Design by Toyo Ito
Ito's architecture projects are in pursuit of the boundaries between what's real and what's virtual: they are light, flexible, and dematerialised. There is something immaterial about lamps as well: light itself. They are objects in which the luminous performance and the shape of the device itself, the material and light must be astutely balanced. Cloud is made of 5 thin acrylic sheets, piled one on top of the other, and cut in an amoebic shape. The holes in the sheets create an empty space, which is where the luminous source is hosted. Cloud is a light suspension lamp, both physically and visually. The shape of the sheets, their stratification, and the discontinuity of the material in the concentric empty spaces evoke the transparency, immateriality and permanently changing aspect of clouds: it is a pursuit for a new model of "fluid" physicality.
