Shine On

As a student at Cranbrook Schools, the preparatory affiliate of the Cranbrook Institute of Science and the Cranbrook Academy of Art and Museum in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, David Nosanchuk was too busy with sports and socializing to consciously appreciate the campus by Eliel Saarinen.

Deborah Wilk -- Interior Design, 3/1/2012 2:00:00 AM

As a student at Cranbrook Schools, the preparatory affiliate of the Cranbrook Institute of Science and the Cranbrook Academy of Art and Museum in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, David Nosanchuk was too busy with sports and socializing to consciously appreciate the campus by Eliel Saarinen. Nosanchuk then entered the University of Michigan, expecting to become a corporate titan. He changed his mind after taking a photography elective that involved shooting his Cranbrook stomping grounds, and he ultimately earned a master's in architecture from SCI-Arc. Cranbrook again affected his career direction when a fellow graduate, now living in New York, hired him to design an office there, spurring a move east from Los Angeles. An alumni tour of the finished office reconnected him with school officials, who introduced him to David M. Schwarz Architects-a connection that has brought him commissions for over 40 unique furnishings so far.

The true homecoming occurred when Lake Flato Architects, building a new Cranbrook Kingswood Middle School for Girls, asked his firm, Nosanchuk, to develop a torchère based on one from the original building. In terms of geometry and detail, the lamp combines the stepped form of the new structure with the arts and crafts ornamentation of the original. That symbolism wasn't lost at the opening ceremony, when an illuminated mock-up of the torchère symbolized the transfer of "living light" from one building to the next. Since then, he has focused on developing a lighting line in addition to producing a rug and furniture for his old school.

Photography by Justin MaconochieNosanchuk.