At Salone del Mobile.Milano Euroluce and Workplace are focused presentations that alternate every other year with Kitchen and Bathroom design. This year Euroluce was outstanding and I found the Foscarini stand to be especially interesting for its new light fixtures but also for its new tech.
As you may know or certainly could have guessed, Foscarini is an Italian lighting company. It was founded in 1981 on the Venetian island of Murano, famous for its glass works. Consequently, for its first ten years or so, blown glass was the preferred (nearly exclusive) material of its products. In fact, its first big commercial success came in 1990 with the Rodolfo Dordoni designed Lumiere; a beautifully crafted table lamp with a polished aluminum base and a mouth-blown glass diffuser.
But over time the siren call of new materials and the desire to innovate were too great to resist and the company moved on to the exploration of new materials, light sources and styles. Not the abandonment of exquisite glasswork, but the inclusion of other materials that could do things glass could not. In that vein, two years of research with designer Marc Sadler led to the development of Mite and Tite, launched in 2000. Using a blend of fiberglass and carbon fiber threads Sadler and Foscarini created the company’s first Compasso D’Oro winners.
Last week in my review of Salone del Mobile.Milano I stated my opinion that while innovation in furniture design is incremental – more like evolution; occurring so slowly it’s hard to see – by comparison, innovation in lighting is very rapid right now due to the switch from incandescent and fluorescent light sources to LED.
Judging from the ample evidence at Euroluce the switch is well under way. And as lighting companies get more and more comfortable with the peculiarities of designing for LED light sources I expect the pace to increase. And why not? LED is more flexible and more efficient than incandescent or fluorescent. It is getting more cost competitive and consumers are becoming more willing to pay a little more for longer life and lower energy consumption.
Perhaps because I’m familiar with Foscarini’s showroom on Greene Street in Soho or maybe just because of the design of its stand with its playful deconstruction of the Foscarini logo, I was particularly drawn to its Euroluce stand.
“We have chosen this exhibit design to narrate who we are: an incubator of ideas. Foscarini is a company that gathers, develops and activates multiple design ideas and creative contributions. We present the work of designers with whom we have collaborated for some time – including Marc Sadler, Andrea Anastasio, Ferruccio Laviani, Ludovica & Roberto Palomba – but also new projects, such as those with Ilaria Marelli and Tord Boontje.” Says Carlo Urbinati, President of Foscarini in the company’s Euroluce press release.
The stand was designed by Ferruccio Laviani, who also contributed three new product designs to this year’s collection. “We have envisioned the entire display space”, Laviani explains, “as a sort of ‘skin’ that wraps and defines the setting: a roof made with panels of transparent polycarbonate, personalized with an interpretation of the Foscarini logo in red to enclose the booth – open zones alternating with more intimate areas.”
Inside the stand I found 10 new product lines – all of them using LED as the light source. But besides the 10 new fixture designs I got a demonstration of a very interesting new IoT product called MyLight. One of the advantages of LED is that it lends itself to programming and MyLight is an App you can download to your phone or tablet that allows you to programmatically control (personalize is their term) a growing selection of Foscarini fixtures, as they are retrofitted with the appropriate circuitry.
The app seemed quite intuitive, allowing you to turn fixtures off and on and dim, either directly or on a timer. That’s pretty standard stuff, but in addition for two of Foscarini’s biggest sellers, Cabouche and Twiggy floor, MyLight gives you the ability to change the color (temperature) of the fixtures individually.
You can program the color of light from a fixture to a schedule throughout the day, either in synch with or opposition to the natural light in the space. I love the idea of being able to vary the color of light based on use, location or just simple preference without having to change the bulb. I assume they will be adapting more fixtures to accept the color-change tech as soon as practicable.
As much as I liked the MYLight demo, make no mistake, the new fixtures were the artfully displayed main attraction. So here’s a brief rundown of each one.
Uptown, Design: Ferruccio Laviani.
Laviani says, “The geometric lines of Art Deco and Memphis; glass with its possibilities of combination, the compliments in pane glass of the 1960s… the list of inspirations behind uptown could go on and on. The common factor is the desire to get back to glass: I wanted to resume its unique way of communicating transparency and color, the intrinsic richness of material.”
Available as:
>Floor lamp, 76”H with 13.5 W LED, 2700K, 1350 Lumens.
>Table lamp, 8.25”H with 8.5W LED, 2700K. 1350 Lumens.
Madre, Design: Andrea Anastasio.
Anastasio says, “Madre is the destination of reflections on light, its role, its essence. The form alludes to the large hips of mother goddesses, the divinities that protect the fertility of the earth. But also the vessel as a container of life, because it was first created to contain food, rather than flowers.
Available with:
>12 W LED, 2700K, 1280 Lumens.
Gioia, Design: Andrea Anastasio.
Anastasio says, “I’ve always imagined the home as a protective, mysterious divinity. Gioia is a sort of tribute, an ornament offered to the domus. A jewel created to adorn domestic space.”
Available in:
>15.375” Diameter with 10 W LED, 2700K, 850 Lumens.
>26.75” Diameter with 10 W LED, 2700K, 850 Lumens.
Sun-light of love, Design: Tord Boontje.
Boontje says, “I wanted to bring the sun inside, into the home, into spaces. Sun-Light of Love is an object that makes it hard to know where it begins and where it ends, like sunlight. It has no clear separation between inside and outside: a geometric presence, but very fluid and organic at the same time.”
Available as:
>25.625” Diameter with 23W LED, 2700K, 3065Lumens.
>MyLight compatible version.
Tobia, Design: Ferruccio Laviani.
Laviani says, “Tobia is an example of how simplicity can have character. The lightness of a sign that becomes object, almost like a child’s drawing, that outlines a body and a form to narrate a function. I’ve been intending to do this project for a long time.”
Available as:
>Floor lamp, 69H with 15W LED, 2700K, 2000 Lumens.
>Wall Sconce, 15.875”H with 13W LED, 2700K. 1950 Lumens.
Nuee, Design: Marc Sadler:
Sadler says, “A big, floating cloud of light. The evanescent matter that forms Nuée – with its alternation of pale and dark, transparent and opaque – suggests the choreographic movement of flocks of birds, sweeping across the sky in incredible patterns. Nuée too seems to always be in motion, with different planes that overlap when we shift our vantage point.”
Available as:
>Medium, 27.5” X 19.66” X 19.66” with 33W LED, 3000K, 2920 Lumens.
>Large, 61.25” X 39.375” X 39.375” with 33W LED, 3000K, 2920 Lumens.
Palomar, Design: Ludovica + Roberto Palomba
The Palomba’s say, “We wanted to radically rethink the lamp as an object. To act by subtraction, without arriving at extreme minimalism. The ferrules with their material presence soften the rigor of the lamp, underlining its decorative character.“
Available as:
>Floor lamp, 76”H with 13.5 W LED, 2700K, 1350 Lumens.
>Table lamp, 8.25”H with 8.5W LED, 2700K. 1350 Lumens.
Belle de Jour, Design: Ilaria Marelli
Marelli says, “The name refers to morning glory flowers, which close up in the evening. I wanted to reproduce the form and movement of this plant with its sensual delicacy, but I also wanted a theatrical object, capable of asserting itself in space.”
Available as:
>Floor lamp, 70.75”H X 35.875D X 35.875W with 2x21W LEDs, 3000K, 4100 Lumens.
>Large Floor lamp, 85.5”H X 43.25”D X 43.25”W with 2x21W LEDs, 3000K, 4100 Lumens.
