studio1thousand Press

Blogger extraordinaire Steph Auteri, found the constellation, posted about it and then asked for an interview.

The original post

The interview

The text:
A Q&A, courtesy of Kenzan Tsutakawa-Chinn, the mastermind behind the magic:

1. What led you to focus your work on LED lights?

Initially, with the very first lights...the idea that the light did not need to be replaced was very attractive. That pushed me to think of ways to use it where this was highlighted. But that was 4 years ago, and that is only half the story. LEDs really offer lighting designers amazing opportunities to offer lights in forms that have never been seen before. They give designers a chance to stretch, contort, distort, and generally knead what we think of as lights, or what we think lights can or should look like.

2. How large is your design team, and how does such a collaboration work from project to project? More specifically, how did the constellation chandelier come into being?

The Constellation comes from a large cloud of ideas. Studio 1 Thousand is actually only one person, with help, lots of help, from friends and acquaintances. One person who was a ton of help was Michael Nuzzi. He is an electrical engineer, who had some (lots) of spare time. Other people include a community of designers who I went to Pratt Grad ID with: Ebbin Martin, Keen Gat, and Kandice Levero.

The Constellation was originally something that was based around an idea to mimic Queen Anne's lace. There is a feeling that the multiplicity of the flower was a good model on which to base the light. I thought a lot about the illumination plane, and what the lights would be supported by. That was very important because it would become the fixture itself. There is a sense that LEDs are not powerful enough by themselves. While that is true, it is important to stress that if we are to move to an LED-lit world, we have to understand a paradigm shift. This is more than just lighting. As consumption gets more and more expensive, we must try to consume specifically what we need. The Constellation was my effort to try to present a mass of LEDs, enough to be effective, in an enjoyable manner.

3. Do you plan to market and sell this chandelier?

The light is being made right now. The first run consists of ten units. The retail price is $5,000. I am looking for shops to carry the light. I will also take a limited number of custom jobs. People who are interested in buying one should start by contacting me first.

4. What recent design trends are you most excited about?

Design and creation in general is starting to move too fast for me. Through blogs (my frienemy), I get a lot of publicity, but looking at them too much, looking at design magazines too much, is overloading. One of the goals of these lights is to connect people with a feeling that is closer to their heart, to make things that remind people of things from their past. I am way more interested in things that a normal consumer with taste will like. I look at a lot of Japanese craft, baskets, George Nakashima, craft perfected over generations. My issue is that many things we create now do not engage people at the heart level; they engage people on a brain level. That said, the most amazing thing I have seen recently is Arik Levy's Fractal Cloud.

5. I feel as if your designs are aimed toward a more high-end market. Do you have advice for fine design-loving homeowners with a smaller budget?

This is one of my biggest complaints with my own designs. In conversations with the designers at Niche Modern, one of the gripes from their products was that it was not acessable to the average person. I feel the same way. I am working to try to make products that are accessable to all sorts of budgets. I think my advice for households with a more meager budget is to sharpen your eye and broaden your horizons. Deals can be had all over. I would like to be able to design things that I or my friends could purchase, but I resort to finding things on the street, craigslist, yard sales upstate...if there are any DIY people out there, they can talk to me about buying parts.