With two days left of Design Week, we headed out to see the latest in lighting at Cooper Cole Gallery’s Light It Up exhibit on Dundas West and the week’s main event, the Interior Design Show, at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. Light It Up gathered the work of many familiar names, including Derek McLeod, Castor Design’s Brian Richer, and the German-born, London-bread and now Toronto-based designer Angelika Seeschaaf Veres. We made our rounds to the 300-plus exhibitors at IDS to see it all, from tiles and flooring, to the latest outdoor furniture from Jardin de Ville, and innovative furnishing prototypes by up-and-coming designers at Studio North.
One corner of Dundas West’s Cooper Cole Gallery is dedicated to eeaa Design’s Corner Light. Part of Toronto Design Offsite’s Light It Up exhibit, Angelika Seeschaaf Veres’ multi-functional fixture is built to hold everyday items such as your phone, wallet, sunglasses and whatever else you want to dump out of your pockets once you get home. The touch-senstive surfaces activate just the right amount of warm LED lights for the foyer. Bonus: the shelf wirelessly charges your smartphone, and the interior mirrored surface is big enough for out-the-door hair and make-up checks. Tagged by Tory Healy.Castor Design’s Brian Richer stole the show at Cooper Cole Gallery’s Light It Up exhibit. At first look: a power outlet, an electrical cord, a fluorescent tube and a slab of black marble. Second: that glowing light fixture is not plugged in. Richer elegantly demonstrates that a fluorescent tube will light up when in contact with an electric source. It’s the marble base that is hooked up to power and collects within a magnetic field, allowing energy to be harnessed by the bulb. The end result: the bulb still lights up when lifted off the marble base. Tagged by Tory Healy.Also at Cooper Cole’s Light It Up is Jordan Murphy and Tom Chung’s sleek, black mobile-esque pendant lights. With the ability to hang independently or in combination with a steel tube spreader for a geometric arrangement, each arm of the sand-cast aluminum fixture varies in design and weight. Tagged by Tory Healy.Listone Giordano’s Natural Genius line may not be new, but it’s sophistication and understated beauty makes it worthy of a Love Tag at the Interior Design Show. The Italian flooring company has been teaming up with a number of furniture and interior designers on this ongoing parquet collection, and this version – Slide – is by Daniele Lago, the creative mind behind the whimsical Lago brand. Tagged by Elizabeth Pagliacolo.Toronto-based Totem Rug Design’s second collection of handmade rugs and tapestries showcased at the Interior Design Show’s Studio North exhibit this year. Inspired by origami crease patterns, the appropriately-named “Crease Patterns Collection” is made up of a series of crests bearing a wolf, lynx and bear’s heads. Tagged by David Dick-Agnew.
