Product of the Day: Hīnaki by David Trubridge
What it does for a room
Hīnaki is a tall, slim pendant with a woven look, and that shape does a lot of work. Hung over a dining table, down a stairwell or beside a bed, it pulls the eye upward and adds height and texture without taking up much floor or bench space. Light shines through the woven pattern and throws soft shadows onto nearby walls and the ceiling, which gives a room a warmer, more settled feel in the evening than a plain shade would.
One tip from the maker: thin plywood looks smaller once it's hung, and people often wish they'd gone a size up. If you're between sizes, it's worth thinking about the bigger one.
Why it's a good buy
Prices start at $405 NZD for the 500mm in natural bamboo, and climb with size and finish. For a designer pendant made by one of New Zealand's best-known lighting designers, that's an accessible way into the range. It's also a light that holds its own as a feature piece in a larger finish, so it works for a first designer purchase or a statement over the dining table.
The design story
Hīnaki was David Trubridge's first venture into lighting, back in 1995. He built a prototype based on the traditional hīnaki, the eel and freshwater crayfish traps Māori wove from vines, some of them in remarkably beautiful forms. Nearly thirty years on, it's still part of the range.
Made with the environment in mind
Hīnaki is made from bamboo plywood and ships as a flat-pack kitset. Trubridge says the kitset approach significantly reduces freight, one of the ways the company tries to look after the sea and land it draws its inspiration from. You put it together at home, which is part of the fun.