London Design Festival 2014: designer James Patmore presented his first homeware collection, showing handmade wooden pieces and a table lamp made from a circular screen as part of an installation in an east London cafe (+ slideshow).
James Patmore Studio's Luna range includes a set of shallow wooden bowls and candle holders, while Umbra is an aluminium desk lamp.
The Umbra Table Light is a white circular screen of laser-cut aluminium attached to a weighted base. The screen deflects light onto the surface behind the lamp rather than into the room and creates a peripheral glow around the circular deflector. The design is intended to give "a softer ambient light".
"Reducing the table lamp to its essence using geometric shapes I am able to utilise the naked bulb to project light off its surrounding surfaces, creating a soft omnipresent glow without a direct, imposing light-source," Patmore told Dezeen.
Hexagonal wooden candle holders and a set of wooden dishes in ash, beech and oak make up the Luna range.
"I have always played with geometric shapes in my work; the Luna range came from playful experiments of manipulating wood whilst using a hexagon as its common theme," said Patmore.
Solid pieces of wood have been whittled into hexagonal domes of three varying heights to produce the Luna Candlesticks.
"I sand the facets of the candle holders by eye from a turned piece of wood – although they follow a template, it does retain its hand-made feel," Patmore told Dezeen.
The Luna Shallow Bowls have been machine lathed with an angled edge and a shallow hollow.
"The range is finished using natural beeswax to give a matte finish that compliments the tonal range and grain of the wood," he said.
These are first stand-alone products by the London based designer who has worked under both Tom Dixon and Rolf Sachs.
The release of the items coincided with an installation called Horizon at east-London coffee shop The Liberty of Norton Folgate.
"I am building my own aesthetic as a designer and hope this could lead to interesting projects," Patmore told Dezeen. "I would love to work with retailers who appreciate the importance of self/local production on a batch scale."
Patmore suspended lengths of blue hand-dyed rope from the frame of the cafe's street-facing windows to provide privacy from the street outside and a calming atmosphere for diners.
"Knowing the space beforehand, I have always been aware that a customer sitting in a narrow space with such large windows may feel a little intimidated with the city passing by right outside, so I felt the need to break up the vast windows without taking way the cafe's visibility," said Patmore.
The rope was dyed on a gradient that faded towards the ceiling. Attached to the upper ledge, the ends were left free to dangle adding a sense of movement that contrasted the hard lines of the glass and steel architecture.
"I feel that the rope echoes the feeling of being in a field amongst the long grass and acts as subtle visual stimulant that gives you space to think whilst providing a subconscious barrier from the world outside," Patmore said.
He presented the homeware during this year's London Design Festival, which concluded on Sunday. Catch up with our coverage of the event »