One to watch
The award-winning Auckland lighting designer’s work ranges from bespoke to commercial pieces.
Alex Buckman’s light touch
Tell us what you do and why you do it.
I’m an industrial designer with a passion for lighting design. I spend most of my time designing bespoke feature lighting, as well as limited-production pieces. It’s a really interesting part of the design world to be in, since you get to work closely with the client to produce something that’s unique to their space.
You recently won Gold Pin at the Best Design Awards for the ‘AB Pendant’, the result of a two-year collaboration with David Moreland and Nikolai Sorensen for Città. Tell us more.
It was awesome to come away with gold, especially considering the quality we saw from the other contestants. My collaboration with Città has been a career highlight. We had the opportunity to design the AB from the ground up, so every component is specially designed for the pendant. This allowed us to spend time ensuring we could seamlessly integrate the lighting component within the glass shade to preserve its seamless quality.
Your practice ranges from bespoke pieces for big projects, such as a nine-bedroom Arts and Crafts home, to collaborations. What are you working on now?
I’m working on another lighting project with Città – it’s a completely new system that offers flexibility in how customers configure their lights. It’ll most likely be launched in early 2020. At the other end of the spectrum, I’m working on a large one-off feature light installation for a hotel in central Auckland. It’s a huge scale shift and comes with some interesting challenges, including wind exposure. In among these projects, I’m finalising the redesign of my product range, including the Colony Cluster series and Dawn Pendant. My goal is to produce these for customers who want an off-the-shelf option that’s still unique.
Tell us a bit about yourself and your background.
I was born in Blenheim, where I spent most of my childhood. I studied industrial design at Victoria University, where I gained a masters in design innovation, majoring in industrial design. After studying, I worked at Weta Workshop for a year, designing props for various films. I was really interested in designing for real-world people, or human-centred design, so I moved to Fisher & Paykel Appliances. The design team there is truly talented, which really helped me progress my skills. I’ve always had a passion for lighting and I’ve been lucky enough to produce bespoke pieces for residential and commercial spaces. At the start of 2019, I decided to go out on my own full-time.
I don’t have any specific design influences. Inspiration can come from so many different sources – architecture, fashion, music, family, friends and, of course, nature. If I don’t get outside enough, I find it difficult to work creatively.