Traversing and celebrating light with Lodes at Milan Design Week 2023

Celebrating light and its inestimable possibilities and explorations in design through exciting creative collaborations, Venice-based lighting company Lodes, known for designing and producing lighting solutions for interiors and exteriors since 1950, launched their new lamp designs and collections at the recently concluded Milan Design Week 2023. Balancing innovation, technical know-how and the quintessential essence of Italian design, their stunning, if not unique collaborations with Ron Arad, Snøhetta, Needs Studio and an exhibition curated by Studiopepe. Furthering the founder’s passion for glass and informed by continuous technological research, the company has evolved into one of Europe’s leading designers and manufacturers of decorative lighting.

“Today, Lodes represents a three-generation evolution from pure passion to brilliant lighting solutions, creating light sources that fuse contemporary design and innovative technology with materials of the highest quality, scrupulously developed with the best processing techniques,” the brand relays.

‘Volum’ collection with Snøhetta

The lighting company renewed its collaboration with acclaimed Norwegian architecture and design studio Snøhetta, revisiting and expanding on their ‘Volum’ collection, paying homage to the Italian tradition of globe-shaped glass lamps and the wider glassblowing process that transforms the transparent material into ‘naturally imperfect shapes.’ Following the launch of the Volum pendant lamp last year, the collection was updated with new ceiling, wall, and table lamps, consisting of a series of glass lamps that are ‘poetically simple yet complex in their technically driven solution.’ “Simultaneously, it exemplifies the modern architectural sensibilities of the Oslo -based designers,” Lodes explains. Snøhetta cited the ‘architectural need for a contextually adaptable and scalable light’ as inspiration, which led to the creation of four blown glass lamp designs that can be used individually or as a cluster, complementing each other with intuition.

Glowing uniformly and unidirectionally, ‘Volum’ provides a calming and coherent radiance in its clean aesthetic, that is ideal for domestic use as well as public spaces such as lobbies. The table lamp version features a dimmer that permits users to adjust the intensity of light, helping control and enhance the mood.

“Volum is completed in a glossy white finish that offers a decorative touch due to the reflections shown on its surface. Its discreet design hides a diffuser and frame within the globe, which illuminates the silicone base. The latest products can meet challenging and specific design requirements—Volum represents another step in Lodes’ ongoing exploration of the relationship between lighting, space and the ways in which individuals interact with these elements,” elaborates Lodes.

Marius Myking, Director of product design at Snøhetta commented, “The Volum series balances technical solutions with the human craft of glassmaking. This in turn has led to one of Lodes’s ́most versatile lighting products to date, ensuring the potential for holistic yet functional lighting scenarios, across the various spaces that we inhabit.”

STIR caught up with Myking at Milan, Italy during Milan Design Week 2023, to discuss the nuances of their collaboration with Lodes for the ‘Volum’ collection, as well as his experiences at the design festival. Excerpts from the exclusive interview below:

STIR: Please elaborate on the design conception for the ‘Volum’ collection.

Marius Myking: Well, it's the merger of two companies and design values—different but equal at the same time. We come from the spatial world and draw our experiences from there. Working with product design at Snøhetta, what we really love doing is extrapolating the knowledge and experiences from our other disciplines, and understanding space from the perception of our architects, landscape architects, and material architects, injecting that into a product while ensuring that its qualities are perceived in a valuable way.

In that sense, we've been able to work with an amazing company like Lodes, which boasts a heritage of working with glass making. On top of that, in recent years, they have been successfully pushing the technology and production values for each of their product designs. So, the result of this project is actually a very common typology, but by putting those values in, we are celebrating the perfections and imperfections of glass making and balancing it with the best technology. All of this shouldn't be necessarily seen in the product itself—all of that is concealed inside the lamp, working to give the best possible lighting for a space.

STIR: Throughout STIR's coverage of your projects, we have discussed how Snøhetta enjoys a distinct style and design language that stems from Nordic sensibilities. There's a certain minimalism and clarity in your design language. How do you think that is reflected in the product displayed at Milan Design Week 2023?

Marius: Well, we try not to have a specific style (laughs), because every project that we do is tremendously contextually driven—this project would have never happened, or at least we wouldn’t have reached this result if it hadn’t been for the collaboration with Lodes—Similarly, if we are designing a cabin, it is a hundred per cent contextually aware, the client’s briefs, their needs, the site and its conditions, and more. What remains consistent for all undertakings, is how we always try to question the status quo by pushing the limits within the contextual frame of each project.

