Archive for the ‘products’ Category

Forbes & Lomax, The Invisible Lightswitch

Thursday, May 6th, 2010

A design isn’t finished until somebody is using it.
- Brenda Laurel

Some of the best products we come across arrived to our office via a client. That’s exactly the case with Forbes and Lomax. Only recently have their products been available in the US but Forbes and Lomax have been producing electrical devices for the UK market for the past 20 years. Inspired by the style and finish of light switches from the 1930s, we find their products to have the right mix of simple operation and retro aesthetic to compliment any style of home.

Having grown up in a home with push button switches, I welcome the no frills operation with the high quality finish. Their switches come in a variety of operations including the toggle switch, the push button, rotary dimmer and traditional outlets for power and data.

The most dramatic component of their line of products is the transparent face plate which allows a wall finish to show through the face plate to further minimize the switches visual impact.

Also, note the screwless, flush to the wall face plate. Just a clean finish surface to compliment your home. While Forbes and Lomax may have intended their focus on a traditional market we find their products to be the perfect finish for even the most contemporary of homes. Forbes and Lomax is currently building a distribution network in the US.

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Vitrocsa, The Minimal Window

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010

“Good design is great. Great design is transparent”-Joe Sparano

This is the first of many entries on the topic of building products and materials. As part of our ongoing research we spend numerous hours reviewing and meeting with material and product suppliers. Having worked on a number of high-end contemporary residences in the Santa Barbara area, I’ve had the opportunity to work with a number a really great products. Enter Vitrocsa, a Swiss window company whose doors and windows have the precision and craft we’ve come to expect from all things Swiss. Their windows have been used widely in western Europe and are well known to architects in Switzerland and Portugal. Their windows have not been widely marketed to the US. However, having seen them firsthand I can attest they are simply stunning; they provide a refined finishing touch to a contemporary project. Central to their design is the extraordinarily narrow sash that surrounds the insulated glass panel, 3/4″ at the mullion and approximately 1.5″ at the handle side of a sliding door.

Vitrocsa can support these narrow profiles in doors that are up to 10′ tall. Traditionally large operable units are cumbersome to operate due their weight and method of support. Vitrocsa has developed a flush sill system that supports the operable unit on a series of ball-bearings reinforcing visual lightness of the unit with an equally light method of operation. The entire system is beautifully engineered but it’s important to understand that such a precise system requires equally precise construction standards.

The Vitrocsa system is designed with very high construction craftsmanship in mind. They work with tolerances that are measured in millimeters and it is important that the design and construction team work to meet these tight tolerances. That said, the Vitrocsa team went to incredible lengths in order to support the project, providing a fully documented drawing set for each and every door and window. At the time of the project, Vitrocsa supported US projects from their offices in Portugal. They are currently supplied to the US through Goldbrecht-Systems US.

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