luis eslava: armadillo and LZF studio visit

lzf studio in valencia, spain image © designboom

for the event of this year’s valencia disseny week, spanish lighting company lzf has created ‘armadillo’, a suspension lamp composed of many layers of polywood, the company’s signature material. designed by luis eslava, the lamp is featured as the focal point of the lzf booth at feria habitat valencia which utilized more than 4000 wood veneer squares to clad the wall exhibition space.

polywood is essentially thin wood veneers treated with polymer to seal and strengthen it. the resulting material is flexible and strong, yet thin enough to gently filter the light when lit from behind. this method allows the studio to create designs that are often curvy and voluminous, yet still natural in aesthetics and feel. the collaborative company hand-makes each product at their workshop in chiva, a spanish village just outside of valencia.

a prototype of ‘armadillo’ in the lzf studio image © designboom

designboom, invited among other publishers and contributors of international design blogs and online magazines – to the feed program, the ‘first international design media and bloggers meeting’ – visited the studio, which is based out of a former winery facility. 

polywood squares image © designboom

iterations of the lamp image © designboom

testing the fish scale pattern image © designboom

‘armadillo’ at lzf booth at the feria valencia image © designboom

detail of the layered polywood image © designboom

exhibition view image © designboom

founders of lzf, marivi calvi and sandro tothill portrait © designboom

‘guijarros’ wall lights by marivi calvi image © designboom

‘onion’ suspension lamp by bang design (2008) image © designboom

detail image © designboom

lzf studio space image © designboom

workshop image © designboom

making of ‘poppy’ designed by burkhard dämmer (2008) production shot image © designboom

making of ‘saturnia’ designed by oskar cerezo image © designboom

video of lzf studio