STIR: How does your creative legacy help you design products, especially in collaborative brand instances such as this one with Lodes?

Marius: When it all comes down to it, it's all about people. Therefore, maintaining a good relationship with the people we work with is what ultimately drives our projects. In the end, you could also attribute it to the culture of each individual company, maybe, but even then, always driven by the people, and for the people that are engaged in any project, because they are the ones who are securing the results and the actual outcome.

STIR: What did you look forward to most at the Salone fair this year, something that might be distinctly remarkable, and remarkably different from last year’s edition?

Marius: We are on a perpetual quest to find and explore new and interesting creative approaches, and by that, I don't necessarily mean only in terms of design or production, but fresh approaches in the purview of identifying new opportunities that fit the needs of the current context. That could include new types of businesses, new types of collaborations, exciting explorations into materials or productions and projects that dare to push the limits of what already exists and is expected when you visit Milan for the design festival.

STIR: What’s NEXT for Snøhetta with respect to biomaterial innovations or artificial intelligence?

Marius: We are continuously exploring, and what we are working hard on in our product design section, is connecting the dots. There could be an insanely great innovation somewhere, but if it is not capable of also meeting the marketplace's sales channels and needs, there is a possibility of it not going anywhere. We are in this great position and context where it's interesting for us to draw from the experiences throughout our studios, working as a bridge between that and the markets, the brands, and the innovators, to be able to translate it into viable projects that can hold a value that can be turned into revenue, and go into further development. So, identifying these factors remains a major focus of ours.

‘Cono di Luce’ with Ron Arad

Lodes launched its first collaboration with internationally renowned artist, architect, and designer Ron Arad, celebrated for his iconic industrial pieces with ‘Cono di Luce,’ a lamp that marries the company’s technical know-how with Arad’s artistic flair as a figure who blends art, architecture and design. “With his disruptive approach, Arad is able to uncover new realms in which objects break out of their typical typologies. With this in mind, Lodes aimed to not only overcome challenges but to embrace them as part of the design process to create the end product,” shares the Italian brand.

Lodes set the industrial designer a challenge—'to employ borosilicate glass to design an iconic object.’ In response, Ron Arad selected a slender, truncated cone shape as the archetype for the decorative light, with a light source placed on top, which inspired its moniker, ‘Cono di Luce,’ meaning ‘cone of light.’ The collaboration also harnessed PCB technology, to create the pattern that became the pattern for the lamp’s unique graphic motif.

“When you look at it (Cono di Luce), first of all, I’m very happy that it’s legible. There’s a page locked in the glass cone. However, this page is providing light through the cone and (starts) glowing in itself. There are lines which create a ‘moiré.’ Sometimes you start with an idea and in the process of making it, you lose something. In this case, I don’t think we lost anything. If anything, we gained something. I am very happy to see this, and I am very happy that through the interesting journey that we had getting here, you can still look at the original sketches and compare them with the end product and think that it’s the same,” Arad elaborates.

Lodes was successfully able to translate Arad’s intuitive sketch into a real lamp, an affordable product with high luminous efficiency. ‘Cono di Luce’ is characterised by a transparent Pyrex cone that hosts a printed circuit board (PCB) inside as well as a frame which is also made of a thicker layer of PCB to provide structural support for the lamp. “The PCB is the result of a process that includes 33 steps and several layers composed of fibreglass and copper for the LED chip electric circuits, which by nature have both translucent and opaque areas. A sheet of fibreglass, which is extremely thin, flexible, and insulating, on which a copper path is smeared, acts as a conductor of the electrical polarity, which on reaching the LED allows them to emit light..

The brand went on to comprehend the possibility of exploiting the decorative potential of the material’s degree of translucency, to arrive at the lamp’s design characterised by stripes based on the artist’s drawing. This allowed Arad to play with areas of dark and light bands and with the ‘moiré’ effect that is a result of the stripes’ overlapping. The company employed this aesthetic to devise an electrical circuit connecting more than 200 LED chips.

Lodes also designed the pendant lamp’s frame, which consists of a white rigid PCB performing three functions—refracting light so that the luminous effect of the lamp remains uniform, connecting electric circuits that power the LEDs and acting as a mechanical suspension of the product itself. Another distinctive element is the customisable frame that holds the sheet placed inside the cone, detailing both Arad’s and Lodes’ names.

