It is said that necessity is the mother of invention. In the case of designer Eddy Sykes, necessity came in the form of the economic downturn, when the big-budget projects his firm was working on shut down, leading Sykes to change his focus from designing buildings to chandeliers. He began experimenting with early kinetic prototypes made by his company’s research and development department, and thus the Yakuza Lou line of bespoke light fixtures was born. Each handmade according to a customer’s specifications, the chandeliers feature a series of patterned panels that open via a small motor to reveal glass bulbs whose light reflects off the panels’ surfaces. The entire system is programmable, and each fixture takes up to six months to create. Available through pluglighting.com
