Modern Verve Lighting - Sustainability Pursuits
The Studio
The Modern Verve Studio in North Beacon Hill
The final assembly and display area at Modern Verve.
Meeting space at Modern Verve.
Sketching in the office.
Modern Verve manufactures all of their porcelain shade profiles in-house.
All of the glass cylinder shades are fabricated at Modern Verve's shade shop which is located in a building close to the Modern Verve studio.
The Inspiration for Materiality and Structure
WALL FLOWER (above) is one of a number of sculptural light fixtures I made while in architecture school. On a very tight budget, I made these fixtures with materials I found disgarded or in dumpsters. Wall Flower was made from manipulated truck transmission parts, typewriter parts & repurposed glass from an art & frame shop.
It was through my early explorations into materials, sculptural form and structure that I became convinced of the importance of celebrating light in our spaces. Looking at decorative lighting is akin to the primal instinct to stare at fire. They provide a tangible and visceral experience.
Modern Verve's Spark Series 4-30 Chandelier in a project by Z+ Architecture & Interior Design.
Modern Verve's Flute Series 2-20 Chandelier in a project by TRG Architecture & Interior Design.
Modern Verve's Balance 48-3 LED fixture in a project by Rerucha Studio.
Modern Verve's Flute Series Endless Horizontal Wand LED H-1 Fixture in a project by Bennett Partners Architecture.
Modern Verve's Flute Series Endless Wand Fixture FLEW2 LED Linear Pendant.
Modern Verve's Flute Series Endless Wand S24 LED Sconces in a project by Moxie Design Studio.
Detail of black nickel finish on a custom Flute Series 3-30 Chandelier with smoke glass cylinder shades.
Reed Series pendants in solid brushed brass.
Customized assembly of Modern Verve's Flute Series Mini Pendants for Google's Seattle South Lake Union Studio by Mithun Architects.
We have a range of glaze and matte options for our porcelain shades.
Anatomy of a Fixture Development; the Aria Pendant Series
Beyond the Static; Interactive and Dynamic Lighting
The Flute Series Chandeliers
The Reed Series Pendants
The Reed Series of Pendants have an articulated joint to allow for infinite configurations. These pendants can be solitary or clustered in groups of 3, 4 or more.
Modern Verve's Aria 4M Pendant fixture on wall bracket. This fixture bracket projects 58" and can rotate back to the adjacent wall when overhead light is not needed.
The Machine Flower Line - Animated and Interactive
Modern Verve's Machine Flower Ellipse fixture in white porcelain and brushed nickel finish. This fixture was inspired by the anemone flower that opens to the sun in the morning and closes at night. These fixture can be activated by a solar sensor, timer, switch, phone app or pendant.
Modern Verve's Machine Flower Burst robotic fixtures in white porcelain and brushed nickel finish. These fixture can be activated by a solar sensor, timer, switch, phone app or pendant.
We Like Collaborating
We love working with designers to help integrate our lighting in their projects and are happy to do alterations to our fixtures to accommodate varying needs or inspirations. We can provide AutoCad, Sketchup, Rhino & Revit models of our fixtures to help with the design or specification process.
Our Sustainability Principles
Our number one sustainable design strategy is to make the highest quality light fixtures of timeless clean simple modern design that will last generations. We do this though using 'real' materials such as solid metal, glass and porcelain. We do not use plastics, fabrics or papers for our main fixture components since these can degrade over time and/or breakdown in UV light. The LED technology we use is re-lampable to ensure the life of the fixture is not over when the LED's dim or fail.
GRAPH: Modern Verve uses the most current LED technology for its lighting fixtures. For example, one of our 5 watt LED lamps uses only .015 kwh (kilowatt-hour) when used 3 hours a day. This is an estimated yearly cost of .60 cents a year if used 3 hours a day (electrical prices may vary by region).
Our fixtures meet the high standards and have been used in LEED and Passive House Certified projects. (The PH logo is a trade mark of Passive House International and the LEED symbol is a trade mark of the US Green Building Council.)
Special Projects
Flower Power 1
Providing a symbol of hope and revealing the magical process of harvesting energy from light.
We are in the early stages of creating sculptural photovoltaic panels that will illuminate our lighting. The photovoltaic cells we are currently experimenting with are specifically designed for low intensity conditions and can harvest interior light down to 200 lux and below.
Flower Power 2
Local News
We will have a showing of several of our fixtures at the upcoming 'Light/2023' show at Vetri Gallery October 12th through November 4th. Vetri Gallery is located just North of the Seattle Art Museum on 1st Avenue.
Questions and Answers
Modern Verve is a UL Licensed production shop and all of our fixtures are made in Seattle.