Studio Natural and Martinelli Luce: lighting scenarios for a variety of demands

Emiliana Martinelli: Yes, I grew up surrounded by lights, as you so rightly say. I live constantly surrounded by lights, both as a designer and as a businesswoman. I look at and sift through different projects from designers old and new, possibly encountered at SaloneSatellite in Milan or through other channels and direct contacts at work. Studio Natural is a design studio that I got to know a few years ago and with which we created some unusual lamps that now feature in our catalogue. Avro, for instance, is one of the latest, a lamp that piqued my interest immediately. I was particularly intrigued by the freedom the lamp confers, in that it can transform any sort of table, in the office or at home, into a functional worktop on which one can work on a computer or other IT tools, or connect small electrical appliances (toasters, blenders, irons etc. …) at the same time. The idea of having a socket not at floor level but suspended, into which a plug can be inserted, thus doing away with the jumble of cables that tends to surround us, gave me the idea for the realisation and the engineering. Another thing we have to consider these days is that homes are getting smaller, which makes the optimal and functional use of space even more important, and so more research needs to be done.  

EM: I’m really delighted to have earned this recognition. It constitutes a further incentive to stick to our corporate philosophy, which helped us carve out our own identity and stand out in the vast sea of lighting device production. Taking a more general view, I imagine that in future domotics will become increasingly important, along with the study of integrated lighting at the design stage, especially for work and commercial spaces. We will see this trend in the domestic field, but with less impact because we will all want to personalise our homes and tailor them most closely to our needs. That means there will be room for everyone.  

EM: Creativity derives primarily from responding to the demands of the client or designer.  In the case of the former, the specifics of the project come into play and the designer has to start from this input and with some research, before trying to create a product that satisfies the client whilst also expressing their design philosophy, their creative spirit, which is partly conditioned by creative demands. In the latter case, inspiration can be triggered by an infinite number of things, everything can be a stimulus for creating any and every sort of object. Designers have sharp powers of observation, they’re critical and curious, and knowing how to look at things a certain way makes them want to set to immediately, in a flash, at any time and in any place, keen to bring their passion to bear on new things. Where Martinelli Luce is concerned, many different lamps - such as Serpente, Cobra, Mamba, Foglia, Nuvole Vagabonde, Colibrì, Rondini and many more besides - have been inspired by observing a leaf, a snake, clouds scudding across the sky, birds sitting on power lines, the tangled branches of trees etc.