Ingeniously Subtle Lighting

"Today I get to be the model for a change," says Kai Byok while his staff walk around the showroom during the photo shoot with Heiner Köpcke. The boss, designer and eponym of K.B. Form flirts with the camera. But usually, when a photographer comes to the Hamburg suburb of Rellingen, the focus is on other stars.

Radiant stars! They're just as self-confident and photogenic as their inventor – thanks to their lucid, understated design language and intelligent functions. Because Kai Byok sticks to a very clear principle: good, often award-winning design and flawless functionality are the top priority in all his creations. "Genuinely perfect light creates a pleasant basic feeling rather than leaping out at you," says Byok.

The product designer studied in Milan, where he also spent the first few years of his career. In his opinion, lighting should support the interior architecture and not push itself to the fore. Armed with this attitude, he founded K.B. Form in 1996 and has been inspiring lighting culture ever since – initially with glass luminaires, today mainly with aluminium models. His luminaires are designed to work independently of trends, whilst the finely crafted surfaces aim to bring out the spirit of the respective material.

In addition to its Living Lights, K.B. Form and its 18 employees also take on challenges that call for an integrated approach. "The Working Lights division handles architectural lighting assignments, which are always budget-oriented." Office buildings, shopping centres, new builds and pre-war buildings all feature on the agenda. And the Rellingen team has just finished ensuring that an old manor is seen in a new light too. The historic estate has been turned into an event centre with upmarket cuisine. For major projects like this, the designer loves to develop special luminaires and adapt them for all kinds of different tasks. "Our lighting design runs through both the old and new parts of the complex like a common thread – unostentatious, clever and, as always, very understated."

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Photos: Heiner Köpcke, K.B. Form

K.B. Form GmbH
Industriestrasse 8b
DE-25462 Rellingen
Tel. 0049 (0) 4101 5999 0
Fax 0049 (0) 4101 5999 55
info@kbform.com
www.kbform.com