Six of the best new lighting designs at Milan Design Week 2023

The debate over whether design can be considered art has been going on for much longer than Euroluce, the international lighting exhibition. But the show makes it feel newly relevant, considering the number of sculptural and immersive products in Milan that use light to transform a space rather than just ­illuminate it.

Among the other trends destined to catch the attention of visitors is the shift to lighting for our health and wellbeing. While early LEDs were prized solely for their energy efficiency, they produced a bright and harsh light, explains Sharon Stammers, who with Martin Lupton founded the consultancy Light Collective in 2009. But new LED technology is allowing designers to use warmer and more natural light temperatures, a development that removes one of the last barriers to the use of LEDs (“I can’t imagine you’ll find anything at Euroluce that doesn’t,” says Stammers) and coincides with a greater awareness of how different wavelengths of light affect our circadian rhythms. “Cool white light suppresses melatonin release,” adds Lupton, referring to the hormone that tells the body to go to sleep. “Now you’ll see lots of warm, tungsten-like light . . . to reduce the amount of white light you’re exposed to at night.”

The pair also predict a greater emphasis at Euroluce on the circular economy. “Manufacturers are now looking at the whole life of a product,” says Stammers, explaining that rather than products being either recyclable or made from recycled materials, they are being conceived with their full life cycle in mind. “And if they’re not,” Stammers adds, “they’re really falling behind the curve.”

Running concurrently with the Salone del Mobile, Euroluce continues to be an important link between the lighting and furniture industries, and one of the best places to see cutting-edge design and innovative new technologies. Here is our pick of the fair.

Tekiò
Anthony Dickens (Santa & Cole)

In addition to creating a more natural quality of light, new LED technologies allow for the regulation of colour temperature. These pendant lamps by Barcelona-based Santa & Cole enable the user to modulate both the intensity and tone of the light using a conventional dimmer switch, from a dim atmospheric glow to a functional warm light.

This nuance is partly possible due to the use of translucent washi paper that gives the lamp its cylindrical form and diffuses the light. First used in Japan in the 14th century, washi paper was inscribed on Unesco’s Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity list in 2014. The subtly textured paper gives the Tekiò (“adaptation” in Japanese) lamp an “unassuming presence”, according to its designer Anthony Dickens.
From £1,566

Origine
Davide Groppi

Groppi often draws inspiration from the art world in his lighting designs. His Infinito, for instance, an 18mm wide strip of light that cuts across a room, is a nod to Italian-Argentine artist Lucio Fontana’s slashed canvases. For Euroluce, he presents Origine, an impossibly thin, tall floor lamp that takes a similarly elemental approach to lighting. Designed to be placed in front of a wall and cast a gentle, indirect light, the lamp appears only as a shadow, a flat, graphic form that manages to conceal the powerful LEDs. The quiet intensity of the design is enhanced by its size — available in three different heights, it ranges from just under three metres to nearly five metres.
From €1,550

Halo Project
Mandalaki Design Studio

Rather than producing only one colour of light, as with conventional LED-powered lamps, the Halo devices use high-powered LEDs and coloured optical lenses to cast large, precise spherical projections of colour gradients, recalling the work of American artist James Turrell.

Milled from solid anodised aluminium and either freestanding or designed to be hung from the ceiling, these surprisingly small devices, developed by Milan-based Mandalaki Design Studio, expand the concept of a light from a source of illumination to a graphic projection that transforms the perception of space. Horizon, pictured here, has been described as “an architectural sun”, designed for site-specific installations. In addition to creating immersive pieces like this, Mandalaki hopes these “chromatic landscapes” also create a connection with nature in smaller domestic interiors.
From €1,390

Relay 1
Michael Anastassiades

For Relay 1, Anastassiades developed a custom linear LED bulb that attaches magnetically to a solid block of marble. Hand-built using an opaline glass tube, the bulb has a warm, consistent light and its form recalls both the LED tubes that the London-based designer has used since founding his brand in 2007 and the once ubiquitous fluorescent lamp.

Moveable and easily reduced to two interchangeable elements (the base comes in black or white marble and there are two different lamp lengths), it’s a floor lamp that embodies the designer’s ambition to emulate the dynamic, changing “playfulness” of natural light.
From £1,190

Turn+
Nao Tamura (Ambientec)

For many years, the cold blue light of early LEDs meant that it was not possible to recreate the reassuring glow of a naked flame with energy-efficient technologies, but this is no longer the case. The portable Turn+ lamp produces a remarkably gentle and warm quality of light, thanks to the LED technology developed by the manufacturer, Japanese lighting brand Ambientec, and to its solid crystal glass diffuser, by New York-based Japanese designer Nao Tamura. Carved and polished by hand, the diffuser gives the light a greater depth than would be possible with just LEDs, evenly distributing four light intensities that can be controlled by touching the base of the lamp.

Drawing on Ambientec’s origins as a producer of high-end lighting equipment for underwater photography, the lamp (which is waterproof) has been machined from either brass, stainless steel or matt black aluminium and can provide 500 hours of light once fully charged.
From €470

Luce Orizzontale
Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec (FLOS)

Designers and brands have become more focused on the ease with which a product can be replaced or recycled, rather than simply whether it can in theory. Luce Orizzontale is a case in point: despite being partially crafted by hand, the simple design of this pendant lamp allows it to be disassembled without tools so that its components, which are available separately from the manufacturer Flos, can be replaced or recycled.

Designed by the celebrated French brothers Erwan and Ronan Bouroullec, the lamp consists of a polished extruded aluminium bar that both houses the up-and down-facing LED light sources and forms the supports for sections of thick glass tubes — a minimalist form that becomes more complex on closer inspection. With the tubes produced by pouring molten glass into a rotating mould, each section has a unique translucent veining that creates a shimmering, vibrant effect. This can be further modulated by switching on only the upper or lower lights, or by adjusting the intensity of the light with a dimmer.
From £5,530

Euroluce runs from April 18-23; www.salonemilano.it

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