A cheeky chap

PHOTOS: Liani van der Westhuizen | WORDS: Alma Viviers

Just when you think you’ve seen it all, a local designer comes along and surprises us with a refreshing and playful design for a table lamp.

Cape Town architect/designer Jan Douglas infuses pine and canvas with cheeky personality in his refreshing and playful Kantel Knaap (Afrikaans for “Tilting Chap”) table lamp design.

According to Jan he has always been interested in tectonics and how materials join together. He relishes the sense that in South Africa, where a lot of craftsmen are unschooled but have a can-do attitude, products and homes can be simply yet elegantly put together.

He also remembers playing with Tinkertoy constructions as a child, which perhaps instilled the idea of constructing something new and unique from ready-made components. In this case, he used varying lengths of 22mm x 22mm pine batons and M6 nuts and bolts to construct the Kantel Knaap.

“I always get excited when I wander around a hardware store, especially in the wood section,” he says. “So I think it is the material itself – the smell of it when you work with it; the feel of it; the character of the grain – that inspired the design.”

The Kantel Knaap is made to order and retails for R850.

For more information or to place your order, email Jan Douglas at janq_douglas@yahoo.co.uk.