flash lights are part of a system. It’s one that breaks down the actual lamp and light source, turning it into something else, leaving only a trace, a line, and then not even that. It becomes, finally, a concept: light only. This project pays homage to the art of Lucio Fontana and his spatial concepts. It is possible to adapt Infinito to various situations, stretching it from wall to wall or ceiling to floor, according to one’s taste or needs. Infinito comes in strips up to 12 m in length. Currently being installed in our Toronto lighting showroom!

Archiproducts Design Awards (ADA)

The Archiproducts Design Awards is an international design competition organized by Archiproducts, with the aim of recognizing, rewarding, and celebrating design excellence across a broad range of categories.

Lighting Category:

Davide Groppi's Infinito

Infinito: essence and absence.

Infinito is a spatial concept; it is continuous light. A thin strip made of stainless steel a mere 18 mm in width “cuts” a space to produce indirect light. The graphic force of this system is surprising. It can be integrated into space, but at the same time it becomes part of that space.

Davide Groppi's Infinito and Flash lights are all part of a system. It’s one that breaks down the actual lamp and light source, turning it into something else, leaving only a trace, a line, and then not even that. It becomes, finally, a concept: light only. This project pays homage to the art of Lucio Fontana and his spatial concepts. It is possible to adapt Infinito to various situations, stretching it from wall to wall or ceiling to floor, according to one’s taste or needs. Infinito comes in strips up to twelve metres in length. Currently being installed in our Toronto lighting showroom!

FontanaArte's Equatore by Gabriele & Oscar Buratti

Equatore table lamps from FontanaArte

Equatore is a contemporary reinterpretation of the classic lamp with a glass shade. While the traditional abat-jour uses the shade to contain the light source within, in this family of lamps the shade is paradoxically and suggestively empty, with the light being generated by two luminous discs placed inside a central metal band, visible on the shade, that evokes the line of the equator. The light produced by the LEDs, thanks to internal screens arranged in layers, is distributed regularly across the surface of the discs, magically illuminating them.

The lower disk directs the light output downward, the upper one illuminates the glass cap for a soft, diffused light. Available in table, floor, and ceiling models, in two sizes and two colours: a cooler version in grey with a dark chrome frame, and a warmer version with a transparent dove grey cap and a copper-coloured frame.

German Design Award

The German Design Award is awarded only to projects and designs that truly represent pioneering contributions to the German and international design landscape. The highly esteemed, international jury guarantees this. The German Design Award identifies and presents unique design trends: a competition that advances the design-oriented scene.

Excellent Product Design—Lighting Category:

Pablo Design's UMA Sound Lantern by Carmine Deganello & Pablo Pardo

The UMA Sound Lantern from Pablo Design

The revolutionary UMA Sound Lantern redefines the portable lantern for the modern age. Fusing state-of-the-art Warm Dim LED technology with 360° high fidelity surround sound, UMA provides a one of a kind portable light + sound experience, integrated seamlessly into a strikingly elegant design.

UMA pairs touch sensitive volume control with an intuitive full-range light control dial and features Bluetooth connectivity to stream the highest quality audio wirelessly from any mobile device. Invoking the primal symbol of the lantern and the warmth of a campfire, UMA is the perfect centrepiece for social gatherings and intimate moments indoor and out. Come play with it in our lighting showrooms.

Normann Copenhagen's Acrobat Table Lamp by Marc Venot

French designer Marc Venot's innovative magnetic lamp for Normann Copenhagen can be placed both vertically and horizontally in multiple positions.

"An acrobat is someone who can do extraordinary things without losing their balance. It looks like he is going to fall over at any given moment, but he does not. He toys with gravity itself, leaving the observer fascinated and surprised. This is the kind of effect I wanted to create with this lamp. My greatest hope is that the user will experience the same fascination, and feel like touching and understanding the lamp”

Marc Venot

ELLE DECO International Design Awards (EDIDA)

Launched in 2003, the ELLE DECO INTERNATIONAL DESIGN AWARDS (often abbreviated as EDIDA) is a unique international event where the twenty-five editors-in-chief of the ELLE DECORATION international network gather to award global excellence in design in thirteen categories.

Designer of the Year:

Neri & Hu Design Team

Founded in 2004 by partners Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu, Neri & Hu Design and Research Office is an inter-disciplinary architectural design practice based in Shanghai, China with an additional office in London, UK. Neri & Hu works internationally providing architecture, interior, master planning, graphic, and product design services.

Currently working on projects in many countries, Neri & Hu is composed of multicultural staff who speak over 30 different languages.  The diversity of the team reinforces a core vision for the practice: to respond to a global worldview incorporating overlapping design disciplines for a new paradigm in architecture.

Neri & Hu's new Denglong lighting collection for Parachilna

Neri & Hu’s location is purposeful. With shanghai considered a new global frontier, Neri & Hu is at the center of this contemporary chaos. Some of their lighting designs include the BAI collection for Parachilna, the new Denglong collection for Parachilna (above), and the Emperor collection for Moooi.

ICONIC Awards

The Iconic Awards is the first neutral international architecture and design competition that focuses on how the disciplines interact. It acknowledges visionary architecture, innovative products, and sustainable communication from all fields of architecture, the construction and property sectors, and the manufacturing industry in five main categories. It centres on the integrated and consistent presentation of products in architecture.

Interior Designers of the Year:

Neri & Hu Design Team

Below, Neri & Hu's BAI chandelier for Parachilna is a modern update to the traditional Chinese lantern. Top quality glass and LED technology bring this classic lamp into the future. Made of aged bronze metallic structure and a meticulously hand-blown glass in transparent, grey, or amber finish. This collection includes a series of pendants, wall lights, and chandeliers.

Neri & Hu's BAI chandelier for Parachilna

Add an award-winning touch to your next project online or through one of our offices and showrooms in Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Kelowna, and Winnipeg.