Ever since we announced the 2009 SOLVE New Talent Search – brought to you by ELLE DECORATION and Weylandts – there have been eager emails wanting to know when the winners will be announced. Well we’re not quite there yet, but we can (in no particular order) announce the five finalists, selected from 120 entries of a very high standard. The judges were Chris Weylands, Ravi Naidoo, Paul Pamboukian, Adam Hoets, and from ELLE DECORATION, we had Karen Roos, Doreen de Waal and Lauren Shantall weighing in.
The winner will be announced at a gala event on 5 November and we’ll announce it in issue 66. Now you decide: which of these beautiful lights do you think should win?
Carly Warren of BHC School of Design submitted the organically-shaped “Twilight”, made from rubber bands.
Stiaan Bester is a finalist twice over. First, for his “Dop” floor lamp (above) made from tanned leather, and again for his “Stack” standing lamp (below), inspired by layers of morning sunlight falling through a forest.
Micha Koren has made this delicately filigreed adjustable lamp on a slim stem, called “Mono-Pol-I” (above).
And finally, John Edwards of the UCT School of Architecture has used an unlikely source of inspiration: the noisy vuvuzela trumpet that all South Africans know so well from football matches. Edwards has made the “Vuvu” lamp from sustainable timber, and it is designed to be a pendant lamp or a standing lamp.
