Light designers
Daniel Schulz and Ingmar Boos are on the lookout for new paths in lighting. PLEXIGLAS® allows the two designers' ideas to shine.
Offices with classic louvre luminaires – for Daniel Schulz and Ingmar Boos, the reality in many companies is horrifying. “Office lights almost always look technical and many don't even produce light that is pleasant for working. But it doesn't have to be that way,” said Boos. “We asked ourselves: Why can't an office have functional lighting that is also decorative?”
© Boos & Schulz Designagentur
Questions like this have shaped the Boos & Schulz Designagentur (BSD) design agency since it began. Developing new ideas, forging new paths – these were the goals for which the two designers founded their company in 2011. They have been developing concepts for lighting, interior design and caravaning, among others, ever since.
Going even further
For these industrial design graduates, it all began with their own idea for rather classic lamps: metal housing, light source, lampshade. Although well designed and thought out, it was not really extraordinary. “At first, we thought too much about the method of construction and the functions, just like classic lamp manufacturers do. But we didn’t make any progress that way. We realized we needed to go a step further in order to be able to use light more as a design element,” explained Boos. Their idea was for the lamp to take a backseat and let the light shine.
LED technology as the driving force
“Light can excite people and create a mood. It adds another dimension of design to objects.”
- Daniel Schulz
Boos & Schulz Designagentur
While Boos and Schulz were sitting at their computers developing their initial visions of lamps with barely any housing, a revolution in lighting technology came to their aid: Light emitting diodes (LEDs) were replacing traditional lighting more and more. “Not only are LEDs more energy efficient than, for example, light bulbs, their compact construction and strong, directed light enables entirely new possibilities for designing lamps, such as flatter components,” Schulz explained. Based on this technology, the light designers developed products including two new office lamps, in which the housing is barely noticeable and instead the light itself becomes the design element.
From the individual lamps to series production
At first, Liviano and Cielo were individual lamps produced especially according to the customer’s needs. Series production is now planned for both lamps. More information is available at www.ocari.de
From the vision to the lamp
“We had the ideas, but we needed partners who could help us make them a reality,” said Schulz about the first steps on the path to creating the finished lamp. Boos and Schulz got certified lighting experts involved: axis GmbH & Co.KG for plastics processing and OPTOLED LIGHTING GmbH for the LEDs. Before long, the partners founded the OCARI® lamp brand in 2012 and developed the first prototypes. It soon became clear that the concepts could not function without a material with great optical properties. After all, in Liviano for example, the light from the LED light band in the middle of the lampshade needed to detach only on the milled lines.
PLEXIGLAS® was chosen. “We were impressed not only by its ability to conduct light, but also by its premium appearance and how easy it is to process,” explained Schulz. The material for Cielo, for example, needs to be easy to cut, laser and shape into a dome. The result is that, when lit, the lamp appears to be a free floating collection of lines of light, while when unlit, the transparent PLEXIGLAS® blends subtly into the background. Schulz: “For me, that is what makes a perfect lamp: I don’t want to see a metal housing – I want to see light when it’s on.”
