In dialogue with light – Highlights from Light+Building 2024
The leading international trade fair for light and building technology in Frankfurt, which ran from 3 to 8 March 2024, was all about well-designed, innovative and sustainable lighting technologies. Discover some of our trade fair highlights:
Just like in Fontana’s paintings, a diagonal cut breaks Discovery’s surface, splitting it into two halves. The gash allows the illumination on both sides to be controlled independently, breaking the uniformity of Discovery’s surface and assigning two different light emissions that are each perfectly calibrated in terms of their lighting characteristics. The cut disrupts the sequence of micro incisions that capture the light, and creates a new balance between the two surfaces. It triggers a dialogue by apportioning light that operates independently on both sides.
Discovery Dialogue pushes ahead the possibility of being the creator of your own light in the space. You can balance white light with a coloured ambiance, adjust colour temperatures and colour tones to your pace of activity, or even enter into a dialogue with your surroundings thanks to its transparency.
Criosfera refers to the cryosphere, which is the name given to the earth’s ice-covered regions, 90% of which are in Antarctica. The ice in Antarctica is therefore the largest datastore of our climate’s history.
The lamp is modelled on the characteristic look of ice cores that can be used to determine temperature changes during past millennia. Instead of ice, it is made from a layer of blown recycled glass: its optical core reflects the ice layers and air bubbles contained in them, which enable trends in CO2, greenhouse gases and temperature to be identified.
The mounts make reference to the scientific instruments used to sample and analyse ice cores. Engraved on the stand are CO2 levels that have risen alarmingly from industrialisation to the present day, thus Foscari would like her design to be seen as a call to counter the climate crisis individually and collectively.
Somnĭum is a lighting system produced by the fusion of optical, structural and production elements brought to life through transparency. At its core is an optical cell that has been developed for maximum efficiency and optimum performance. Like a cell, it replicates itself and collaborates within the system to create a seamless flow.
The lens and glare shield that are traditionally made from different materials merge into a module made from just one material. The screen is no longer just an accessory, but an integral part of the casing itself. From the perspective of visual comfort and performance, the result is perfect. The cell made from just one material is a 30 x 30 mm module whose design embodies sustainable industrial intelligence. It reduces material diversity, minimises weight and simplifies production.
The direct light distribution is supplemented by indirect emission along the module to harmonise the relationship between the light and the space.
For their creation, the designers drew inspiration from the water moons orbiting Saturn and Jupiter: liquid heavenly bodies surrounded by spherical coats of ice concealing unknown secret worlds.
Its energy, which is released through hydrothermal activity, feeds the interaction between different stages – vapour, liquid and solid. The light of Lune d’acqua symbolises the water that continually offers itself up to these metamorphoses. The combination here of science and mystery becomes a thing of sheer beauty: inside the central sphere the light liquefies and degrades into a cascade of drops.
This impressive, poetic lamp is an interpretation of the patented principle behind the Artemide classic Discovery. The ring around the sphere contains LEDs that flood the interior surface with entirely homogenous light, thus exposing the gentle, three-dimensional waves of its geometry.
