Illuminated Furniture Design Project. Need Feedback……..

[sholio]

I am doing a project on lighting furniture for my industrial design course. Well, basically the idea is to integrate a functional lighting into my furniture design. It could be anything: a coffee table that has lighted panels on it, a "sitting lamp," embedded LED lights into your pillow etc ....... Why? its all in the name of fun. And of course to brighten up our homes.
As part of my research, I am seeking feedback from other designers regarding this topic. Any comments on this issue will be very benneficial to me.

Thanks a lot!!

LHZ

[VANDANA]

good concept
may be u can make a glass shelf ( with a wooden base) n witinh that may be incorporate some lighting system

[SDR]

Sorry I didn't see this sooner -- sholio might have moved on to other things by now; perhaps this will be of use to someone.

I have spent considerable mental energy, and some physical research, on this topic. (I qualify as a student of architecture, even after a career as a cabinetmaker/furnituremaker.) I believe in an enhanced role for what we call "furniture" -- in fact, I refer to such enhanced objects as "furnitecture." [Search the term on this board for the full definition.] Examples from the past include the built-in cabinet/furniture of Frank Lloyd Wright and R M Schindler, among many others; see the large piece in oak that furnishes the living room of Wright's "Hollyhock House" (the Barnsdall residence) in Los Angeles (1917). I believe this piece includes lighting fixtures.

As many pieces of furniture serve to support electrical appliances (clocks, lamps, audiovisual components, etc) it seems to me that built-in electrical recepticals and wire-management devices might reasonably be included in some tables and case pieces, just as they are in laboratory benches and office work stations, and many other kinds of industrial furniture. Wright's use of corner lanterns in some of his early dining tables, and traditional library reading-table lamps, serve as other precedents; dining table lighting needn't rely solely on candles or overhead lighting fixtures, it seems to me.

Despite the obvious implications of all this, virtually no archiitect that I am aware of has specified a seating piece with built-in reading light. So there is one possibility for "electrified furnitecture."

Something that I HAVE explored is back-lighted wall case pieces: that is, furniture placed in front of a light-colored wall surface, with concealed ("indirect") lighting built-in, to light the wall behind the piece. This has the benefit of visually expanding the space (when the room is in shade, as in the evening); the furniture in question, and objects -- plants and decorative objects, for instance -- on it, are placed partially in silhouette, and the distance between them and the wall plane is obscured or disguised. This has the tendency to "read" as an enlargement of the space in that part of the room. (This is easily demonstrated with lamps probably found in every student's room. Try it!)

So, more than merely a "fun" project, lighted furniture has the potential to deliver real benefits to its users. I encourage students of furniture design to explore these potential benefits.

Sincerely, Stephen Ritchings