One to Watch: Lukas Peet

The Vancouver designer studied and worked around the world; now, he's making a name for himself as one of Canada's brightest design stars.

Design is a family affair for 26-year-old Lukas Peet, who is making a name for himself worldwide with his smart and simple lighting. Growing up in Banff, Peet had free rein over his father’s goldsmithing workshop, which sparked the “beginning of making things.” Both Peet and his older brother headed to Design Academy Eindhoven in the Netherlands after high school. After spending his college years learning architecture as well as industrial, interior and fashion design, Peet returned to Canada. “My 18 years here made me who I am,” Peet explains. After just a few months of prototyping back home in his father’s workshop, Peet was delighted when his projects—the glossy Spotlight pendant lamp and a collection of curvy cutlery—caught the attention of Wallpaper and Dezeen. Further experiments with lighting resulted in an elegant, looping brass pendant lamp that he named Rudi, after his dad, which was snapped up for production by contemporary lighting manufacturers Roll and Hill. Collaborations with Umbra followed. Today he makes Vancouver his home, where he’s launching Andlight in collaboration with Matt Davis and Caine Heintzman, two former LightForm staffers. The trio traffics in sleek, bold lamps with an environmental bent. “We want to be forward-thinking and efficient, both in the design and with materials and energy consumption,” Peet explains. Next up, the young designer is tackling the interior design of Livestock, a Gastown shoe store—though he doesn’t see the project as being different from his other work. “Designing a space instead of a product is just a matter of scale.”