A Lamp That Prompts the Question, "Where’s the Light Bulb?"

All photos courtesy Studio García Cumini Associati

Designers often find inspiration in the everyday world. So it’s not surprising that Cinzia Cumini and Vicente García Jiménez, the founders of Studio García Cumini Associati, took a cue from bicycles for their Spokes suspension lamps for Foscarini. To create a lamp that plays upon shadows and produces a feeling of volume through emptiness, the designers paired a unique manufacturing process with special computer software to bend the metal rods. Then, to give the empty form its mysterious glow, they positioned the LED light source at the bottom. Here, Cumini and Jiménez explain the decisions they made to achieve a magical effect.

“Usually the bulb in pendant lamps is located in the middle. Our focus was to move the light source to the bottom and to figure out how to bring electricity to that position of the lamp. We shaped the LED in such a specific way that it is not directly visible to the eye. Next, we adjusted the right position of the suspension lamp. We used simple geometry to create the correct angle between the light source and the user’s eyes.

“To produce an industrial series, the metal rods enter a hole in a huge machine used to bend tubes. The rods move from one side of the machine to another, and from the other side there is a cone that shapes and curves the rod, thanks to special computer software that moves the cones.”