Jonathan Speirs Scholarship Fund

Italian lighting design company Foscarini have generously donated two Birdie Metal lamps in order to raise funds for the scholarship. Carlo Urbinati, President of Foscarini, commented: “Foscarini is an innovative and passionate Italian decorative lighting design company. It is a pleasure for us to support the fundraising for Jonathan Speirs Scholarship Fund by donating the table lamp Birdie Metal, designed for Foscarini by Ludovica and Roberto Palomba. The Birdie lamp reinterprets the classic lampshade in a contemporary way. Its design is a passe-partout, able to integrate into a range of spaces. I am therefore sure that who is lucky enough to win it will easily enjoy its friendly appeal.”

To be entered into the draw to win, please make a minimum donation of £10 to our Virgin Money Giving page.

The winner of the lamps will be announced at the WIN Awards on 2nd December. We are very grateful both to Foscarini for their generosity in donating these beautiful and elegant lamps and World Interior News who continue to support the JSSF in many various ways.

Our sincere thanks goes out to accountants Haines Watt Creative, who have offered to complete our end of year accounts on a pro bono basis. Their support and assistance is greatly appreciated!

We would like to say a very big thank you to Lightology, who have very generously given a one-off donation of US$10,000 to the Jonathan Speirs Scholarship Fund, on top of their existing Benefactor commitment.

The inaugural winner of the Jonathan Speirs Scholarship, Alex Stewart, has received a medal commemorating his win. Paul Gregory, Trustee of the Jonathan Speirs Scholarship Fund, presented the medal to Alex last week in New York.

Alex commented: “I would like thank the Jonathan Speirs Scholarship Fund for the beautiful and humbling medal… it is yet another invaluable component of this scholarship that I have and will treasure moving forward”.

Alex is currently working towards his final fall term presentation, which will be on the rehabilitation of an existing concrete storage bunker on the Brooklyn Navy Yard campus, in which light, and the the visibility or occlusion from it, has played a major role.

World Interiors News Awards have teamed up with Anglepoise® + Paul Smith to support the Jonathan Speirs Scholarship Fund. Two stunning special edition Type75™ table lamps, which were designed by leading British industrial designer, Sir Kenneth Grange, were raffled at their awards dinner last week, with over £700 raised! A big thank you goes out to WIN and their continued support.

The Society of Light and Lighting has established a lecture series in memory of Jonathan Speirs. The first annual Jonathan Speirs Memorial Lecture will take place in Glasgow on 25th September, in association with CIBSE. Mark Major will be giving the inaugural lecture on the topic of “Light + Dark = Architecture”. It is free to attend but places are limited; to register, visit CIBSE’s website.

The inaugural Jonathan Speirs Footbridge Lighting Award winner was announced as part of the Footbridge 2014 conference last week. The newly introduced award was won by the Castle Green Footbridge in Taunton, UK, by LDA Design / Moxon Architects / Flint and Neill.

World Interiors News have agreed to continue to support the Jonathan Speirs Scholarship Fund through their annual Awards event, with 10% of all entry fees and subscription income for the Lighting Design category donated to the JSSF. In addition, we were honoured to be given a platform during the Awards to speak about the Fund and announce the winner of the inaugural scholarship. We are excited to continue this partnership with WIN into the future!

The first inaugural winner of the Jonathan Speirs Scholarship Fund was announced last week as part of the World Interiors News Awards. Chairman John Roake announced the winner to be Alex Stewart, a second year Masters student at Parsons The New School For Design in New York, USA.