Canadian Lighting Brand Bocci Introduces The 93 Collection

To create 93, Bocci’s new collection of glass lighting and vessels, the design company turned its Vancouver studio into something of a laboratory. “A thick-walled glass sphere is blown and aluminum is poured manually, producing a fluid metal silhouette,” explains cofounder Omer Arbel of the method, which “emerg[ed] from a decade-long interrogation of the relationship between glass and metal.” Encompassing pendants, surface mount lighting, table lamps, and vases, 93 records the physical reactions between the two materials as the aluminum migrates, oxidizes, and cools inside its heated container.

What results are striated and textured pieces, each uniquely formed by the glassblower’s movements, as well as the two materials’ behaviors where they meet inside the orb or vessel. When lit from within, some of the lights appear like gaseous Jovian planets, others like ancient pressure-made rock formations. As with those natural creations, Bocci’s aluminum-and-glass works required careful composition to achieve their spontaneous outcomes.

“By calibrating their rates of expansion, we were able to work with the two materials without catastrophic failure,” says Arbel, whose lighting design practice has long explored glass’ chemical and physical interactions with metals like chrome, copper, and steel. Experimentation is embedded in his studio’s philosophy, and working with unpredictable materials is embraced.

Bocci’s lighting forms are most often organic and offer an honest vision of the natural phenomena and components that build them. At the same time, they are designed to cast a glow that takes up space, allowing illumination to become a structural medium itself within a room. This theme will draw visitors to the brand’s Milan apartment showroom next month, where it is hosting a Milan Design Week presentation with The Future Perfect founder David Alhadeff.

For now, the works in the new 93 collection put Bocci’s occupation with the relationship between art and science on display. Each sculptural piece captures a specific moment of metamorphosis. “Light enters the glass wall and grazes the metal where they meet,” describes Abel, “expressing the act of making in a single gesture.”