From Raw Forms to Radical Homes: Inside Omer Arbel’s Mind
Discover how a Canadian artist coaxes beauty out of concrete, glass, and chance
No Blueprints Needed: Omer Arbel’s Approach to Design
You may not recognize the name Omer Arbel right now, but once you learn about him, you’ll start noticing his influence on how people around the world think about art and design.
He’s a Canadian artist and designer whose work can be found in homes, galleries, museums, and even on city streets. What makes Omer Arbel different is his approach: he doesn’t force materials to follow his ideas. Instead, he explores what happens when you let glass, concrete, metal, and other materials reveal their own possibilities.
If you look into Arbel’s career, you’ll see that he isn’t just a designer of everyday objects.
He creates lighting installations that look like they’ve been shaped by nature rather than by human hands. He designs houses that let concrete flow into forms you’ve never imagined. He’s driven by a desire to let the process guide the outcome, which means each piece is full of surprises. By doing this, he’s helping push contemporary Canadian art and design into new territory, encouraging you and others to think differently about what’s possible.
Early Life and Influences
Omer Arbel was born in Jerusalem in 1976. He lived there until he was 13, when his family moved to Vancouver, British Columbia.
This change in environment—shifting from the ancient textures of Jerusalem to the lush forests and mountains of British Columbia—helped shape how he thinks about space and materials. It wasn’t just the move that mattered; he was also a competitive fencer as a teenager, representing Canada on the junior national team. This experience taught him about discipline, focus, and the idea that you need to respond quickly when facing something unpredictable.
Later, he would bring that mindset into his design work, embracing the unpredictable nature of materials.
Arbel studied environmental science at the University of Waterloo, graduating in 1997.
After that, he apprenticed with the renowned Catalan architect Enric Miralles in Spain and then worked at Patkau Architects in Vancouver. By spending time in these offices, he learned that great design isn’t just about looks—it’s also about understanding materials, structure, and the stories behind them. The sudden passing of Enric Miralles brought Arbel back to Canada, where he completed his professional degree in architecture. This mix of experiences set the stage for the unusual path he would follow.
Founding Bocci and Embracing Chance
In 2005, Arbel took a leap and co-founded Bocci in Vancouver. Bocci is not just a company; it’s more like a workshop and research lab filled with designers, glassblowers, chemists, engineers, and architects all working side by side.
They experiment, play, test, and learn, allowing materials to do unexpected things. By keeping the process open-ended, they often end up with forms they never would have designed from scratch.
Bocci’s first major release was a lighting design known as “14.”
Launched in 2005, “14” quickly became a bestselling piece. Interestingly, the best qualities of “14” were partly accidental—arising out of the natural properties of the glass rather than a strict plan. This realization convinced Arbel and his team that letting go of strict control could lead to incredible results. From that point on, the idea of “constrained chance” guided their work. They set some rules, but then they let the materials speak.
International Recognition and Installations
If you’ve ever visited the Victoria & Albert Museum in London or the Barbican Centre, you might have seen Arbel’s large-scale lighting installations.
For example, in 2013, a piece consisting of hundreds of glass spheres cascaded from the Victoria & Albert Museum’s vaulted ceiling, creating the impression of a natural phenomenon hanging in mid-air. Visitors who looked up weren’t just seeing a lamp—they were seeing a moment of discovery, something that felt both modern and ancient.
Such installations have also appeared in other notable places:
Canada House in London’s Trafalgar Square: Arbel’s work lit the central staircase with over 150 of his “57 series” lights.
Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel in Vancouver (2015): A large outdoor installation from his “16 series” greeted guests and passersby, challenging them to see everyday surroundings in a new way.
These projects place Canadian design on a global stage, showing everyone what can happen when you combine curiosity, craftsmanship, and a respect for the materials themselves.
Architectural Adventures
In the same year he launched Bocci, Arbel started his own architectural practice, OAO (Omer Arbel Office). He approaches buildings the same way he approaches objects: by trusting the process and the materials.
Consider the “23.2” house in South Surrey, British Columbia. This project began with a huge collection of reclaimed Douglas Fir beams. Instead of cutting and shaping them into standard sizes, Arbel treated these beams as if they were historical artifacts. He let their original shapes dictate the layout of the house. The result is a home that tells a story about the land and its resources, reminding you that good design can honour what came before.
Another significant project is “75.9,” a house on a hay farm in the Canadian Pacific Northwest.
For this project, Arbel poured concrete into fabric moulds supported by plywood ribs. By pouring the concrete slowly and continuously, he allowed it to form unpredictable shapes—walls and columns that look like archaeological ruins discovered in a field.
Some columns even reach heights of 10 meters, and their hollow tops can hold mature trees. Imagine walking into a home that feels like it’s grown out of the ground, with concrete columns that seem ancient yet modern at the same time. In 2019, this innovative approach earned Arbel a World Architecture Festival Award.
From Sculpture to Experiments in Material
Arbel’s curiosity doesn’t stop at architecture and lighting.
