Sustainable Lighting Design with Porta Romana
18th March 2021With a strong focus on recycling and sustainability, specifically centering on people and planet, we are proud to represent Porta Romana as our preferred lighting and furniture partner.
Throughout 2021 many are seeking out more environmentally conscious ways to improve our homes, as we continue to spend more time in them. Creating ample space, introducing plenty of greenery to maintain connections to nature, and considering sustainable and natural products are key factors as we approach Spring.
This iconic British brand, have sustainability at the forefront of their mind when it comes to design and manufacturing. The Surrey based business, source materials locally and work with highly skilled craftspeople to produce their lighting and furniture collections, which helps keep their carbon footprint to a minimum.
An impressive 80% of Porta Romana products are produced in England, with 60% of pieces being made less than 45 miles from the Farnham Head Office.
Porta Romana metalsmiths use materials naturally found on and in earth, producing pieces forged from mild steel and using repurposed tools. The team have increased the content of recycled materials in their products where possible, whilst the glass blowers conscientiously maintain the traditional glass blowing process, re-using the glass that remains on a blowers pipe, and using tools that have been passed through generations.
Ceramic makers practice sustainable manufacture, recycling waste heat, waste water and excess clay. Indeed, all makers are waste conscious, practicing traditional methods, they save and reuse whatever they can, whilst using tools that are often passed down through generations and re-purposed.
With a Green Team and Upcycling Club, which encourages clients to update existing lamps or trade in their old Porta Romana pieces for new ones, the company are light-years ahead of the competition - pun intended 💡
Each new collection comes the challenge of creating new finishes. From convincingly aged plaster, to perfecting the patina of a mussel shell, each new finish must work in harmony with the design.
Design partners are encouraged to produce stunning, original and technically challenging pieces, and craftsmen strive endlessly to come up with solutions to the many design problems presented to them, and work to exacting standards; resuscitating old techniques and developing new ones.
Porta Romana have a huge selection of all kinds of lighting from the iconic Duck Feet table tamp, eye catching chandeliers and timeless wall lights. From sculptors to ceramicists, from lacquering to glazing, every expert hand and eye is focused on the crafting of something beautiful and enduring. This goes for the stunningly beautiful furniture also made to the same exacting standards ... but I'll leave that for another blog!
SPRING 21
The Spring 2021 collection has a wild and fantastical feel to it. With designs that transport you to another world, the Spring collection combines organic forms with an element of escapism. New models, concepts and colourways come together to form a range of unique and artistic Porta Romana pieces.
WE LOVE...
The Porta Romana Cocoon Pendant! Not only is the design uniquely beautiful, with careful consideration to the construction (see video below), the glass purposefully has bubbles and imperfections in it. The glass used is recycled from other Porta Romana glass products that had flaws in the glass, which means the glass is 100% sustainable and recycled - this really is a genius solution to glass wastage!
Inspired from the incredible structures woven by insects, a sleeve of clear, bubbled glass sits inside a laser cut trillian framework gilded in precious gold or silver leaf. The meeting of two key elements, fire and earth, combine to create something delicate and beautiful. Suspended as a single pendant, grouped together, or used in combination with the Porta Romana Orb family, the Cocoon is a charming piece which will bring an ethereal beauty to any interior. Available in Bright Gold and Bright Silver.
As ever, if you would like to discuss your lighting requirements, or indeed if you have any other interior design queries, please feel free to call us on 01442 818122, or pop in to the showroom when we re-open on April 12th!
