Tokyo, Japan – Philips is to help a team of young architects make a stunning visual statement about sustainability and simplicity by bringing their international competition-winning design concept to life through the use over 300 LED lamps.

Visitors to the 2010 Tokyo Designers Week will be able to see the “L’effet papillon­”  - The Butterfly Effect - created by Swiss architectural design studio Allegory and emerging French architect Aurore Baulier.

Built into an industrial shipping container, the design uses a combination of reflective surfaces, recycled household materials and Philips Novallure LED candle lamps to create a visual representation of the positive influence that relatively minor objects can have on a global scale.

The container creates a three-dimensional ‘frame’ for the design, in which origami butterflies made out of recycled paper ‘fly’ through its entire length. Philips lamps are suspended from the ceiling to symbolize the sky, with more lamps embedded in the floor to depict fields of fields blowing in the wind.

“We decided to conceive an installation that would recreate a feeling of infinity,” explains Aurore Baulier. “Utilizing the illusion of facing mirrors reflecting each other endlessly, we have visualized how the butterfly theory can be represented as butterflies’ wings’ fluttering, provoking unpredicted events around the world. By applying this image with recycled household objects, we wanted to make statement about how, if everyone made just a small environmental effort every day, on a global scale, the impact would and could really make a big difference.”

“We were delighted to support this initiative with our LED lamps,” says Rogier van der Heide, Chief Design Officer of Philips Lighting. “This concept boldly demonstrates how you simply enhance life with light. The Butterfly Effect combines simplicity with a highly visual design to tell a compelling story about how our own individual actions can have an impact on the world and society as a whole. We wish Aurore Baulier and Albert Schrurs of architecture practice Allegory great success in their careers in architecture and design.”

The entire concept will be exhibited during Tokyo Designers Week 2010, along with nine other designs entered into the ‘Container Competition’ organized by the Design Association in Japan and the design magazine Dezeen, for artists and designers to use ocean-going shipping containers as three-dimensional ‘picture frames’ for design concepts like The Butterfly Effect.

Editorial notes

The Butterfly Effect and the nine other winning concepts of the Container Competition will be open to visitors on the ‘Container Ground’ at the main venue of the 2010 Tokyo Designers Week, Meiji Jingu Gaien, from October 29 until November 3.

Allegory sarl was co-founded Swiss architects Albert Schrurs and Léonard de Rham in 2007 during their studies at the EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) in Swizerland, from where they graduated in 2009. In addition, Albert received a MAS Lux  specialized master degree in Wealth & Real Estate Management from the Bordeaux Management school for Léonard, and  a MAS Lux at the ECAL university of art and design in Lausanne, Switzerland, with Leonard earning a specialized Masters degree in Weatlh & Real Estate Management at the Bordeaux Management School.

Aurore Baulier graduated in 2008 as an Architect from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Bretagne, going on to take a comprehensive Masters Program in Sustainable Architecture, while an Erasmus Exchange student of the Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. Albert Schrurs and Aurore Baulier met in Paris while working for the architecture department of Louis Vuitton. The meeting led to their collaboration on The Butterfly Effect.