Designing light objects

One of the biggest challenges in creating the office space at the lighting application centre was the sheer amount of technology that had to be packed into the ceiling: all the normal office services plus carousels with different lighting solutions.

“The Organic Light-Emitting Diode offers the possibility to design light objects in new ways. It's subtle, easily integrated and concealable, and as a result, it frees the design process from all the constraints that might have been there before. We supplied OLEDs to students, and the results were real luminaires that in some cases were perfectly production-ready. On these grounds alone, it was a very positive experience.

More than that though, we were surprised by the freedom of forms and the freedom of creation used so fully in the production of these prototypes, which for us was the most positive outcome”.

Stéphane Delaitre, Key Account Manager Creatives, Philips Lighting, France

The installation, named dot.vote, was made possible by the collaboration of students, instructors, and partnering companies. Philips Color Kinetics provided the LED fixtures, iColor Flex SLX, for the display, adding to the existing partnership between Northeastern and Philips Color Kinetics. This relationship stems from Northeastern’s co-op programme, in which students work full-time for six-month cycles at the Philips Color Kinetics headquarters in Burlington, MA as part of their education.

“Philips came with a very specific request, with a new technology: OLED. The challenge for us, the students at Ecole Bleue, was to find a function for this OLED, to find a support for it and to turn it into a real luminaire”.

Morgane Huot-Marchand, Student, Ecole Bleue, Paris

“In a project such as this one, we were far more focused on the approach and on the research than on creating a directly marketable product”.

Raphaël Plane, Lecturer and Designer, Ecole Bleue, Paris

“Above all, we wanted to incorporate it into an object and not simply make it into a luminaire, to be able to incorporate it into an object with a function other than just providing light. To be able to create a storage space, to make it into a light that we could use for reading or writing.

OLED doesn't generate any heat at all, so it's really a luminaire that you can have very close to you, but without any discomfort. It's more about hiding the light source, like a lampshade, to really create filters to minimize how much you can see the light source, so in that sense, we are really in the area of adding value to a product”.

Morgane Ovadia, Student, Ecole Bleue, Paris

“For me, the interesting characteristics of OLED are its subtlety and its light distribution. I think that, with OLED, we completely rethink the notion of light. I believe that it's an open door to a great deal of creativity”.

Viviane Schuhmacher, Student, Ecole Bleue, Paris

Thanks to Raphaël Plane, Lecturer and Designer at Ecole Bleue for initiating the collaboration.

All the students at Ecole Bleue who took part in this project, and particularly Morgane Huot-Marchand, Morgane Ovadia and Viviane Schuhmacher for sharing their experiences.

Luminous 14:
Discussing with light