Bespoke lighting for an Ayvalık hotel: one language, different forms
A bespoke ceramic lighting family for a boutique hotel in Ayvalık: different forms with a shared language across rooms, lobby and stairs, shaped by clay and light.
Design notes: Oğuz — Architect, Deramic
At Deramic, we designed and made a bespoke ceramic lighting family for a boutique hotel in Ayvalık. The owner wanted more than standard products that could readily be found elsewhere. The brief was for a design language that would feel specific to the hotel, extending from guest rooms into shared spaces without repeating the same object everywhere.
We developed the wall lights, pendants and table lamp around one question: how can different lights feel part of the same family? We explored the relationships between form, texture, light and material.
A design language that continues from room to lobby
We began with the hotel as a whole. Rather than repeat a guest-room pendant exactly in the lobby, we wanted each space to have its own composition. The continuity a guest could follow through the hotel would come from relationships between the pieces.
We kept the material and certain textural qualities consistent while varying form, scale and grouping. We designed individual pendants for the rooms, a group of five for the stairwell and a group of three for the lobby. Each area could have its own arrangement within a shared visual language.
Shaping light through openings in the wall lights
The stoneware body used in this project does not transmit light. For the wall lights, we worked with openings within the texture rather than making the ceramic body itself translucent. We developed a double-wall structure made up of small bridges. Its partial openness belongs to the patterned surface, not to the ceramic material itself.
To develop these surfaces, we directly design the paths the 3D printer follows as it deposits clay. We use the clay's flexibility during printing to form the small bridges. In the wall lights, our intention was to screen a direct view of the light source while allowing indirect light to pass through the openings.
When a light is switched on, it also illuminates parts of its own ceramic surface. Lit and shaded areas change how the texture is perceived, giving the wall light a different character from its unlit appearance. We used this texture across all the wall lights designed for the hotel.
A familiar texture across different pendant forms
For the pendants, we used a texture also found in our Coirra collection. We treat the visible layers of 3D printing as a design element, introducing controlled deviations into the printer's path. These movements produce a surface that recalls coiled ceramics and strips of clay built up by hand.
We wanted to find a balance between familiarity and novelty: the sense of closeness associated with handmade ceramic objects, combined with forms developed through digital production. We produced this texture, which recalls the coil technique, through 3D clay printing.
We designed the forms parametrically, retaining certain formal relationships while changing dimensions and proportions. The five pendants in the stairwell share a texture but differ in form and scale. The lobby's group of three develops the same approach into another composition. Variation breaks up repetition while maintaining the family resemblance.
One clay body, a shared material language
We made all the ceramic lighting pieces in this project from the same stoneware clay body and fired them at 1200 °C. The real clay shaped by the 3D printer became fired ceramic through the kiln process. A shared material and firing temperature helped connect the different textures and forms. We designed the table lamp as part of this continuity too.
Deramic's scope includes lighting developed for 15 guest rooms, the lobby, stairwell and gallery voids, as well as the table lamp. Our design, production and delivery are complete. Construction of the hotel is ongoing.
A lighting family shaped around your space
If you are looking for distinctive lighting that connects different areas of a hotel, restaurant or architectural project, we can begin with the atmosphere you want to create. You do not need to have selected a product or settled on a particular shape.
Photographs or plans, approximate dimensions, the areas where the lights will be used and the feeling you want to achieve are useful starting points. You can contact us as the project owner or together with your architect. We can explore which elements should stay consistent and where the designs should differ.