In October 1990 the California College of Arts and Crafts displayed a "STARTER HOUSE" designed by the San Francisco architect Donald Macdonald. The starter home, inspired by the 1906 "earthquake cottages", was 14 feet by 17 feet. With it's high ceiling it was compact, but seemed larger. This house demonstrated how with conventional and readily available materials a home could be built for $15,000. Shaper Lighting is proud to have contributed to that exhibition by producing most of the lighting fixtures.

The STARTER HOUSE fixtures in this catalog were inspired by that exhibition. They are an effort to offer good design and high quality materials in specification grade lighting fixtures at economical prices. These clean and simple fixture designs will meet the needs of many applications ranging from housing to light commercial and institutional. For applications having more stringent requirements or where fixtures with more detail are desired, refer to the other sections of our catalog.

MATERIALS / FINISHES
The standard and lowest cost finish is "Natural Aluminum". This finish is hand satined and left unlacquered. For interior applications this finish will oxidize slowly over time. For exterior applications painted finishes over aluminum are standard. For interior use, unless noted otherwise, painted finishes are applied over aluminum base metal. Refer to catalog section G for a more complete discussion of materials and finishes. Plated finishes are only available by special order.

LAMPING
Several ceiling mounted fixtures are offered for incandescent A–lamps and for energy efficient quartz halogen par downlights. All fixtures are offered with compact fluorescent lamps, including many with high output triple twin tube lamps. Electronic ballasts are standard for most fixtures or are optionally offered.

For further information on the STARTER HOUSE exhibition refer to Builder Magazine, January 1991 and Progressive Architecture, June 1991.