Design Formula - Illuminating Ideas

This year’s Salone del Mobile was brighter than ever thanks to Euroluce, the biennial lighting exhibition.

- Sophie Baylis

When two design events as exciting as Euroluce and Salone del Mobile run alongside each other, you can expect to be inspired. You can also expect to spot the trends currently captivating the eyes and minds of designers around the world. Perhaps most prevalent was a preoccupation with circles and semicircles. Daniel Rybakken’s Compendium Circle, for example, combines up to three rings of different diameters to create an array of configurations. London-based designer Michael Anastassiades continued the conversation with three new additions to his Mobile Chandeliers collection, which seeks to identify timeless qualities of objects.

Finnish designer Timo Ripatti updated his U-Light collection for Axo Light by integrating an LED into a series of circular aluminium frames to produce a soft, dimmable white light. Meanwhile, Francesco Librizzi, a young Sicilian architect working in Milan, debuted the Setareh table lamp for FontanaArte. It’s composed of a sphere in hand-blown white satin glass, suspended within a thin metal circular structure.

ON THE MOVE

In an age when everyone wants flexibility, several portable lighting designs have emerged with perfect timing. A highlight at Ingo Maurer’s stand was the inflatable Blow Me Up lamp, designed to lean against the wall or fasten to the ceiling or wall.

Collapsible Moon by Japanese designer Kazuhiro Yamanaka for Pallucco has two points of inspiration: the moon and the world of photography – specifically, the reflectors used for photo shoots. Collapsible Moon comprises a technical fabric held in place by a tempered spring steel, and an LED strip that’s placed inside the edge of the frame and which diffuses the light toward the centre of the circle. The result is a fully illuminated circle, much like a full moon.