BLASTED KL1 - Mesmetric

BLASTED KL1
by Kai Linke
Materials: Pine, polycarbonate, aluminium, and steel with 4 meter fabric cord.
Dimensions: H: 60 x L: 805 x W: 60 mm
Colours: Natural, Black.
Light Source: 1x T5 (PK5) 549 mm Max: 14W / 2700K
Design Date: 2011
Story: The Blasted lamp is cut out of one single piece of wood to make as clean and simple a shape as possible.
There’s no cutting or gluing the wood together. The glass-blasted treatment of the wood is where the lamp takes
its name from. Kai Linke was also thinking about what a flying branch would look like if it could be suspended in
the air. He wanted to explore unexpected gravity. Can wood find a balance where normally no balance exists? The
result is an asymmetrical pendant lamp which functions equally well as a standing lamp.
& in the words of Kai Linke: “Design can irritate the normal ways of thinking and can wake us up and change our
accepted customs.”
andtradition.com

Kai Linke
designed the Blasted lamp
Tradition: As a kid, German award winning designer Kai Linke and his sister often played with old cardboard
boxes, tape and glue. He always loved to create objects with his hands and to play with materials. Growing up,
he studied architecture at the University of Technology in Darmstadt, and then entered the Academy of Art and
Design in Offenbach, studying at the Department of Industrial Design. From 2005 to 2009 he was supported by
a scholarship from the German National Academic Foundation. After working as a freelancer for some time, he
set up his own design studio in Frankfurt. The work of Kai Linke is based on the philosophy that design can be
conceptual, environmentally friendly and functional at the same time. He believes that designing objects is like
using a language to explain his thoughts and feelings.
Innovation according to Kai Linke: “For me, being creative is being an explorative mind. I like to make experiments
and test my ideas to figure out if they really work. To be creative is like a fascinating search for good solutions
in the right form. I’m a hunter and gatherer of a lot of different things that I like. Mainly things out of nature, like
roots, barks or alga. But also books, everyday objects like spoons or clothes hangers and a lot of art, design or
day life images. I like to have a mix of these things around me during the design process. That inspires me a lot.
And I like being on holiday. Very close to nature. I find it very fascinating to work with nature itself. I feel there is
an endless potential in this field.”
andtradition.com