Molo Design
A few weekends ago Magdalena and I ate in a newish restaurant called Canal House Station in a small river town along the Delaware.
There, in an old train station adapted for re-use, the James Beard Award-winning cooks Melissa Hamilton and Christopher Hirsheimer are up to something good.
However, this post is not about the delicious food we found, but the luminous space.
Yes, the lighting.
Suspended from the ceiling in the main dining room there is a sculptural, cloud-shaped, paper lamp that I found myself looking at again and again.
Although the room was well-lit with spotlights, wall sconces, standing lamps, candles on tables ... the cloud lamp was the only light source in the room (aside from my wife) for me.
When we got home, I put on my design research hat and started to scout. Here's what I found.
The lamp was made by Molo, a design and production studio based in Vancouver, BC. Molo's principals are architect/designers Stephanie Forsythe and Todd MacAllen.
Through Molo, Forsythe and MacAllen make and sell modern furniture and fixtures mainly from paper and cardboard. Their work is all about materiality and form.
Molo’s products have a Japan-ness about them (simple shapes, natural materials, shibui style) but are not explicitly Japanese. For example, the lighting fixtures evoke Isamu Noguchi's Akari light sculptures, but are more contemporary in their materials and shapes.
Back to the attention-grabbing pendant cloud lamp.
The lamp's soft light is diffuse. It is lit from within, LED through paper. At full brightness it can provide an atmosphere for working, reading, eating. When dimmed, it conjures a quieter, more contemplative setting. On Molo's website, it is explained that the lamp can be installed individually or arranged in multiples, as suspended mobiles.
While reading-up on the cloud lamp, I made a new discovery as well. Molo's luminous textile softblocks.
Textile softblocks are made from something like wool felt. They are modular and can be stacked or stretched to divide a room. They connect magnetically to create spatial partitions or backdrops. Like the cloud lamp, they are internally lit by LEDs. Their cellular geometry and soft material allow them to flex and curve. And they pack-down flat for portability and storage.
More information to light your interest about both designs can be found here and here:
https://molodesign.com/collections/lighting/cloud-softlight-pendant-paper-cloud-light/
https://molodesign.com/collections/space-partitions/textile-softwall-flexible-wall/
