11/09/2015 - Hem presents the customisable Alphabeta lamp by Luca Nichetto, in an interactive space featuring 44 lamps tethered to a grand piano, as part of ‘Ten Designers in the West Wing’, at the 2015 London Design Festival.To coincide with the Festival, Hem will open its first UK retail store, a pop-up, in London’s Seven Dials.
Hem is continuing its ongoing collaboration with designer Luca Nichetto, who has conceived Alphabeta, a new modular pendant lamp designed to be configured online by the customer.
Alphabeta is the world’s first digitally-customisable pendant lamp with more than 10 billion possible combinations. The Alphabeta shades come in eight different shapes of interchangeable top and bottom shades, each available in its own colour, as well as in black and in white. This creates a total of 24 available shades, and thus billions of possible combinations when four pendants are combined (as above). The shades are crafted from steel and spun by hand in a factory near Venice, Italy, resulting in a pristine finish. The pendants adapt to a bi-directional lighting source that brightens spaces above and below the lamp.
“With Alphabeta, we wanted to create a lamp that is made from high quality materials, and allows people to customise and personalise their own lighting. At Hem, we want to make products that inspire people and allow them to dream-up new ways of creating interiors for their home. Luca Nichetto has a great eye for spotting new behaviours and new needs, and he brought us this idea of a lamp that could be combined in different ways to create your own and unique lamp.”Petrus Palmér, Hem Co-Founder and Head of Design.
“My inspiration was really an ambition to create an alphabet; a system where you can combine different kinds of shades to create your own lamps. I researched different kinds of shades and effects of light, and tried to simplify that by creating a single piece that can be combined with the other shades, to create a kind of alphabet.” Luca Nichetto, designer.
Just like combining letters of the alphabet to create words, or combining notes to make music, the Alphabeta lamps reflect a playful functionality. To bring the collaboration to life, Hem and Luca Nichetto have created an immersive and interactive environment as part of the ‘Ten Designers in the West Wing’ exhibition in London’s Somerset House.
The theatrical installation will take over one of the iconic building’s West Wing Galleries and features a grand piano connected to 44 Alphabeta pendants. Each of the lamps will illuminate at the touch of the piano’s keys. To bring the installation to life, a pianist will be playing daily at 1pm and 6pm during the Somerset House exhibition. At other times, visitors are welcome to play the piano and experience the constellation of lamps glowing above their heads.
The Alphabeta installation will run from Monday 21stSeptember – Sunday 27thSeptember 2015 at Somerset House.
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