News su design ed architettura

Flos - EMI

Design Erwan Bouroullec, 2023

«The Emi light is a new lighting expression that combines several invisible sources to create a paradoxical experience: light from shadow. We really like the intriguing contrast of the Emi light, which combines a deep, dark matte body that appears to be a void with powerful invisible sources that provide efficient and effective illumination to both the ceiling and the floor. Emi is a silhouette made of shadow that provides light».

Erwan Bouroullec

With Emi, Erwan Bouroullec bring the quality of professional lighting to home and hospitality environments

The Emi collection stems from Erwan Bouroullec's ambition to bring technology and quality from the professional world into lighting for domestic and hospitality settings. In this case, Flos’ proprietary technology gives birth to a programme of luminaires with compact dimensions equipped with a patented anti-glare optical unit.

The collection design originated from grouping three light modules inside linear and compact extrusions, with a triangular section joined at the top. «We have constructed Emi around Flos’ Light Shadow optical concept», explains Erwan Bouroullec. «The light modules inform the light's triangular nature, which is reflected throughout its design. The main section, the pole, and the stands all share this shape, creating a cohesive and visually balanced structure. We found it interesting to replace the usual logic of rectangular geometry with a purely triangular approach. Triangles offer many structural qualities with the minimum use of materials, and they reinvent usual geometry, playing with perspective in a special manner».

Emi is constructed primarily with metals, with the light's base in moulded steel, the pole and main body in aluminum. Polymers are used in the top and bottom sections.

Great efforts were made to reduce all surfaces and thicknesses to the minimum, throughout the whole collection.

The light provided by Emi is very powerful but at the same time gentle, conceived to be reflective. «Even when the Emi body is white, the light is only revealed by the pole in the middle, leaving the body non-illuminated», explains the designer. «This contrast creates an interesting effect, but our main intention was to make it very comfortable for the eyes. The sources never directly engage with your vision, as the light is created by the walls, ceilings, and whatever surfaces that it touches».

Declined in four versions – ceiling suspended, ceiling mounted, floor and table - Emi speaks the language of sophisticated technology while interpreting professional lighting in a poetic way, adapting it to contemporary living.

«We wanted to provide as much as possible of typologies, so Emi has solutions for ceiling, floor, and table stands, as well as freely hanging versions», says Erwan Bouroullec. «Its repetitive use of similar language provides multiple sources of light that can be arranged in space through repetition, alignment, and symmetry. This makes Emi a new kind of architectural source that can be used in a repetitive manner, providing a unified design that can play with the architecture».

The ceiling version is available in two sizes, a slimmer and a wider one, and different lengths. It features a linear structure consisting of a vertical tube that generates a direct light beam. It is distinguished by its modularity: it can work individually or by juxtaposing different elements together, thus generating ever-changing and scenic light combinations, while maintaining its elegant simplicity.

The floor version seems to float in the air, lightened by a stem that connects it to the base, maintaining the same triangular identity that characterizes the ceiling version. The lighting of this model is two-way: in the upper part, light is powerful enough to illuminate the entire space without dazzling, thanks to the particular conformation of the beam. In the lower part, the light is soft, subdued, perfect to be combined with other sources such as a television or an appliance.

The table version works similarly to the floor version, it is small in size and fits perfectly and discreetly on any horizontal surface.

In both table and floor models, light is controlled by the upper stem.

«Spaces often need multiple sources of light, and while sometimes diversity is a good option, sometimes you just need the opposite: multiple light sources that iterate the same language, offering geometry through repetition, alignment, symmetry. Emi has this ability to be used in a patterned manner, as a new kind of architectural source», concludes the designer.

Sustainability and future proof design

The advanced technology of Emi goes hand in hand with its sustainable design.

Emi’s body is mainly realized in aluminum (partially recycled and totally recyclable). All surfaces and thicknesses have been reduced to the minimum to optimize material consumption.

For the goal of durability, Emi is designed to last over time. All light units can be individually replaced for maintenance, while the lack of glues and weldings allows for easy disassembly and correct disposal of all parts at the end of its life.