The make
Most desk lamps are designed by addition: a feature here, a bracket there, a moulded shell to hide the mess. The Axis One was designed by subtraction. The make is four habits, repeated until there was nothing left to remove.
The first Axis One had nineteen parts. Every review since has been an argument to delete one. The version you can buy is eleven. A part earns its place by doing a job no other part can, or it goes.
19 → 11
parts, three years of deleting
The head, the joints and the collar are machined from bar stock on a single five-axis setup. One operation means one reference face, which means the head sits square to the arm every time, not most of the time.
5-axis
one setup, one reference face
Each part is bead-blasted, anodised, then handled by a person who has finished a few thousand of them and can feel a burr you cannot see. The mirror joints are polished in four stages, the last one by hand.
4 stages
of polish on every joint
We run every lamp for 48 hours before it ships, cycling the head through its full range a thousand times so the joint settles into its tension. The base is stamped with its build number and the initials of who put it together.
48 hrs
run-in before it leaves
Where it is made
Adelaide, Australia
Aluminium + stainless machining, anodising, final assembly
Stourbridge, England
The hand-blown borosilicate diffuser globe
Osaka, Japan
The 24-emitter LED ring, CRI 97
Castlemaine, Australia
The cast-iron base core
Assembled and signed in Adelaide. The base of every lamp carries its build number and the initials of the person who put it together.