If you engage the services of New York studio Apparatus to spiff up your lighting design, then chances are you’ll be invited to get together with the firm’s creatives at their stylish Manhattan studio. Apparatus uses hand-worn materials with a genuine patina such as aged brass, etched glass, leather and porcelain – so a sterile showroom environment would not suit the designers, the clients or the products at all. Instead, the Apparatus studio is a homely place – albeit an extremely stylish home – which seems to encourage the kind of tactile interaction that will create tomorrow’s materials.

Jeremy Anderson runs the production side of things, bringing creative director Gabriel Hendifar’s designs to life at the studio. The Appartatus workplace is available to visit by appointment, which presumably gives the duo time to have a good tidy up; the space betrays no sign of the artisanal making that goes on, but instead boasts a lovingly-presented collection of art and objects that owes much to Anderson’s travels. Apparatus recently launched four excellent new ranges which you can see in situ at the studio – contact the chaps to request a visit.