Prototype: Jeremy Joo’s Venture Into Lighting Design

Spirited by the proportions and forms within Asia and Africa, Jeremy Joo’s work draws from the common cultures of floor seating, communal dining, ceremony and sharing. As the mind behind local design studio JDH Projects, Joo translates this distinct design language into furniture, objects, spaces, and now, lighting that strikes a balance between minimalist and complex.

Years in the making, the duo of table and floor lamp prototypes affirms the artist’s signature style, yet contribute an entirely new element to his studio’s catalogue. While paralleling the platform-like features of JDH Projects’ Incense Burner and Side Stool, the lamps reveal the studio’s experimentation with new textures and materials.

“Glass and paper are made from sand and wood, which feel like natural extensions of the materials used by the studio,” Joo says. The lamps also feature a unique scale and weight that complement Joo’s previously made furniture. When complete, the prototypes will be featured at this year’s DesignTO Festival in a public installation at Aesop from January 19 to the 28.

With a deep history of material and storytelling, the brand’s cozy Queen Street West outpost seems like a natural setting for Joo’s work, highlighting not only the beauty of the designs’ style and structure, but the inspired process driving their final state. “Isamu Noguchi’s Akari Lamps have always been a huge inspiration,” Joo says. “Lighting is an often neglected part of a space, but can bring immense change in atmosphere and mood. Donald Judd said in an essay that ‘It’s hard to find a good lamp,’ and I guess I took that to heart.”