The sensitive type: Illan by Luceplan

With environmental sustainability high on the agenda, designers and architects are creating new products that combine functionality with energy-efficient technology and novel forms. Architect-turned-designer Zsuzsanna Horvath has achieved this with her design for Illan, a pendant light manufactured by Luceplan. A soft organic shape made from a thin sheet of plywood, the luminaire responds to delicate air currents, creating a subtle celebration of light, movement and materiality.

Launched at the most recent edition of Euroluce in 2019, Illan is Horvath's first foray into lighting design, developed from a prototype she presented at Salone Satellite - a showcase for young designers at Milan's Salone del Mobile – just a year prior. And although the Copenhagen-based Horvath may not have worked with light before, her projects have always straddled the line between experimental and experiential.

Before becoming a designer, she worked as an architect in Finland, including on Turku's Logomo Concert Hall, a flexible music venue that can expand to accommodate anywhere up to 3,500 spectators, and which has successfully hosted everything from ballet performances to chamber orchestras and rock concerts.

Later, Horvath studied product and spatial design at Helsinki's Aalto University, where she experimented with laser cutting and CNC milling. She began designing everything from highly ornamental trivets and jewellery to an all wood chair that emulates the pop look of 1960s plastic-fantastic seats. But Illan – a Hungarian word indicating something fleeting and temporary – is something different all over again.

Consisting of a thin, FSC-certified plywood disc with laser-cut concentric circles, the lampshade expands under its own weight, creating a soft geometry, at once undulating and transparent. Its delicate design reacts to the slightest air movements, while the slim, LED panel within creates a warm, diffuse light that perfectly complements the lampshade's natural wood grain. Illan uses scarce resources sparingly for the maximum effect – its economy of means is not just a necessary virtue, but integral to its overall appearance and emotional impact.

That Horvath's Illan has found its place in Luceplan's catalogue is not surprising given the company’s long history of collaborating with promising young designers. Award-winning Norwegian lighting designer Daniel Rybakken, for instance, was also discovered by Luceplan during Salone Satellite in 2011.

Both the designers and Luceplan share a rigorous approach to their work, attention to detail and striving for the highest technological performance combined with a drive to enhance the sensuous qualities of artificial light. Illan, with its low impact materials and lightweight construction, adds to this a renewed focus on sustainability.

Luceplan and its designers always collaborate to develop the best possible lighting solutions using the firm's four plus decades of expertise. This commitment to fusing form, function and emotion has earned the company a steady stream of prestigious prizes, such as Compasso d'Oro and and a range of Red Dot Design Awards, as well as inclusion of a number of its products in New York's Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection.

Together with Horvath, Luceplan refined the design further, changing the original OLED light source to a brighter, warmer LED. Additionally, the lamp is now available in three sizes, ranging up to one metre in diameter. At once decorative and minimal, organic and technologically innovative, it offers a highly versatile solution and is equally at home in more intimate domestic settings as well as commercial interiors, such as hotels or office lobbies.

Now that being environmentally sustainable is as important as making a statement, Illan represents a solution that combines both – but is also much more than the sum of its parts.

© Architonic