There are few greater amplifiers of light, natural or otherwise, than sheer materials.
Whether harnessed to create a space that exudes bright, airy openness or to target a specific area within a room through the use of fractured luminosity, there is something magical, ethereal even, about design features that play with light.
From fine, gossamer fabrics to painstakingly hollowed-out marble lightbulbs and unexpected sources of glass, we spoke to five designers about how they have used translucency and transparency to bring spaces to life.
Sheer determination
Marble is not the first material that springs to mind when it comes to light refraction. But that didn’t stop Mumbai-based architect and interior designer Rooshad Shroff from working tirelessly to prove that even the most unlikely of materials can be illuminated with enough time and patience. It took him and his team more than 40 attempts to create his signature marble lightbulbs. And they were worth the wait. ‘Given the opaque and monolithic nature of stone, I was driven to experiment with it, determining just how delicately it could be rendered before we reached breaking point,’ says Shroff. ‘After considerable R&D, the skills of our artisans triumphed. Blocks of white Makrana marble are hollowed out into individual bulbs of 6mm thickness on the lathe,” he says. ‘The surface of each one is further hand-carved by Jaipur artisans, the pattern inspired by crystal glass. The bulb is then fitted with an LED, its light passing through this carved texture in varying degrees, creating the most beautiful, unique effect.’
www.rooshadshroff.com
Light and shade
Contrast is everything, and there’s no more effective way to highlight the beauty of natural light than to show it off alongside its polar opposite, darkness. The use of sheer, lightweight fabric in the path of direct sunlight and natural light creates rippling shadows with a water-like quality. Not only does this give the room a focal point, it also plays with the light and keeps it constantly moving, inducing a natural, calming quality. Belgian design studio WeWantMore has deployed this technique at Cult, a gastronomic restaurant in Bruges.
‘The design was very much based on creating a dramatic setting with an intense play of chiaroscuro: strong natural light that contrasts with a dark interior enriched by interesting textures,’ says Nancy Cool, the studio’s design director. ‘The light coming in from the ceiling glass creates lovely shadows on the sheer curtains which we deliberately used to add privacy, but also to allow a whisper of daylight into the dining space. The result is a beautiful, filtered glow in the veranda, making it light and intimate.’
www.wewantmore.studio
Optical illusion
Glass is an obvious choice when using transparent materials in design. But why not have some fun with it? Not content with putting a chandelier made from any old glass in the hallway of her house in Bath, StudioMorey’s founder and principal director Linda Morey-Burrows went all in with a statement lighting feature made of recycled spectacle lenses by British artist Stuart Haygarth. The perfect shape and size to create the light fractures she was looking for, the lenses are an unexpected tool to deploy and otherwise traditional light-elevating material. ‘Beyond just being practical, transparent materials can add a sense of movement and wonder to a space,’ says Morey-Burrows. ‘When the light hits the chandelier, which is called “Optical”, not only does the piece itself glisten, but it creates unexpected reflections that bounce off other surfaces in quite a magical way at certain times of the day. We have a sheer blind on the window beside it, and, from the outside of the house in the evening, you can see the refracted light.’ Each lens is individually suspended so they are free to sway and turn, which only amplifies the glistening effect.
www.studiomorey.co.uk
Room with a View
The fluid quality of a lightweight, sheer curtain catching in the breeze can be the perfect addition to a bathroom. Particularly one where the vista is as arresting as this one, glimpsed through the window of the bathroom adjoining the Elizabeth Taylor Suite at Beaverbrook Country Hotel in the Surrey Hills. ‘I selected this style of curtain as it gives a rather romantic and ethereal aesthetic,’ says Susie Atkinson, founder and creative director of Studio Atkinson and the designer behind the room. ‘As it is a bathroom, it did not feel appropriate to have anything heavier fabric-wise. I steered away from a roller or roman blind as I wanted to have the texture of the curtains falling to the floor to counterbalance the cooler surfaces such as the tiled floor, sanitaryware and large windowpanes. The diffused light is beautiful at all times of the day, and the pretty trim detail on the leading edge adds sophistication and delicacy to the room.’
www.studio-atkinson.com
Inside out
An internal window is a clean, surefire way to bathe a space in natural light. Simple and effective though it may be, it takes some expertise to get it right. The connection between two or more rooms and the outside world, it needs to work from many angles and in more than one space. Polly Ashman, founder of Polly Ashman Design, has become well-known for the use of such windows in her projects, and this family home in Hampshire is a prime example. ‘The home has wonderfully big rooms and we didn’t want to shut them all off to stop the flow of the space and light,’ she says. ‘But with four children, we needed to design a connected space comprising the kitchen and family snug with some kind of separation. An internal glass window was the perfect solution. We didn’t want it to look the same as the windows, so we painted in a dark blue. This means it really stands out, frames both spaces brilliantly and creates a great focal point.’
www.pollyashman.com