In 2015, he held his first solo exhibition of sculptural work at the Monte Clark Gallery in Vancouver. There, he displayed pieces created by experimenting with glass fusing and electroplating. He took simple materials and put them through processes that revealed unexpected forms. In 2018, his molten beeswax candle was included in the “Raw Design” exhibition at the Museum of Craft and Design in San Francisco.
By 2020, he was showing a new series of copper sculptures at Carwan Gallery in Athens, each created by pouring molten copper into glass and letting the two materials interact.
This pattern repeats throughout Arbel’s career: he picks a material, sets some basic conditions, and then stands back to see what nature will do. As a result, no two pieces are ever exactly alike. Instead of mass-producing identical objects, he creates a family of related forms, each with its own character.
Special Projects and Honors
In 2010, Arbel co-designed Canada’s Olympic medals for the Vancouver Winter Games with artist Corrine Hunt.
Initially, he dreamed up a medal system with magnets and hidden cavities, even imagining etching the sound of an athlete’s competition onto the medal. Practical limits prevented these more unusual ideas from becoming reality, but he still managed to ensure each medal was unique. This commitment to originality shines through whether he’s making a house or a piece of jewelry.
Arbel’s achievements have earned him high praise.
He’s been shortlisted multiple times for the World Architecture Award and received the Allied Arts Medal from the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada in 2015. His work has appeared at Spazio Rossana Orlandi in Milan, the Art Institute of Chicago, and many other respected venues. He shares his knowledge by serving as a guest critic and speaker at design schools, including the University of British Columbia and Parsons The New School for Design in New York.
In June 2021, Arbel’s first monograph, published by Phaidon, was set to launch.
This book offers a chance to see his career and philosophy in detail—a helpful guide if you want to understand how one Canadian designer continues to influence contemporary art and design worldwide.
Future Directions and Ecological Concerns
Arbel’s future projects push even further into blending design with the natural environment.
He’s begun work on a series of homes in Washington State that aim to become part of the local ecosystem rather than separate from it. Imagine houses made of concrete and covered with wooden burl orbs that encourage moss and other plants to grow over time. Instead of trying to dominate nature, these homes would welcome it, offering habitats to new organisms.
This is a big idea: buildings that don’t just sit on the land but actively make it healthier.
By thinking about the ecology around his work, Arbel invites you to consider that design can do more than just serve human needs. It can also help nature thrive.
Lessons You Can Take from Omer Arbel’s Work
So what can you learn from Omer Arbel’s approach? Here are a few points to consider:
Letting Go of Control: Arbel shows that when you let materials have a say in the final form, you get results you never imagined.
Respecting History and Nature: His projects treat found materials like reclaimed beams and hayfield landscapes as equal partners in design.
Encouraging Innovation through Experimentation: Instead of following the same old methods, Arbel’s team experiments, fails, tries again, and discovers something new.
Connecting with the Global Stage: Arbel’s installations and architecture are displayed worldwide, showing that Canadian design can spark conversations in London, Berlin, Athens, and beyond.
In a world often focused on perfection and predictability, Omer Arbel’s work stands out for its openness to chance and its respect for the materials’ own logic.
By looking at his pieces, you might start to see that there’s more to art and design than following a carefully drawn blueprint. Sometimes, what you really need to do is set the conditions and watch what unfolds.
Omer Arbel’s Influence Continues
Omer Arbel is reshaping how we think about contemporary Canadian art and design.
He’s designing objects and buildings while also exploring what happens when you trust your materials, celebrate unpredictability, and welcome nature into the process. Whether it’s a cluster of glass spheres dropping from a museum ceiling, a house formed from flowing concrete columns, or a future home built to help local ecosystems, Arbel’s work encourages you to look at the world differently.
By knowing his story and understanding his approach, you gain a new perspective on design.
Arbel shows you that the most exciting moments occur when you step into the unknown, push the boundaries, and let the materials themselves point the way forward. It’s a lesson that goes well beyond art and architecture, reminding you that sometimes the best results come when you embrace uncertainty.
Here’s a link to Omer Arbel’s website where you can check out a number of his projects and some cool videos showing him bringing his visions to life: https://omerarbel.com.
Share your Stories About Contemporary Design and Innovative Art
Have you heard of Omer Arbel before? Did this story make you realize that you’d come across his work or influence before but didn’t know it at the time? What do you think of Arbel’s approach and projects? Take a quick sec. to type a comment and share.
And then have a rad rest of your day!
Sources used to research this story
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omer_Arbel
https://uwaterloo.ca/architecture/omer-arbel
https://omerarbel.com/projects/75-0/?project-cat=buildings
https://www.dezeen.com/2024/10/29/omer-arbel-washington-houses-cedar-orb-clouds/
https://www.dezeen.com/2023/10/25/omer-arbel-fabric-formwork-concrete-pillars-canadian-house/
I just watched a 15 minute youtube on the 75.9 house that Omer Arbel designed. Wow, it’s unbelievable and stunningly beautiful. Thank you for introducing me to this fellow. I lived in Vancouver for over 35 years and this is the first i have heard of him. What a gem.