Arad prioritised the red version of Cono di Luce to offer an ‘impactful statement piece,’ with his signature on the outer flap. In contrast, the grey version is subtler, with the signature and product name positioned discreetly on the sheet’s inside. There will also be a third version which features a grey finish on the inside and a gold one on the outside, obtained through the deposition of gold, ‘to give the product its preciousness.’ “The result is a powerful lamp in its seemingly simple design. When turned on, the product reveals its full decorative capacity—an optical item made of light, shadows and superimpositions, the work of Arad’s creative vision and Lodes’ ability to master and manage technology,” the brand relays.

Lodes in ‘TERRA - Inspired by Earth’ curated by Studiopepe at Archiproducts Milano

As part of Fuorisalone 2023, Lodes took part in the immersive project curated by architecture and design studio Studiopepe at Archiproducts Milano at Via Tortona 31, a Design Centre in Milan that welcomes architects and interior designers in search of inspiration and new solutions. The ‘TERRA - Inspired by Earth’ installation brought together a selection of ‘considered and conscious’ design elements, where visitors were welcomed by earthy colours and natural materials. The interior installation guided visitors through a discovery of our relationship with the earth, where natural colour shades created a visual continuum within a coherent and material dimension. The finishes that dressed the space presented a delicate palette in shades of terracotta, sand and clay, all of which recalled Lodes’ CMF.

“The mission is clear—the earth is our home—which serves as the dominant theme behind the entire installation. The word ‘Terra’ relates to real materials, warm colours, and in turn, a wider sense of belonging. We inhabit the earth every day, and we, therefore, demand a need for responsibility. Warm lighting and experimental and natural materials intensify our sense of connection with the earth, building a comfortable mood, and soothing both our eyes and touch. The project (was) a true sensory experience - exploring interconnected smart devices as well as innovative materials and their infinite applications,” the creators share.

Several Lodes products were selected and displayed by the curators for the installation—'Easy Peasy,’ ‘Random Solo’ (on a cluster) and ‘Spider’ was placed on the ground floor, while a poetic composition of ‘Volum’ was suspended on radial clusters on the upper level, greeting visitors along the main corridor. Traversing through the rooms, visitors also encountered ‘Croma,’ ‘Flar,’ ‘A-Tube Nano,’ ‘Puzzle Mega’ and the new ‘Elara’ pendant lamp. These lamps were placed harmoniously within the space, coming alive with their elegant, warm tones, integrating into the exhibition’s concept while demonstrating how to use some of Lodes’ key products.

'Tidal' by Needs Studio

Lodes teamed up with Needs Studio, a young Italian product design office founded in 2020 by Davide Gerlin, Marco Brunato, and Matteo Coracin, to launch ‘Tidal,’ a ring-shaped ceiling lamp that references the tide and celestial bodies. The ceiling lamp’s fluid and oval design mirrors the motion of waves, and the changes dictated by tides, (also giving it its name). With one end wider than the other, the lamp’s shape depicts high and low tides, while its enduring curves appear differently to viewers depending on their position under the lamp, evoking intrigue and mystery.

Needs Studio elaborates on their design for Lodes—“Tidal is the result of research developed from fixed points: the need to create a finished object with a personality that would make it completely different from other products currently on the market. The study, therefore, focused on pure shapes, on the variation of the section that makes the object interesting in constant variation from all points of view; deforming the perception but maintaining a formal rigour.”

Tidal’s body is made of die-cast aluminium, and equipped with a LED source that emits diffused light out of both sides, projecting light up onto a ceiling, and down onto a space. The ring subtly conceals all the technical elements inside the design, enhancing its uninterrupted lines, with its light source equipped to emit a glow that can illuminate an entire room. The lamp design is available in three matte finishes—white that integrates seamlessly in minimal interiors, and terra and champagne that offer a more decorative touch, enhancing spaces with its warm and sensual tones. “Additionally, Tidal features a dimmer on the wall switch, allowing users to adjust the intensity of the light,” the brand explains.

Spanning 60 cm, Tidal can be adapted across a range of environments, from a living room to a hotel bedroom, or staggered across the ceiling of an office. “Impactful in its simplicity, Tidal once again demonstrates Lodes’ commitment to balancing accessibility with contemporary design, whilst enriching the ceiling capabilities of Lodes’ portfolio,” the company concludes.

STIR’s coverage of Milan Design Week 2023 showcases the best exhibitions, studios, designers, installations, brands, and special projects to look out for. Explore Euroluce 2023 and all the design districts—5Vie Art and Design, Brera Design District, Fuorisalone, Isola Design District, Tortona District, and Milano Design District—with us.