A single tube of travertine, 28 cm tall and 6.5 across, held off the wall by a slim walnut plate. Open at the top and open at the base, so it throws two cones onto the wall, one rising and one falling, with a dark band in the middle where the stone is.
Up and down lighting does something a single downlight cannot. The two beams meet the wall well above and well below the fitting, which stretches the lit area to roughly a metre and a half of wall from an object 28 cm tall. In a narrow space that is the difference between a lit wall and a lit spot.
Where it earns its place
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Narrow hallways. Projects barely 8 cm from the wall, so nobody catches a shoulder on it, and two down a hall wash the full height.
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Either side of a bed. Vertical, quiet, and the upward beam softens the ceiling line above the headboard.
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Flanking a mirror or a doorway. The tall proportion answers a tall opening better than a round fitting does.
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Restaurant and bar walls. Repeats cleanly along a run and keeps the light off people's faces.
Real stone, so no two are the same
A 28 cm tube is cut from a tall block, so you get a long uninterrupted vertical section of the bedding. Some pieces carry a clear seam running the height, others none. Lit from both ends, the banding at the top and bottom edges shows more than it does in daylight.
Fitting it
Hard wired, and a job for a qualified electrician. The walnut backplate is slim, so mark the centre line first and work outward. In a hallway, 1.5 to 1.6 m from the floor to the centre of the tube puts both beams where they do the most work. Beside a bed, drop it to around 1.2 m so the lower cone lands on the bedside table. For a pair, match the height rather than the distance from the corner, which is what the eye actually reads.