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About Alexander Calzadilla

Alexander Calzadilla is a Cuban male originally from Philadelphia, who has happily called Miami his home since moving here at the age of 15. He attended Southwest Sr. High School and Florida International University, ultimately receiving his Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration. While in college, he began working as a paralegal for the Law Offices of Jeffrey E. Reichenbacher, a position he kept for seven years after graduation. He subsequently worked at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius Associates before landing at Costa Nursery. After distinguishing himself with many accomplishments, he was promoted to the position of Director of Specialty Products, which included the orchid, bonsai and lucky bamboo departments. When Alex was first put in charge of the three departments, they ranked near the bottom. By the time he left Costa after seven years, Alex had transformed the floundering departments into unqualified successes, posting record earnings, sales and profitability. In 2008 Alex was named the Costa Employee of the Year. Alex now puts his formidable prowess as a businessman into his newest venture, Avant-Garde Home Furnishings, LLC, serving as Managing Partner.

About Avant-Garde

We offer home furnishings and decor for every area of your home,both inside and out, always striving to bring you the most current design elements being used by today's top designers, at a fraction of their retail cost. Whether you are completely redecorating an area of your home, looking for the perfect accent piece to finish off an existing room, shopping for a unique gift, or simply "window shopping" to get design ideas, Avant-Garde is the place to go for everything modern & contemporary for your home.

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Friday, October 19, 2012

All about lighting:

All about lighting:

Today I am writing about lighting and its many forms and shapes and the uniqueness each piece carries.. Lighting is perhaps the most important piece to any room, it can make or break any design and its possible its exclusion in discussions can make a great design seem only passable. The use of wrong lighting can make any thousand dollar room seem like a flea market buy.. Lighting can either match the decor or serve as an accent room piece.. one very common room design has modern contemporary furniture with traditional glass chandeliers or pendant amps, the end result usually being stunning, that is if the match was made ahead of time and by designers who know just how much is enough or not enough... 

Enjoy the pics and post...

Vederlicht Lamp by Daniel Hulsbergen

A childhood fascination with model glider planes led Daniel Hulsbergen to create the Vederlicht (featherlight) pendant lamp.


(Click the images below for full sized images)


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Says Hulsbergen, "Back then these planes cost too much for me to buy and I only could look at them in the shop. The small kid in me is still there so I took the technique and material for making a glider and used it to design a light."


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The Vederlicht is made of Balsawood and Oracover, the same material used to cover the wings of a glider, which "gives the lamp it's ultra light weight."


Circles and Countercircles Chandeliers by Troika
Studio Troika have created two lights for the newly refurbished London home of The Royal Society of Arts.


(Click the images below for full sized images)


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Chandelier with 12 lenses
Inspired by the work of early Enlightenment scientists and the manipulation of the very substance of the light itself, Troika's chandeliers act as key components of the architectural refurbishment scheme designed by Matthew Lloyd Architects.


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Says Troika, "The principles at work in both chandeliers, namely the diffraction and controlled scattering of the light, is reminiscent of the early experiments of Sir Isaac Newton and the later Augustin Fresnel, while signifying a quest for deeper understanding which found a natural resonance with the values and legacy of the Royal Society of Arts, founded in 1754."


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The chandeliers use large fresnel lenses to shape the light generated by high power LEDs on the outer edge into geometrical patterns projected onto the ceiling, "thus contributing compelling decorative elements to the surrounding spaces while providing the necessary illumination levels."


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Single lens chandelier
The Grand Staircase chandelier (above) is comprised of a large 1.2m diameter fresnel lens, rimmed by a white Corian ring, and suspended in front of a rose-gold plated cradle housing 9 high power LEDs.


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"As the white light generated by the LEDs passes through the lens, a pattern of 9 overlapping rings is created, adorning the ceiling with a unique crystalline rose."

 

Valerie, My Crystal Sister Chandelier by Lucas Maassen


Lucas Maassen has created a crystal chandelier using DNA as the starting point for the design.


(Click the images below for full sized images)


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Valerie, My Crystal Sister is a crystal chandelier that will be presented by Dutch designer Lucas Maassen, in collaboration with global healthcare company Roche, for the new Confrontations: Contemporary Dutch Design exhibition at the Vitra Design Museum.


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Says Maassen, he began the project by raising a question: "is it possible to use the biological process that created me as a design process to create an object?"

After several months together with Roche, he successfully crystallized synthetic DNA fragments (which are present in Maassen's parents). A magnified glass version of the resulting crystal, only visible under the microscope, was then produced by Vienna-based crystal manufacturer Lobmeyr. 1000 such pieces then formed a crystal chandelier.


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Maassen continues, "Ultimately, this project is about the visualization of life. DNA is the basic code of life, an essential part of every organism."

The chandelier was named for the sister Maassen never had because his parents' marriage ended too soon.

Thinking of her, he called the project Valerie, my Crystal Sister, giving the chandelier the name his parents would have chosen for him had he been a girl. The chandelier, and thus, their 'crystal daughter', was assembled by Maassen's parents in a performance on June 12th at the Vitra Design Museum.


Naturoscopie
 
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Naturoscopie III mirror
Each of the Naturoscopie III objects functions like a photographic black box, a developer of images and emotions (see also the tables below). "The perception of a landscape, of a changing sky, a sunset or an aurora borealis is supported by the partial, moving and coloured vision of a photograph printed on aluminium and concealed inside."


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Naturoscopie III coffee table
"What is important here is not the image itself, but the impressions contained in a past moment, in a souvenir kept alive thanks to the object which houses it and the lighting system implemented."


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"The LED spots alternately dance across the printed surface. The photograph is never totally visible. The experience of the object thus becomes progressive, leaving the spectator free to project himself into his own sensory memory."


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Naturoscopie IV light

A cloud appears to have been captured within Naturoscopie IV, above. "This image is created by the activity of the alveoli and their differential depth inside the object. The cellular framework thus creates progressive shadow effects, imitating the shape of a moving cloud through optical and kinetic effects."

Naturoscopie will be shown at the Galerie BSL stand (G12) at Design Miami/Basel, in Basel, Switzerland from June 12 to 17, 2012.


 
LightDrive Table Lamp by Raj Singh, David Lee, and Steven Peltier
Radast Design has turned lamp design on its head with a light source in the base.




A high output LED module is housed in the base of the lamp. Using a specially designed optical waveguide, which works the same way as fiber optics, light is transferred to the top of the lamp where it's diffused into the room.


(Click the images below for full sized images)


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The heat from the LEDs is safely and effectively dissipated within the base of the lamp. Steven Peltier, Radast Design co-founder explains, "we literally turned the design of the lamp on its head. By placing the light source in the base, we not only solved how to safely control heat, we also opened up a whole new world of possibilities in lighting design."


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1 comment:

  1. I love all of this! My wife would seriously love some modern furniture from NYC for Christmas. She loves the minimalist look and feel.

    ReplyDelete

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