Illuminating sustainable workspaces with De Vorm

Established in Arnhem in The Netherlands just over a decade ago, De Vorm creates furniture and fittings for the truly modern office. That means no standardised desks or over-engineered task chairs but the durable, customisable, flexible multi-purpose essentials of a creative workspace. 

De Vorm has also been committed to sustainable manufacturing from birth, pioneering the use of PET Felt  – made using recycled plastic bottles – in furniture design. It prides itself on its innovative manufacturing, constantly looking to simplify and refine processes, both to create a more refined product but also to minimise waste, and has worked with local manufacturers to create moulded PET Felt forms that are durable, flexible and beautiful but also more sustainable and affordable.

De Vorm has made clear that PET Felt is a material that can be used to create radical new forms. If you know how to handle it. And it has also applied its PET Felt know-how to a range of sustainable statement pendant lamps: big, friendly and engineered to deliver just the right amount of useful light.

It has applied that same commitment to sustainability and smart manufacturing to other materials, too. It uses recycled ‘circular aluminium’ produced locally using renewable energy for instance, and De Vorm's newest lighting launch, the Ratio Pendant Lamp range, takes another material detour, offering a fresh take on classic, utilitarian metal lamps.

With the Ratio range, De Vorm has exploited the potential of spinning metal – the manipulation of metal blanks on a lathe – to create simple forms with an architectural sense of poise and proportion. While all the lamps in the Ratio range boast the same essential form, they vary in diameter-to-height ratio. The Ratio 19 Pendant Lamp cuts a tall, slim and sophisticated figure while the Ratio 29 Pendant Lamp has a more balanced and compact silhouette. The Ratio 39 Pendant meanwhile is proudly wide in diameter and short in stature, almost flying saucerish in effect.

Think of the Ratio lamp range as a functional but physically varied family that can be combined in clusters, constellations or simply and evenly spaced to create playful installations. Or, of course, you can stick to just one of the designs for formal balance and continuity. 

The Ratio’s duotone design means you can also play with colour combinations, contrasting the lamp’s reflective inner surface with its wet-coated exterior. The lamps are available ready-to-go in a range of five colours, including a silky grey, bold burgundy, a tasteful olive and deep blue marine, or you can pick your own unique RAL colour.

De Vorm has also just launched a fresh take on the Fost PET Felt Acoustic Lamp which offers even more in the way of environmental enhancement. Measuring an impressive 118cm across, the expansive soft felt of the Fost Large can help smooth the sonic clatter and clamour of even the most vigorous office brainstorm into a genteel and easy-on-the-ear exchange of views. It is an obvious choice for conference rooms and boardrooms but also large and echoey lobbies and other potentially boisterous public spaces.

And if its size is imposing, the new Fost Large lamp is structurally minimal and formally elegant. The duotone design again means that the lamp's white interior provides a contrast to the felt exterior, available in 11 colours, from light and dark grey, through brown, beige and olive to more popping pink and yellow.

De Vorm’s mission has always been environmental, both big-picture, minimising waste and re-imaging and re-purposing a recycled material, and in creating environments that are gentle on the senses, perfectly lit, tactile and sonically soft-edged. And these new lighting launches are perfectly mission aligned. 

© Architonic

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