The New York Times-20080124-An Interior Landscape With a Glow Built In

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An Interior Landscape With a Glow Built In

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IN 2006, when Omer Arbel, left, was hired to design a 7,800-square-foot duplex penthouse for a bachelor in Vancouver, he placed the living room, dining room and bedrooms in locations with spectacular views. But that left the kitchen, master bathroom, powder room and office not dark, exactly, but lacking lots of direct sunlight or intriguing sights.

He made up for it by using light to create a landscape that pulls the eye inward. In the kitchen, shown on the cover and left, rear, he built much of the space with onyx, a translucent stone, with lighting behind it. The light that passes through the stone, even at its brightest, is layered, and varied in color and shading.

He created pods with glowing onyx in the other spaces without views -- the master bathroom, powder room and office, shown left, on the second floor.

The lights are all dimmable, and when they are low, the architect said, the onyx pods appear ghostly.

The pods have three purposes, said Mr. Arbel, 31, an architect and industrial designer in Vancouver. They light the space in a sensual way, they delineate the space, and they contain domestic activities. The pods are light used as architecture, and when the brightness changes, so does the sense of space.

In the 256-square-foot kitchen, onyx panels three-quarters of an inch thick are hung as shingles on steel hinges. Mr. Arbel placed 2 1/2-foot-long dimmable fluorescent tubes from Sylvania behind the panels. They are $180 for each tube, including the dimmable ballast and the lamp, installed. When a fluorescent tube needs to be replaced, the onyx shingle can be flipped up to reveal the fixture. (Onyx costs about $250 to $300 a square foot, installed.)

Onyx is also used to hide a pantry, and a low, lighted panel is used to face a walnut-topped bench, a small social amenity designed for someone who wants to keep the cook company, and sit there sipping a glass of wine, Mr. Arbel said.

An onyx-sheathed bulkhead is yet another source of light, and also conceals a white canvas curtain that can hide the kitchen from guests.

For accent lighting, Mr. Arbel suspended cast glass globes, like those shown at left, which are part of the 14 series of lights he designed for Bocci, a chandelier manufacturer in Vancouver, where he is also the creative director.

He likes to design lamps that have layered light -- light that is not a bright, single, shining beam, but one that has been interfered with. The cast glass is an organic material, he said, and there are so many bubbles and imperfections inside that catch the light. Each globe, which sells for about $300, is divided horizontally, and the bottom can slide down the cord, for easy replacement of the tiny bulb.

[Illustration]PHOTO (PHOTOGRAPH BY BONNY MAKAREWICZ)SCHEMATIC