Dezeen Showroom: Kyiv-based architect and designer Victoriya Yakusha is celebrating the cultural heritage of her native Ukraine with a lighting assortment modelled after sunflowers.
Created for her furnishings model Faina, the Soniah vary is a homage to the nation’s nationwide flower and features a sconce, ground and pendant lamp in numerous heights and sizes.
Every encompasses a sweeping, round shade that’s tilted inquisitively in direction of the viewer just like the flower turns in direction of to the solar.
The lights’ textured, whitewashed end is created from clay that has been fortified with wooden chips, straw and recycled paper to create a fabric that Yakusha has dubbed Ztista or ‘manufactured from dough’.
“Primarily based on the philosophy of stay design, Faina has a powerful connection to the earth and the residing world round us, so we work with stay and pure supplies,” she informed Dezeen.
“Ztista is a sustainable materials that may be very versatile and provides many design alternatives as a result of it may be moulded into virtually any form.”
For the Soniah vary, the fabric is utilized to a body of reclaimed metal in thick layers, following a conventional building method referred to as valkuvannya.
This was traditionally used to construct the sort of clay huts that have been frequent in a lot of the Ukraine and the encompassing area earlier than stone and brick grew to become common firstly of the twentieth century.
Unfired clay was both blended with lower straw or layered onto partitions manufactured from woven branches and twigs earlier than being whitewashed with a lime combination.
“Faina collects the voices and knowledge of the centuries and tells their story to the world,” defined Yakusha.
The Soniah vary is a part of a wider assortment known as Following the Solar, which additionally features a bench and low desk made of sunshine ash wooden that take the sunflower as their leitmotif.
The gathering epitomises what Yakusha describes because the model’s “new primitivism”, which fuses indigenous data, craftsmanship and supplies with a contemporary design language.
“For me, new primitivism is to point out what you see by way of design – with out interpretations or allegories. It is a little bit bit naive however very sincere and honest,” mentioned the designer.
“New primitivism returns us to our roots and pure state. When having all of the technological capabilities of the trendy world, we select to be easy and see the wonder in easy types and supplies,” she added.
Yakusha, who was a decide at this yr’s Dezeen Awards, arrange Faina in 2014 to champion the Ukrainian design scene and share its cultural heritage with the world.
Beforehand, the model has launched a chair usual from the identical Ztista materials because the Soniah lights, in addition to an armchair impressed by historical depictions of the feminine type.
Beneath the umbrella of her self-titled design studio, Yakusha additionally works throughout interiors, and her Ya Vsesvit design for a monochrome workspace was shortlisted for small workspace of the yr on the 2019 Dezeen Awards.
Product: Soniah lights
Designer: Victoriya Yakusha
Model: Faina
Contact: order@faina.design
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