Jurie Travertine and Walnut Wall Light

The Jurie is built from three materials doing three different jobs. A round wall mount in solid timber sits against the plaster, a black steel arm carries the weight out from it, and a conical shade of solid travertine hangs at the end, the whole fixture measuring 200 millimetres high by 150 millimetres wide and standing 15 centimetres off the wall. Travertine is a stone laid down in mineral springs, and the cone shape shows its layering to good effect: the horizontal bands wrap the taper, widening as the cone widens, and the open pores catch shadow across the whole slope. Colour sits in the warm beige range with rustier seams where the deposit changed. Because the stone is solid, no light passes through the shade. It leaves the open mouth of the cone as a defined downward wash with a soft edge, which makes the fixture a directional one. The black steel is doing the visual work of separating warm wood from warm stone, a thin dark line that stops the two natural materials from blurring into each other. Off, the piece reads as a small sculptural assembly of three colours. On, the cone glows faintly at the rim while the light itself lands on whatever is directly below it.

Because the light falls downward, mount the Jurie above the thing you want lit rather than at eye level in an open wall. Beside a bed it is a genuine reading lamp: fixed roughly 60 centimetres above the mattress, the cone drops a pool onto the page, keeps the beam off the wall, and leaves the rest of the room dark enough for someone else to sleep. It frees the whole nightstand at the same time, which in a small bedroom is worth more than the fixture. In a living room it works over a sideboard, an armchair or a piece of art, where the wash grazes the wall and turns a vertical surface into a soft gradient. In a hallway or dining area it does the same over a console or a bench. The 15 centimetre projection is worth measuring against your corridor, since it does stand out from the wall more than a flat sconce, and that projection is exactly what lets the cone clear the wall and throw a clean pool. The material combination suits Japandi and Wabi Sabi interiors particularly well, and it holds up in a plainer modern room by supplying the only texture in it.

The reason to pick Jurie over a simpler stone sconce is that it is articulated. Most travertine wall lights are a plate with something attached, whereas this one is composed of separate parts, each in a different material, which gives it a small architectural presence on the wall and a shadow of its own. The conical shade is the second argument, since a taper controls light more precisely than a cylinder and directs the wash forward as well as down, so it can be used to light a picture or a worktop instead of just making atmosphere. The E27 socket takes a bulb that is not included, which is a genuine advantage rather than an omission: you set the colour temperature and output yourself, run something dim and warm at 2200 kelvin beside a bed or a brighter lamp over a work surface, and you replace it in seconds rather than replacing the fixture when an integrated LED fails. Solid timber, real steel and real stone mean the piece has weight and will not look tired in five years. Each stone cone differs in tone and in the number of visible pores, so a pair will be siblings rather than duplicates.

• Material: travertine natural stone, solid wood and iron
• Dimensions: H 200 mm x W 150 mm, 15 cm from the wall
• Light source: E27 socket, bulb not included
• Style: Japandi, Wabi Sabi, minimalist
• Light direction: downward wash
• Mounting: wall mounted