If you are familiar with the work of Ron Arad, you know that crushing steel is a theme he returns to again and again. Beyond creating furniture for Moroso and Driade and iconic buildings – including the Design Museum Holon – around the world, Arad is also known for his artworks that often involve flattening metal objects, most famously a bunch of Fiat 500 cars in his In Reverse series of installations. When award-winning developer Great Gulf commissioned him to create Safe Hands, they chose the right person for the job.

Arad worked closely with Streamliner (which provides custom fabrication for public sculptures large and small) to realize his vision and make his renderings come to life. He visited the Toronto factory at the project’s outset and developed a rapport with Richards that would allow their collaboration to become an intuitive one that could be completed even as the two communicated across the pond.

Its stainless-steel tubes welded together and painted vibrant hues at their joints, the tower is now a focal point at Yonge and Bloor Streets. And it’s also the subject of a Doors Open talk on Saturday (tomorrow) moderated by Azure Editorial Director Nelda Rodger and featuring Ron Arad, Great Gulf Executive Vice President Alan Vihant, Dragana Maznic of Dragana Maznic Design and Jane Perdue, Senior Planner Urban Design at the City of Toronto. Tickets to the talk, being held at St. Paul’s Bloor Street at 1PM, are free (first come, first served). Details are 

Indeed, the process is sculptural. Azure spent a few hours earlier this week at the Partisans studio, filming their making. Using a thermoforming process, Josephson and his team take optical-grade acrylic sheets and heat them to nearly 400 degrees, until the plastic becomes pliable. They then hand-sculpt the panes, forming beautiful waves and bends that set in place as the plastic cools. The panels, which are embedded with a fine-spun grid of tiny LED bulbs, are then placed in a custom-made extrusion.

Partisans is best known for its architectural work, including Toronto’s Bar Raval, which garnered accolades from the design world (and from tapas fans) for its curvaceous interior made of CNC’d mahogany. Josephson created the first Gweilo lights initially as an experimental luminary installation almost three years ago. In 2016, Azure awarded those prototypes with an AZ Award for Best Lighting Installation.

Now, in partnership with LightForm, the studio is turning the luminaire into a market-ready product with a family of Gweilo lights, ranging from desktop scale (25 to 50 centimetres tall), to floor lamps that stand over a metre-and-a-half tall.

The custom-built light is being launched next week in Toronto, with a “live-forming” performance and display at the Interior Design Show, January 19 to 22, 2017. Architect Omar Gandhi, sculptor Harley Valentine and designer Tommy Smythe will join the Partisans team in creating the lights; the proceeds of the guest-created Gweilos will be donated to Habitat for Humanity.

To celebrate Azure’s 30th anniversary, we are spotlighting the place where it all began: Toronto. And one of the most outstanding residential projects to be found in our home city is Integral House, a masterful four-storey Rosedale home completed in 2009 by Shim-Sutcliffe Architects.