Tom Dixon's Melt Light is an extraordinary series of distorted spherical lights that are half-metallized to create an incredible optical effect that casts an ethereal luminosity within any interior that they are placed. Melt was the result of a 2014 collaboration between Dixon and the Swedish design collective, Front, experimenting in the technologically advanced fields of blow molding and vacuum metallization.
Left photo: The Melt Light's resulting aesthetics have been compared to molten glass. Right photo: The blow molding process of Melt's polycarbonate diffuser.
A Melt Light starts by injecting a plastic polymer into a large, precision-made steel tool that is inflated with compressed air and then cooled. The mirror finish of each pendant is then created through the process of vacuum metallization. The air is sucked out of the formed polycarbonate shell and an electrical charge is channeled through it while a thin strip of corresponding foil is vaporized into a fine mist of metallic particles that settles across the interior of the form. This process is what creates the hyper-reflective surface finish when Melt is turned off but transforms the diffuser into a translucent color when it is illuminated. As light bounces and reflects around the uneven surfaces, Melt quite literally appears as if it hot, molten blown glass. As Tom Dixon observes, "When off, they have an organic solid metallic mass, and when lit they take on a hallucinogenic aura that transfixes the viewer."
A cluster of three Melt Suspension Lights in the finishes of chrome, gold, and copper.
Melt is available in two sizes of pendant light as well as a "surface version" that can be used as either a ceiling or wall light. All versions are available in four finishes - gold, copper, chrome, and black smoke. Melt suspension lights can be used independently or arranged in breathtaking clusters.
An early installation of the Melt suspension lights in copper finish was created for Himitsu - Atlanta's oh-so-chic, intimate and clandestine bar. The concept was created by restauranteur, Farshid Arshid, and the interior was personally created by Tom Dixon.
Melt is also available in a luxe standing chandelier version in the gold finish. Shown here with Tom Dixon's Bird chaise - an iconic piece from the late 1980s that Dixon originally fabricated in galvanized steel. An upholstered version of Bird has been produced by Cappellini since 1989 - this upholstered version is now being produced by Tom Dixon.
Chic table and floor versions of the Melt Light are also offered in the copper finish.
The entire Melt Light Series is available at switchmodern.com - available in several sizes and finishes. For more information about any of Tom Dixon's lighting, furniture, or accessory designs, please contact Switch Modern at 404-605-0196 or info@switchmodern.com
