I have been working with the amazing design team Het Collectief in Delft on the lighting design for a new Dutch cafe/bar – in the Netherlands. From this collaboration, we came up with a new lighting fixture project – Indiependants.

Innovation is at the core of many aspects of the Indiependants design process. The pendants are created to cast dramatic shadows in addition to lighting the room, and also use conventional materials in an unconventional way. However, we think the most innovative aspect of the project is our ambition to turn the consumers into the designer.

Indiependants is developing a platform in which the consumer can imagine, design, and purchase their own lighting design. This is a virtual collaborative platform in which we can guide creativity. Our algorithms allow the users to easily manipulate all of the customizable aspects of the pendants, and then see the changes in real-time. These design parameters include overall size of the pendant, the profile of the pendants, number of sections on the pendant, color and length of the electrical wire, overall efficiency of the design (how much material is wasted in the laser-cutting pattern), and more.