Lava lamps aside, interior lighting designs typically shy away from color. But Pelle, the New York–based design firm cofounded by Jean and Oliver Pelle, opted to introduce an array of vibrant hues into its latest collection of fixtures, called the Beam and Glow collection, and did it in a quiet, intentional way that made it a success. (Beam and Glow debuted during NYCxDesign last month, and consequently picked up an ICFF Editors’ Award for lighting). As someone who’d choose rainbow over black-and-white any day, I became an instant fan of the line’s rich, subtle shades and how the designers paired them—dark lilac with rose, emerald green with peachy amber—in various pendants and sconces.
Made of LEDs, optical-grade resin lenses, and bent aluminum, which is either anodized or stained by hand with a colored finish, the lights can be wall-mounted, flush-mounted, or suspended from a ceiling. Each piece’s frame really does look like a beam, which may be a reference to the couple’s background in architecture: Jean worked at Tod Williams and Billie Tsien’s studio, and Oliver at Robert A.M. Stern’s, before launching Pelle in 2011. Never mind that the fixtures are “inspired by the pure expressions of ‘objecthood’ found in the Minimal Art movement,” as stated on the studio’s website—I just like the soothing feeling I get when staring at them.
