'I'm a bad stylist. Materials are my toolbox. I will use a material that has been around for thousands of years [such as glass] or just 50 years [such as honeycomb, which he uses in lighting and dishes]. Once I've found the genetic code I will inject a gene virus [as though it is a scientific process] that will create a new twist.'

He finessed this with Baccarat, finding new glues to join glass blocks for candlesticks and skilled water-jet cutting techniques to engrave tumblers. 'My job is to connect 300 years of know-how and history with the next 100 years. It's very ambitious to create timeless pieces and it's not always easy,' he says.

Sitting in his office in the Marais district of Paris full of the products of his ideas, the 44-year-old Israeli-born designer becomes philosophical when justifying his work. He approaches design on a pragmatic level, creating solutions rather than focusing on superficial looks. It is a person's relationship with objects and the materials used that interests him, not the surface decoration.

As a child in Tel Aviv he wanted to learn how things worked, so while his kindergarten friends played in the sand Levy would be dismantling his mother's vacuum cleaner. Similarly, he was given a skateboard and decided to burn the wheels, not as an act of vandalism, but because he 'wanted to smell its flavour'.

Levy describes his early work in the 1980s as focusing on 'transportation design'. After doing national service in the Israeli army, he launched a windsurfing business (he's passionate about the sport) designing surfboards, sails and wetsuits. He also ran a graphic design business until he started college. In 1991 he graduated with distinction in industrial design from the Art Centre Europe in Switzerland before landing a job designing modern dance sets for big ballet companies such as the Batsheva Dance Company, the Finnish National Ballet and the Netherlands Dance Theatre.

Set design, which he still does today, was not, he says, about recreating a street scene but being an 'architect with the space'.

Because he and his L Design business partner Pippo Lionni work in many different fields - including graphics, packaging, industrial design, fashion and interiors - they create a cross-fertilisation of ideas.

'I bring technology and art into the theatre, I can transport theatre into the world of merchandising and I can take light from the theatre into an exhibition,' he says. 'What I do is transport the experiences from one field to another.'

The nebulous nature of his work means there is no clear evolutionary path to Levy's design. 'Creativity is an uncontrolled muscle, it is not something I do on demand, it is constant,' which apparently leads to many sleepless nights because of his inability to download the images and ideas buzzing around his head. However, he is organised, thriving on running maybe 100 projects at once. He works with furniture manufacturers including Ligne Roset (stacking chairs, sofas and innovative lighting), Zanotta (colourful wire tables), Vitra (Cartier office furniture system) and Baleri Italia (folded coffee table); he has designed watches for Seiko, and had a fashion collection with South Korean manufacturer Kolon. There's been jewellery for Baccarat, packaging for Armani and Boucheron and a project is in discussion with shoe designer Bruno Frisoni of Roger Vivier.

Levy regards his big break as arriving in Paris in 1992. He began work on numerous small projects focusing on lighting, watches, graphics and packaging, until Gloria Friedmann, owner of the Galerie Passage de Retz, offered to hold an exhibition, which they called Light Light. That was in 1998 - and he hasn't looked back since.