David
Trubridge
David Trubridge is an award-winning lighting designer who specializes in sustainable lighting and green materials. The designer lighting company is proud to hold Life Cycle Assessments (LCA’s) and Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) for their pendant lighting designs. Each hanging light fixture has a story and connection to nature, while making a stunning and unique statement for any space.
David
Trubridge
David Trubridge is an award-winning lighting designer who specializes in sustainable lighting and green materials. The designer lighting company is proud to hold Life Cycle Assessments (LCA’s) and Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) for their pendant lighting designs. Each hanging light fixture has a story and connection to nature, while making a stunning and unique statement for any space.
My ideas come from wild places, edges of turbulence and renewal, where seas break on beaches and headlands, where land and air meet on mountain ridges. I make forms of elemental simplicity, as the erosion of air and water on wood and stone, forms that speak of humanity’s survival on earth, of life’s fragility and dependence, of comfort in the ways of the past that have succoured us, and optimism for a sustainable and enriching future. I work within the limits of what I have and know, simplicity and low impact, natural materials and processes, leaving a delicate footprint.
My ideas come from wild places, edges of turbulence and renewal, where seas break on beaches and headlands, where land and air meet on mountain ridges. I make forms of elemental simplicity, as the erosion of air and water on wood and stone, forms that speak of humanity’s survival on earth, of life’s fragility and dependence, of comfort in the ways of the past that have succoured us, and optimism for a sustainable and enriching future. I work within the limits of what I have and know, simplicity and low impact, natural materials and processes, leaving a delicate footprint.
About David Trubridge
David Trubridge is an award-winning lighting designer based out of New Zealand. David’s pendant lighting designs combine a new world mix of old world skills and craftsmanship, ecologically minded materials and purity combined with high-tech genius. Each of David Trubridge lighting fixtures have geometrically pleasing forms, both pure in design and practical in purpose. The signature of his modern lighting design is leaving wood natural where appropriate, producing sculptural pendant lights from non-toxic and sustainable sources. Every pendant light has an element of biophilic design, with a form directly inspired by nature.
Product Transparency
David Trubridge Design owns Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) for their Seed System (kitset) lights. EPDs ensure product transparency and are best described as a nutrition/ingredients label – but for a company or product. They are developed according to international standards, third-party verified and earn points under green building rating systems such as Green Star (Australia), LEED (USA), The Well Building Standard (USA) and BREEAM (UK).
David’s personal life and his design work are inseparable, both rely on nature for nourishment and inspiration. The company David runs is respected globally for its early awareness of sustainable practices. David aspires to lead, not follow, green business models. Digital technology is harnessed within David Trubridge Design with much efficiency, ensuring that design development can be easily translated into production and manufacturing. The product designs use only the minimal amount of materials and are generated with a focus on longevity, rather than mimicking quick-moving or “green-wash” trends.
Environmental responsibility also extends to the day-to-day operations within the Trubridge headquarters. This includes recycling all factory and studio waste, using 100% hydro electricity, and taking full responsibility for the entire process from design conception to shipping and freighting of the final product.
Encapsulating Trubridge’s ethos, he says that he “…works within the limits of what I have and know, simplicity and low impact, natural materials and processes, leaving a delicate footprint.”
Design Recognition & Exhibitions
In New Zealand, BEST, Good Design and the NZ Home Design Awards are acquired for various lighting designs. In 2007, Trubridge also received the John Britten Award, which is New Zealand’s highest design accolade. The Snowflake and Nikau lighting fixtures won the prestigious Red Dot Design award in Europe. In the 2019 Queen’s Birthday Honours, Trubridge was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to design. In conjunction with the Natural Art Museum and the UN, Trubridge exhibited “On Thin Ice” in 2007 at the Nobel Peace Centre. Shown in Oslo, Brussels, Monaco and Chicago, this sculptural investigation into climate change won Trubridge a Green Leaf Award.
Trubridge exhibits sculptural design extensively throughout the world and can be found in private and public collections, key design stores and museums including the Victoria and Albert Museum. In 2012, the Pompidou Centre in Paris acquired two elements of the Icarus Light installation, Wing and Sola, for their permanent collection.
Why David Designs
During an interview with the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Trubridge answered the fundamental question of why he designs.
“To provide cultural nourishment, to tell stories, to reach people emotionally and spiritually; the objects are a vehicle for the nourishment we so badly lack in all the pragmatic and consumer stuff we are surrounded with. And the other reason I design is to recreate that vital connection to nature that we have lost so much, living in insulated cities.”
Trubridge has a long-standing passion for the environment, deepened by his time at sea. In 2004 he was selected for the Antarctica Arts Fellowship program, spending several weeks in this remote and ecologically delicate location. The experience inspired Trubridge to heighten his pursuit of environmental sensitivity, both as an individual, and as the driving force behind a company that continues to expand.