The innovative design and functional versatility of De Vorm’s Split lighting series

‘Working as a designer these days isn’t [just] about doing cool things for different companies. It’s about working with people – passionate people that have the drive. That’s something that really connects us. It’s also about a rational way of producing it.’

So explains Jens Fager in the video presentation for his Split lighting series, newly created with Dutch interiors brand De Vorm. This inaugural collaboration is an apt one. Fager is one of Sweden’s most feted designers – a graduate of Stockholm’s Konstfack University, who has exhibited in Milan and London, and created pieces for brands like Muuto, Edsbyn and RIG-TIG – whose creative approach chimes perfectly with De Vorm’s singularly innovative, future-facing approach to industrial design.

The company was founded in 2005. An early pioneer in harnessing recycled PET plastic in its furniture, its product line has since expanded to include lighting and acoustic panels, all marrying minimalist form, durable function, honed technicality and a keen sustainability.

The new Split series – its first collaboration with Fager – typifies this approach nicely. An archetypally modern range of modular pendant lighting (designed to pique the interests of interior designers and architects, as well as lighting pros), the pieces’ subtle profiles and cool asceticism belie some seriously nuanced design.

The foundation of the range is its central pendant module, cast in fine-textured, powder-coated zinc alloy, and available in graphite black, grey white, red brown, pine green, olive and blue, for customisation across different applications (whether the low-lit ambience of a café or restaurant, to more open-plan and industrial work areas and communal spaces).

Added to this is one of three opaque glass lampshades: the softly robust Drum; the oval Orbit; or the semicircular Dome. With myriad different combinations of colour and form available, it’s a versatile offering; a ‘world of lamps’, explains Fager, that begins with that initial module.

There are a few neat facets to the simple base. First, there’s the gentle curvature of the profile, smoothing the edges of its otherwise blunt shape and affording, Fager says, ‘some character, some personality’. An angled surface around the LED provides directional light below; while cut-outs around the top side create a little active uplighting when hanging above a flat surface. It is, explains company global marketing manager Peter Elfrink, ‘a perfect example of De Vorm’s design ethos, made from just a few parts that have both a functional and an aesthetic role’.

But De Vorm isn’t simply concerned with looks. Its eco credentials remain second to none, and the company, explains Elfrink, consistently seeks out the most sustainable options for its materials (in the case of Split, up to 100% of the zinc alloy used is recycled content). In addition, production techniques have been developed in close correlation with its suppliers, all of whom are located in western Europe as a means of reducing the brand’s carbon footprint; and the De Vorm factory is energy neutral, powered entirely with solar.

It’s an admirable philosophy, supplanting the company’s products with a brilliant subtext and helping them blend holistically into everyday life, in the way that good design should.

‘Our collaboration thrives on both design innovation and the co-creation process,’ concludes Elfrink. ‘It’s the profound understanding of function and engineering that makes this partnership successful. Together, we explore new materials and make choices that are dictated by production methodologies – ensuring that form truly follows function without compromising aesthetics.’ The Split series is a perfectly enlightening example of just this.

© Architonic

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