Studio Bel Vetro Creates Upscale Blown Glass Lighting

CS: The columns from the Las Vegas project are amazing! You write that you “struggled with the laws of physics” while creating the prototype. Was there any breakthrough moment, or was it just a slow process of discovery?

LS: This was classic “if at first you don’t succeed...” We thought we had it figured out, hung the entire column only to watch it contract and collapse inward from its own weight. That irritating little thing called gravity! The breakthrough moment was when we realized that the structural elements were going to have to also be a decorative design element. It was ultimately much more interesting.

PDL: A huge challenge was getting the glass rods cut, each to their own exact length and bias. It all fits together like perfect puzzle pieces, and not one element can be off by a tolerance of more than 1/4 of an inch, or it throws the whole shape and weight distribution off. I used a 3-D computer model to measure and number each rod.