A Light Basket
Kori by Taf Studio for Artek (image: Fabian Frinzel).
A well-known proverb warns us not to put all our eggs in one basket. Have a back-up plan! Diversify! Keep your options open! Don’t concentrate all your resources and dreams into one thing, lest disaster strike!
But what if we flip this advice on its head? Commissioned by Finnish design brand Artek, designers Gabriella Lenke and Mattias Ståhlbom of Taf Studio have developed a new lighting range called Kori – the Finnish word for basket. The collection comprises three pendant lights, a table lamp and a floor lamp that all revolve around a single, identical basket component. “We tried to be quite pragmatic,” says Ståhlbom.
Kori’s die-cast aluminium basket is the result of a three-part brief developed to honour the legacy of Artek’s lighting collection, which was mostly designed by Alvar and Aino Aalto from the 1930s through to the 50s. Marianne Goebel, Artek’s managing director, explains that they asked for a “sculptural presence”, as well as the use of a “combination of direct and indirect light” – something the Aaltos excelled in. The final instruction, Goebel adds, was “E27 forever”.
“The size of the socket became our starting point.”
If you picture a lightbulb, you’re likely imagining an E27: a globe that tapers into a screw-in, metal base. The E27 has been used by Artek for years – hence “E27 forever” – and has the virtue of being both long-lasting and easy to replace. By contrast, Ståhlbom explains, many contemporary lamps glue their light source in place, making the entire object obsolete when this single element fails. As such, “E27 forever” is not just nostalgic – it makes sense looking forward, too. No irreparable eggs in this basket, please.
The lightbulb’s 27mm screw threads, after which the bulb is named, helped guide the design because “the size of the socket became our starting point,” says Lenke. The studio subsequently played with curved shapes that could cradle the E27, cocooning it to mitigate the glare of the exposed bulb while also redirecting and diffusing its light. From these experiments, Kori’s recycled-aluminium basket was born and everything else followed: the lights’ components attach to them without screws or glues; the pendants’ lampshades hang from their rims. Meanwhile, Taf “switched the basket upside down” for the standing lamps, allowing their bases to slot snugly into its rim. This bottom-up basket gives the Kori table light the presence of a miniature lighthouse. It’s easy to imagine its small, sturdy form beaming out from a bedside table.
The Kori collection is powdercoated in a “super matte” white – the colour that most effectively reflects, and therefore directs, light from the basket, but which was also chosen because Ståhlbom and Lenke like eggs. Or, more specifically, they like how an egg’s curves catch the light. As such, they asked Artek to source a white coating “that would remind them of an egg in texture”. It recurs across all the Kori designs. The only exception, perhaps heeding the proverbial advice that it’s better to diversify, are the floor and table lamps. These also come in yolk yellow.
Words Lara Chapman
Photographs Fabian Frinzel
This article was originally published in Disegno #35. To buy the issue, or subscribe to the journal, please visit the online shop.