Creative Innovations: Paper Luminaires
CURATED
Defining spaces with delicate designs
Paper's essential delicacy is celebrated, toyed with, and subverted by designers who take advantage of its great plasticity to create forms as informed by their textures as their shapes, providing the sort of gentle light that only paper can create.
Using paper in unison with today's lighting technology has led to some incredible results. Check out the list below to see how our favourite lighting designers are incorporating the versatile material into their new collections.
Formakami by Jaime Hayón for &tradition
The Formakami collection of pendant lights, designed for &tradition by Jaime Hayón evokes classic Japanese lanterns, making them ideal for spaces influenced by Japanese and Japandi design styles
Paper can seem like a radical material for lighting, but as designs like Hayón's Formakami remind us, paper and light have been delicately balancing their relationship for centuries. Using modern forms that hint at those centuries, Formakami fits in most anywhere.
Trash Me by Victor Vetterlein for &tradition
Trash Me table light by Victor Vetterlein is a bold statement about sustainability in designer lighting from &tradition
Vetterlein takes full advantage of a paper's frangible nature in making these molded forms that as much a representation of a lamp as they are actual lamps. Though &tradition makes it clear these fixtures are made to be disassembled and recycled, you'll probably want to hold onto yours.
Moon by Davide Groppi
Two meters in diameter, Moon 200 is the largest of the available Moon suspension lights designed by Davide Groppi for his eponymous brand
Overlapping edges of paper that create this luminous globe imitate the craters and shadows of the moon as Groppi's design offers subtle but effective lighting for your space.
Good Morning China (AKA Moon) Floor Light by Davide Groppi
The luminaire so nice they named it twice, Good Morning China floor lamp is also referred to simply as Moon floor lamp
The floor version of Moon, this lamp's extremely low profile provides unexpected lighting suitable for a wide variety of spaces, from bedsides to hallways.
Kurage Table Light by Luca Nichetto for Foscarini
Designed by Luca Nichetto for Foscarini, Kurage table light has an elegantly rustic presence
Made of washi--a traditional handmade Japanese paper--in collaboration with architect Oki Sato, Venetian designer Luca Nichetto has made a simple but resonant table lamp, a sort of animoji version of a jellyfish (kurage is Japanese for jellyfish) that will politely but definitively define any space it occupies.
Dragon's Tail Portable Table Light by Luisa Robinson for Kenneth Cobonpue
Light filtering through the intricately-folded angles of Luisa Robinson's Dragon's Tail portable table lamp for Kenneth Cobonpue creates a contrast with warm light and stark angles
Named one of the top ten design iconoclasts by the Philippine School of Interior Design, Manila-based designer Luisa Robinson's oyster-paper table lamp is less fierce dragon than placid hedgehog, its complex folds creating a variegated light that is as much décor as illumination.
Paper Chandelier by Studio Job for Moooi
Combining a classic form with innovative material, Studio Job's Paper Chandelier suspension light for Moooi is a light-hearted addition to your space
Playful to the point of lunacy, Job Smeets and Nynke Tynagel hashtag their work #seriousfun, and this paper version of a classical chandelier is no exception. A metre high and almost a metre wide, this reproduction of a candlelight fixture made of highly flammable material creates a conceptual tension that is resolved by the beauty of its execution. Appropriate wherever ideas, light, and fun are welcome.
This diverse list of luminaires features only a fraction of the paper collections offered by the designer lighting brands available at LightForm. For more of our favourites, browse our webstore or visit one of our offices and showrooms in Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Kelowna, and Winnipeg.