Ece-Oğuz Yalım / Artful Interior Product Design

I can say that the say I graduated from METU Industrial Products Design Department in 1988 was the day I started to work. Throughout the time period I was in New York between the years of 1990 - 1994 mba program, I happened to start my interior architecture life by also working in a New York based interior architecture office. Together with my return to Turkey in the year of 1994, my professional works continued and in the year of 1996, we established Artful Interior Architecture Company with interior architecture Oğuz Yalım who is also my life partner. On the other hand, Arlight became our solution partner in our interior architecture projects during this 20 year period from the first day.

On the other hand, after Oğuz has worked as interior architect in one of the most professional companies in Ankara of that period for 2 years after graduating from Bilkent University in the year of 1993, we established our own company as I have mentioned above.

Our Works with Arlight in the sense of interior architecture dates back to very old times. In the year of 2005, we formed our Ece Yalım Design Studio Team with the purpose of giving industrial design services professionally in the scope of Artful Interior Architecture and together with the other sectors; we started a product design journey of 10 years in lighting sector with Arlight. Along with designing the product groups, we started to give consultancy in the direction of design vision development. With this holistic design approach, we designed company's Ankara - Istanbul showrooms and all fair stands inland and abroad until now starting from the year of 2006. Our common goals gave us the chance to append our signature together for so many product ranges and today Arlight is the company succeeded to have its awareness extended inland and abroad with its value given to design in the sector.

According to you, what is the importance of light in our lives?
Light gives life. Light is health. It is both mental and physical health. Your day starts with irradiation and then you go to bed by turning out the lights. Light is the only key for you to get to know the form, to feel the texture and to be able to enter the mysterious world of color. Researches have shown that 80 percent of the information obtained by the human beings is collected from the visual data taking place in their surroundings. Light makes them visible.

Light makes the surface it hits as a part of your world and life. Every light source within the site has a serious duty such as brightening another stage of your life. There may be the light to make this process cozy, effective and pleasant and at the same time it can also be the light to make it distressful, unpleasant, tiring and unhealthy when used wrongly.

What are the particularities to pay attention when doing lightening design?
The site it shall be used, its function, objects to be illuminated and the way to lighten them must be defined very well and these are the most determinant factors here. Selection of correct light source must come in the forefront at the stage of decision. This selection shall determine the forms of the product. Distribution of the light and its form of radiation are actually the design of the product by being determinant also for its relation with the surface it falls.  Right after this product's own existence comes and at that point it is again closely related with the definition of the duty. You must decide whether you want to place the product in the forefront in interior architecture or you want to put it away and at that point selection of material and color shall become important.

Here we have an important criterion of design team and it is interior architecture identity we carry both as the company and because of designing illumination products and by having the structure of the company. We define the architects, interior architects as indirect users and they are the important actors and we give them the importance in as much as we give to direct users. Maybe it is because of the reason that we shall be the first users of these products and we aim to design the products providing flexibility and disguise to permit architects and interior architects remain genuine in their site designs and to use their creativities. This is the common point in most of our products. It gives us pleasure to see the new states of the colors, textures and forms in the hands of our colleagues. Concept 06, Plus, Deep and Droop are the good examples of these.

If we mention yesterday and today of lighting; can you make a comparison to us?
In every period of the history, lighting products have always assumed a decorative duty in the sites they take place beyond their basic function of illumination. They reflect the design language of the period they were designed and they are the strong references related to the aesthetic language of the time they belong to. Emotional interactions of them with the user have always been beyond the function. Here, mystic characteristic of the light play important role. When it is observed from this point, despite of the fact that technological developments in illumination resources are the most distinct actor in illumination sector, we think that the aesthetic standing of illumination elements in the site and their decorative missions shall never be decreased.

How do you evaluate Led Technology?
Led technology is a technological development opening new doors in the way to excite every designer. By opening the door to downsizing and becoming elegant; it has caused the acquisition of new language to the light either in interior sites of outside to be able to enter small and confined spaces comfortably we could not even image before and it has increased and diversified our usage scenarios. Being able to give uninterrupted light linearly also gives the possibility to many new forms triggering the imagination.

What are the architectural movements you like?
Last century has been considerably rich in terms of architectural movements, however, among them, ‘Bauhaus’ has been the movement made us savor in discovering a new thing about it in our every period by influencing us by bringing honesty, contemporaneousness, practicability and different disciplines together with holistic approach methods.

What do you think about the place and importance of the lightening in architecture and urban design?
We are living in the era of having visual pollution at the highest level in crowded cities. As a matter of fact, when light is used with awareness, it can be a very good tool to improve this situation. It can exquisitely emphasize city's aesthetic values, history and engineering values such as the buildings, parks and bridges. However, this is difficult and it is like a knife edge with two sharp ends. When the same ability is used unconsciously, it can double that visual pollution. Unfortunately, today we also observe more of the unrestrainable negative side of the freedom brought by LED illumination and this saddens us so much. In expert hands, abroad we largely see very beautiful examples of the integrity of the city and light. We hope that this consciousness shall also take place in our country.