Did you know that pretty soon over a half a billion people are going to be saying goodbye to incandescent lamps?  Yeah.  A half a billion, plus.  There’s a great article at Forbes about this very topic.  Please read it!

An excerpt:

In a little more than a year, more than half a billion people in nearly 30 nations around the world will bid adieu to the incandescent light bulb.

Last week, the European Union joined Australia, the Philippines and Cuba in finalizing plans to outlaw the sale of incandescent light bulbs by 2010. The U.S. plans to ban the bulbs beginning in 2012.

And for good reason. Incandescent light bulbs, which convert heat into light, are notoriously lazy, using only about 2% of the electricity they consume and wasting the rest as heat. Considering that lighting accounts for nearly one quarter of the world’s electricity use, the potential energy savings are prodigious. The prospect of converting those savings into profits has encouraged a clutch of companies to commercialize cutting-edge lighting technologies. If the past presages the future, it will take more than an intriguing technology and superior economics to kill the incandescent light bulb, especially in the U.S.

I love the quote about how this lamp came to fruition:

This design was inspired by illogical placed and/or operating switches for lighting.

To switch the lamp off, you have to pull down on the “eye” in the middle, breaking the circuit in the center, or utilizing whatever disconnect mechanism breaks the circuit.  A unique design for sure - I wonder where the best application would lie for this fixture.  My initial inkling would be somewhere in a smaller room.

Form follows function in this fixture.

Sander Mulder loves PMMA.  That is a fact.  Frankly, I love that he loves PMMA, because with fixtures like the Josephine and Therese in his rep, it shows some diverse knowledge of material and how it reacts and interacts with light.

Enter, the Marie-Louise. A table lamp with the same dimmable fluorescent source and color inserts that the Josephine and Therese lamps exhibit.  From Sander Mulder’s product page for Marie-Louise:

Made from 16 transparent contours illuminated by a fluorescent bulb, this table lamp provides a modern reincarnation of the traditional ambient lamp.

Through the use of special materials and accurate CNC milling techniques, not only the hood section, but the whole body of this fixture emits a magic light.

Together with floor lamp ‘Josephine’, and chandeliers ‘Therese’ and ‘Therese XL’ this sophisticated design is part of a series of unique lighting fixtures, which are guaranteed eye catchers in any interior.

I think that Sander Mulder might be my “Designer of the Month,” if I had such a category.  Hmm…

In the same vein as the Josephine PMMA lamp, Keune and Mulder have another beautiful piece in their respective repertories - the Therese chandelier.  Keune and Mulder do great things with PMMA - there’s another product being reviewed as well in a few days made of their PMMA-cut configuration - a table lamp, the Marie-Louise.  Both Dave Keune and Sander Mulder have this product on their sites.

What I understand about these PMMA fixtures is that there is also a color filter insert for the inner dimmable fluorescent source, which could be quite fun.  A suggestion I might make for them is to produce a set of color correcting filters for random occasions, or for people suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder.  No matter the occasion, these are beautiful pieces.

Another Dave Keune and Sander Mulder collaboration before Buro Vormkrijgers went defunct, the Josephine lamp is another interesting and innovative product from these designers.  Sander Mulder has this on his personal post-Buro Vormkrijgers website, so I am making the assumption that it’s his brainchild.

Josephine is made from PMMA sheets, cut and mounted around a special dimmable fluorescent source.  I want to know where they stashed the ballast for this “special” dimmable fluorescent!  However, clear edge-lit forms are some of my favorite ways to light.

Thanks to Yanko Design for the images!

HA!  Check out this pretty simple video from the people at Commoncraft.