070 FEATURE | ACOUSTIC LIGHTING
During this year's Euroluce Panzeri
showcased its ZigZag acoustic light,
designed in collaboration with Australian
product designer Jason Bird.
Founder of Luxxbox, Bird has been designing
acoustic lighting for the last seven years,
but is mainly known for furniture design and
decorative lighting collections. Despite not
initially specialising in it, acoustic lighting
quickly became one of the studio’s number
one products in its product design category.
Bird’s partnership with Panzeri to create
an acoustic luminaire comes as the first
time designing a product for a European
company, as he explained exclusively to
darc: “I had my own studio in Australia
(Luxxbox), where we developed our own
products. We’re not currently very big in
Europe as we mostly work in North America,
Asia Pacific.
“I had been talking with Federico about a
collaboration for roughly four years, since
we had met. We had been looking for justthe right project and he felt that acoustic
lighting was something they needed to
work on. The great thing about Panzeri is
they have had a lot of experience in the
linear forms. In my studio, we tend to do
big round pendants and more decorative
things, so it was a good opportunity to do
something more technical.”
The ZigZag design was driven with the
inspiration to find something suited to the
office environment that was both practical,
in terms of sound control, and aesthetically
pleasing in a modern environment.
“Linear lighting is obviously something
that’s used a lot in an office environment
and we’ve always said that because offices
are so open plan these days, with a lot of
hard surfaces and exposed ceilings, there’s
very little opportunity to add an acoustic
element,” explained Bird.
The most efficient place for an acoustic
element to be added to an office space
is above the desk, where the majority ofsound emanates. The closer the element is
to the source of the sound, the better the
absorption of echoes and escaping noise
will be.
“To hang baffles and things like that
requires interfering with the lighting
outcomes, so it’s obvious you need to
create a light that has an acoustic element
built in and that way you’re doing double
duty, two things for the price of one
essentially!”
darc saw a lot of new acoustic lighting
being launched at this year's Euroluce -
all in various shapes and sizes. However,
Bird notes it is important to recognise the
differences between products that are
specifically created and those that have
been “slapped together with some material
on an existing light fitting.”
“It’s a new niche that has been developing
over the last four years or so and I think for
any current company, they feel they need
to have something to offer,” Bird continues.Zig Zag by Jason Bird
Panzeri