Archive for the ‘Glass Lights’ Category

RESOLUTE embraces new lighting technology; we strive to provide the most pleasing illumination quality possible while remaining respectful of energy efficiencies, user operation costs, and environmental/disposal considerations.

As new illumination technologies adapt to the familiar Edison-base screw-shell format, the ability to intelligently adapt a single fixture to diverse lighting applications increases significantly.

The Edison base screw-shell format is now available in four illumination technologies:

Standard Incandescent

Incandescent lamps provide rich light quality, excellent “comfort” (warm) color rendering and controllability.  Incandescent offers what is generally considered the most aesthetically pleasing light but it is the least energy efficient. Because of the energy penalty, the incandescent lamp is slated to be phased out. Other options follow.

Screw-shell CFL

The screw-shell CFL lamp with integrated ballast offers a relatively long operating life and is energy efficient.  Self-ballasted lamps do not perform to the level that dedicated “four-pin” CFL lamps do, but late generation types like the Sylvania Mini-Twist produce pleasant light efficiently at a good value. There are few dimming options for screw-shell CFL lamps however. Fluorescent lamps contain small amounts of mercury, creating disposal issues.

Halogen

Halogen is a form of incandescent technology; halogen lamps are 30% more efficient than traditional incandescent lamps. A halogen gas replaces the inert gas in a standard incandescent and the lamp is run at a higher filament temperature. At this high heat, the tungsten burning off the filament combines with the halogen gas and is re-deposited on the filament in a repeating cycle — dramatically extending the life of the filament. This allows for a smaller filament, further improving performance especially in aimed applications. Special quartz glass is used for the “bulb” to withstand the higher heat. Dimming control is straightforward and effective. Lamp life is longer than traditional incandescent but shorter than fluorescent.

LED

New LED technology offers the longest life span and best energy efficiency. LED is mercury free and provides better color rendition than CFL. While more expensive than CFL, it is less prone to flickering.  Achieving good all-around light from LED sources has been challenging. While the technology offers the best balance overall, it has performed poorly in decorative applications. Latest generation screw-shell LED, like the Sylvania Ultra LED A19 Omnidirectional, promises substantial improvement in this area. LED generally offers excellent dimming control, screw-in versions presently dim adequately. LED has the highest up-front cost but long life and energy efficiency offset that over time.

We thought a visual comparison of incandescent, CFL and LED technologies would be interesting.  We photographed three of our fixtures, Box, Markee and Otto, using a standard A-lamp incandescent, a Sylvania Mini Twist and a Sylvania Ultra LED A19 Omnidirectional.  Other conditions remained constant.

Top to bottom: Box – Imago shade, Markee – aramid shade, Otto – opal white glass.
Left to right: Incandescent, CFL, LED.

ANN TAYLOR LOFT GLASS CLUSTER

This custom cluster of glass fixtures began with a concept proposed to RESOLUTE by Ann Taylor’s Director of Store Planning & Design with the intent to replace a collection of acrylic globes with something more elegant in new rollout store locations.  RESOLUTE worked with Ann Taylor to develop and execute the concept – refining the proposed cluster of three larger forms into five slightly smaller fixtures, creating a compatible collection of unique shapes.  The largest of the alabaster-colored glass shades is 14” long and 10” in diameter, the smallest is a 9” diameter sphere.

Glass shop director Alex Maughan produces RESOLUTE’s custom glass projects locally –drawing on a network of artisans as necessary and using the outstanding public glass facilities available in Seattle.

Empires rise and fall, fashions come and go.

Resolute has risen and fallen like a drunk at Mardi Gras as it has moved through a succession of phases. We began with Paper Lights as outlined in my previous post, next came Glass Lights.

I had meant to cover each of Resolute’s “periods” rather quickly on the blog in order to update those of you who work with us regularly on the 2010 catalog product line. After covering the basics, the idea was (and remains) to then move on to more meaningful (or at least provocative) topics. However, the time to accomplish that has been elusive. We are presently working flat out on launching the first products of what we intend to be our next great period. More about that soon.

Following Paper Lights, we mixed glass into our offering. Our initial motivations to move into hand blown glass were both rational and wildly irrational. We wanted products that were more difficult to copy – that was rational. The rest was lustful seduction by the beauty of hand crafted glass. We built one of the best production studios in the world and were fortunate to be able to staff it with the some of the finest glass craftsmen.

We took our glass craft very seriously and we produced great products.

Anon. Incalmo Pendant (discontinued)

There were a couple critical issues with glass though. First, our shop had a fixed capability to produce. The capital investment in a glass shop, both in equipment and in development, is staggering. We built a medium size facility. A glass shop is not something one can adjust up and down. It is either all on or all off. Too little product when demand is high and too much product when demand is low. Lighting is a very cyclical business. Matching demand was difficult. Second, Resolute has always been intensely interested in sustainability and social responsibility. During the two years we were working on the design of our new home, our investigations of these topics became more intense and much more rigorous. I’ll revisit the specific issues in a future post but the short story is that glass craft, as we were practicing it, is recklessly irresponsible. Seductive, beautiful, intriguing and noxious. We were heart broken.

All processes have positives and negatives. Our responsibility is to strike the best balance. With glass, our research eventually brought us to the conclusion that scaling a craft above its appropriate level is irresponsible. Glass production is a prodigious energy consumer and additionally a modest producer of unpleasant byproducts. Both of these aspects are best controlled in larger much more highly capitalized industrial facilities.

So, we wound our glass shop down in 2009 and have transitioned our glass production to what we feel is a much more responsible source in Slovenia. Of course, the extreme high craft is gone but then the sorts of handmade dresses Marie Antoinette wore are no longer available either – nor should they be.

Our current glass catalog includes revised versions of familiar Resolute products.

Fortuna Wall, Otto G9 ADA Wall

Elizabeth Pendant, Cloud 1 ADA Wall

The next step will be to develop new glass models better utilizing our new glass resource and current lighting technologies.