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THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2005

By ERNEST BECK

LEXANDER LERVIK, a A Swede, knows about the gloom of long dark winters. So, as a designer striving to bring light to dim spaces, he has come up with illu- minated versions of products that never glowed before: a door handle fitted with a light-emitting diode, or L.E.D, that shines bright red when the door is locked, and an illuminated children’s swing.

For Mr. Lervik, light “changes the identity of a product and gives you more to work with, more expres- sion.”

He is not alone in his fascination with light. Designers and manufac- turers in many countries are now us- ing miniaturized L.E.D. technology to wire everything from kitchen and bathroom fixtures to furniture and floor tile. Light is emerging as the medium of the moment.

This fall, the German home prod- ucts company Villeroy & Boch will begin selling Light Tiles — ordinary- looking glazed clay tiles equipped with an L.E.D. device — in the United States. Hit a wall switch and the tiles, which will cost $75 to $100 each and come with a 60-page installation manual, glow blue, white or amber.

At a time when high-tech gadgets fill every corner of the house, “people are receptive to light applications that go beyond ceiling lamps and sconces,” said Rick Crane, tile sales manager for Villeroy & Bach.

Mixing the elements of light and water is popular with many compa- nies exploring this new field, but the combination comes at a price. Neve Rubinetterie, a small Italian faucet maker based outside Milan, will soon start selling a product in the United States called the Brick Glas. It is a faucet embedded in a rectangular block of transparent or frosted Plexi- glas, which is lighted from below by alow-voltage L E.D.

The faucet costs about $1,500, which may be a bit steep for the op- portunity to brush your teeth in the dark. But it is not as expensive as showering with light.

Ondine, a luxury shower systems company in City of Industry, Calif., sells the Electric Light shower head, with 270 spray channels wired with fiber optic cables and a halogen light, for between $2,500 (for the chrome version) and $15,000 (24-carat gold). The cnlor of the light is adinstahle

DESIGN NOTEBOOK

Everything Is [lluminated

SEAT OF POWER Alexander Lervik designed the Lightswing, above left, and the Brighthandle, top center.

The Electric Light shower head, top right, and basins and tubs by Jan Puylaert, bottom, mix light and water.

soothing, you can set the head to that,” said Patty Gatto, marketing director at Ondine. The shower head was designed as a form of chromath- erapy, which assigns healing proper- ties to each color of the light spec- trum and which has become a pop- ular marketing tool for light product makers.

Designers are jumping on the chromatherapy bandwagon, whether or not they are true believers. Jan

Puylaert, a Dutch designer who runs -

an Italian design company called Wet, says he’s not really a New Age type, but he believes that light gives you ”a nice energy and some invisi- ble comfort, like plants.” Mr. Puy- laert’s contributions to such com- forts are a bathtub and a wash basin, made of lightweight polyethylene, which come with either a halogen light or an L.E.D., and sell for be-

‘tween $1,400 and $2,500 for the tub,

and $250 and $500 for the basin. Tor- sten Neeland, a German designer based in London, says light is about

Hstimulating the senses ” aven whan

as a coffee table. During London de- sign week events last week, he showed such a table, the Oranien- burg ($2,350) with three elliptical Co- rian tops that can swivel out from a pedestal base. A fluorescent light on

— —L This season, design is aglow.

the base casts a pink glow between the layers. The effect, Mr. Neeland said, “reflects the power of color.” These new forms of illumination are popular with consumers, manu- facturers say, but some design-world purists are less impressed. Brooke Hodge, the curator of architecture

and design at the Museum of Con- tamnararv Art in Tne Anoelac save

ement like light is “an odd embe!- lishment” because it doesn't have a function.

“Light is a pleasant thing and you can use it to change the mood and at- mosphere, like those watches with different colored faces,” she said. “But you have to ask, ‘what does it do? Why is it there?”’

The push to illuminate everything isn’t all frivolous, according to Mr. Lervik. He got the idea for the Brighthandle door handle, which sells in the United States for about $150, while gazing at a “‘do not dis- turb” sign in a hotel. “I thought, it might be possible to design the func- tion of that sign into the door, to use light to communicate the same thing,” Mr. Lervik explained.

It may be simply the beauty of light that is attracting so many de- signers to it. After all, said Leni Schwendinger, a lighting artist in New York City who is working on a project to illuminate the Coney Is-

land parachute jump, people love licht harance “it fille rthe eve with