Heavy/Light

Light. But not as we know it. There's something pleasingly contradictory and ironic about the choice of concrete as a material for designing lamps. Aside from the play on words that 'light' provides when talking about concrete lighting, the material's dense heaviness (think nuclear bunkers) means it's unexpected in its use. But a number of designers have worked the material into some compelling lamp designs, which, particularly when expressed in gravity-defying pendant forms, seem to bring together sobriety, beauty and, perhaps most importantly in these days of sustainability, longevity.

With Italian manufacturer Foscarini having recently launched Udine-based design studio LucidiPevere's 'Aplomb' lamp, Architonic offers you five of the best industrially produced concrete lamps on the market.

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01 / 'Aplomb' by LucidiPevere for Foscarini
Foscarini's new concrete suspension light, designed by young Italian design double-act Paolo Lucidi and Luca Pevere, takes a cue from the contemporary built environment. Not only does it use a material more commonly associated with the language of modern architecture, its name, 'Aplomb', refers, beyond its suggestion of self-possession and assurance, to the plumb-bob or plummet weight use by builders to ensure the exact verticality of a line. This is a light that takes its heaviness seriously.

A special amalgam is used, which is particularly fluid in the mould, allowing a detailed finish and a surface that is smooth to the touch, but which possesses a rough visual appearance. The lamp is available in three colours: grey, white and a warm brown.

02 / 'Heavy Light' by Benjamin Hubert for Decode
British designer Benjamin Hubert didn't waste any time after graduating from Loughborough University's industrial design course in 2006. Founding his London studio in 2007, he was named 'Most Promising Designer' at 100% Futures in 2008. Having developed an impressive body of work called 'A Year in the Making', which was presented at 100% Design in 2009 and where he picked up a Blueprint award for 'Best Product' (for his 'Labware' blown-glass lamp series for Authentics), 2010 saw him go on to win 'International Young Designer of the Year' as part of the Elle Deco International Design Awards. It's safe to say that Hubert is on a roll.

His 'Heavy Light' from 2008 for Decode displays a technical virtuosity that really pushes the piece's main material. The pendant lamp's thin-wall cast-concrete construction results in a lamp that celebrates contradiction: a tension between the heaviness of concrete in real terms and its transformed visual lightness as witnessed in form of a suspended light.

03 / 'Heavy Desk Light' by Benjamin Hubert for Decode
As an evolution of his 'Heavy Light', Hubert's 'Heavy Desk Light', also for Decode, offsets the use of concrete by the introduction of wood in the form of a stand, available in either European oak or American walnut, that connects the piece's 4mm-thin cast-concrete shade and concrete base. A bright-red flex also works to mitigate the visual heaviness of the concrete. With 'Heavy Desk Light', Hubert achieves a successful material union of the industrial and the natural.

04 / 'Trabant 1' and 'Trabant 2' by Joachim Manz for Tecnolumen
The name 'Trabant' usually conjures up images of anything but heaviness and solidity. (The now iconic 'Trabant', lovingly, or perhaps ironically, known as the 'Trabi', was the former East German people's car, first launched in the late 1950s and famously made of plastic.) Artist Joachim Manz's concrete 'Trabant 1' and 'Trabant 2' pendant lamps are, however, pieces of pure sculpture that take pleasure in their apparent weight. Spherical in form, their base features a glass lens (available either in matt or clear), through which light source shines. 'Trabant 1' has a slit in the top of the concrete ball, into which the suspension wire is fitted, allowing the angle of lamp to be altered. For those who don't like change, 'Trabant 2' doesn't have this.

05 / 'Concrete Tube' by Wall-y for Wever & Ducré
More Euclidean geometry can be found in Wall-y's literally named 'Concrete Tube', manufactured by Belgian architectural-lighting specialists Wever & Ducré. With its elongated form and resulting generous, and highly tactile, surface area, it invites visual consumption (even if, as a pendant lamp, an actual touching of it isn't possible). Weighing in at 1.35kg, the light was recognised in 2009 with a Red Dot Design Award.

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