Bonds

Our bond with the Foscarini lighting company started back in 1999, the year that marked two remarkable moments: the beginning of Luca Nichetto’s career and a pivotal time for Foscarini: the brand moved its HQ from the Murano island to mainland while living a moment of great transformation and experimentation.

After an internship at the technical office, where Luca started to deal with the industrial setting of mass production and several prototypes, Foscarini decided to exhibit the first ever Nichetto lamp at Euroluce Fair in Milan. This liaison continued with Luca as a consultant on material innovation and product development until in 2003 and then with several product designs over the years.

THE ICONIC O-SPACE

In 2003, the O-Space lamp, designed with Gianpietro Gai, was the first official collaboration with Foscarini. The light still is in production and has acquired an iconic status for the company. It is shaped to recall a compressed O letter, with a small bulb at its bottom that shines both directly downwards into the room and upwards into the void at the centre of the O, creating a distinctive reflection around the space.

UNEXPECTED SHAPES

Inspired by a visit to Lapland in 2010, Luca brought back a 'tråg,' a canoe-shaped bowl. From this unique object's form, we created Troag, a suspension lamp composed of a single piece of curved wood with slits that allow the light to expand both upwards and downwards. In 2012, we designed a product inspired by Stewie, the cartoon baby from the TV show Family Guy, referencing his enormous head and spindly body. Stewie's light source is concealed behind a textile with prismatic properties that reflect light obliquely, creating a soft glow.

COLLABORATIONS AND EXPERIMENTAL TECHNOLOGIES

In 2015 we collaborated with Oki Sato of Japanese design studio Nendo on Kurage, a lamp composed of natural materials: Japanese cypress wood legs and a washi paper dome and named after the Japanese word for jellyfish.

The same year was released Plass, a pendant that reinterprets the tradition of artisan glassmaking in Murano, in the light of new processes and materials. Its name, a fusion of “glass” and “plastic”, winks to the unique process of rotational-moulding where polycarbonate achieves the transparency of handmade glass and its natural irregularities.

MAGIC WINDOWS EXHIBIT

During Stockholm Design Week 2013, for Forscarini’s showroom, we came up with a conceptual exhibition that played on curiosity, so intrinsic to our human nature. Foscarini lamps were presented in an artistic installation called Magic Windows, that allowed a curious glimpse into imaginary homes and the life of the people within. The concept was inspired by the typically Northern European habit of leaving curtains open at home while the essentiality of the decoration came from Lars von Trier’s set-less film Dogville.