Fuse
A lot of words in English confuse the idea of life and electricity, like the word livewire - Laurie Anderson
Limited Edition available to buy online at Visible Object UK
The Challenge
Having been slightly obsessed with the prosaic, workaday, functional fuse since first watching his Dad change one Tony wanted to play with scale to create a light. He was also interested in the nature of the fuse’s importance in plugs, how we can’t run our homes without one, that we never have the right one to hand when one blows (and just what is going on when that happens?).
About Fuse: Fuse was a lamp design part of a range of lighting designed by Tony Davis and launched at 100% Design in 2008. Tony worked with Jon Baker of Design360 on the technical elements of the Lamp.
Project Overview & Solutions
If a man loves the labour of his trade, apart from any question of success or fame, the gods have called him - Robert Louis Stevenson
The design approach was to explore a scaling of the humble fuse which (thought they vary) only millimetres in diameter. Once this was decided everything else followed on. The end caps were spun aluminium with a local metal working company. The central area was created with perspex tubing. The opalescence came from a film later on the inside silk-screened with the surface details. The base featured small unobtrusive nodes to hold the design slightly proud of any surface. A small number of wall brackets were created to replicate the bracket found within a typical 13amp UK plug. The final design stands 13 inches high.
Last but not least the design had to satisfy WEEE regulations.
In addition to the lighting Tony commissioned model-makers JSM to create a scaled plug into which the Fuse Lamp could be seated. This was chosen to feature in a new BBC lifestyle show and also exhibited at the Three White Walls Gallery, Birmingham.
Website and availability: Limited Edition vailable to buy online at Visible Object UK
Distribution: UK/Europe
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The Designs
The artist in me cries out for design - Robert Frost
Prototypes
If you are truly innovating, you don't have a prototype you can refer to - Jonathan Ive
Press & PR
Be careful - with quotations, you can damn anything. - André Malraux
Tony Davis’s Fuse Lamp is destined to be a design classic.
Design for Life - The Scotsman
The next time you’re with a woman for a romantic evening at home, turn down the light on this 13 Amp Fuse lamp to get the mood going.
Gizmodo
Other Projects
All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better - Ralph Waldo Emerson
