Jacopo Acciaro: the Euroluce 2023 round tables
Salone del Mobile.Milano 2023, Euroluce, "You can imagine the opposite", Maurizio Nannucci, ph. Diego Ravier
The lighting designer responsible for curating the new format for the events devoted to innovation in the lighting field reflects on the recent Salone and traces the direction in which lighting design looks increasingly likely to move, thanks to the unique opportunities for discussion offered by this last biennial, with the support of IADL, AIDI and APIL
Euroluce 2023 provided an opportunity to rethink the trade fair format, thanks to the new layout, and to trial original and innovative ways of presenting products and opportunities for knowledge-sharing within the sector, for professionals especially. Designers and industry workers came together at two round tables curated by Jacopo Acciaro / Voltaire Lighting Design with the support of the IALD, AIDI and APIL associations - The City and Living Places: Architectural interventions for Tertiary Use with a High Impact on the Urban and Social Context, and The Enhancement of Historical Architecture in Relation to New Urban Interventions – with exceptional speakers from different architectural and technological fields and the institutions. Sustainable urban, lighting and landscape design formed the focus for these discussions, which took the different fields of intervention into account.
Jacopo Acciaro (right), workshop at Euroluce 2023, ph. Mattia Romanut
Summing up his experience of the Salone del Mobile.Milano 2023, Jacopo Acciaro had this to say: “The recent edition of Euroluce underscored the desire to innovate and explore content and proposals in line with current standards and especially with issues connected with lighting design – hotly debated both in Europe and further afield. The Euroluce biennial has often been seen as being focused around products, but the need to break down the barriers between integrated lighting design and design objects is becoming increasingly pressing. The desire of industry professionals to engage and to spark renewed involvement was seen as extremely positive and laid the ground for the entire sector to embark on a new path.”
Euroluce 2023, workshop area, ph. Diego Ravier
“The face of communication around lighting design over the last few years has also taken a predominantly technical turn and Euroluce took this change ably on board, addressing themes such as quality of light, people’s well-being as well, obviously, as sustainability and luminous and energy efficiency. The round tables on lighting design-related issues were excellent tools for empowering and concretising professional knowledge-sharing within the context of the fair, providing opportunities for aggregation and acceleration, triggering discussion around trends, information and carrying out research.”
Flos at Euroluce 2023, ph. Ruggiero Scardigno
“Lighting design objects are still fundamental, embodying an implicit awareness of the balance between form and technical content, and of the equal relationship between product functionality and light and aesthetic quality. We are thus moving towards the inclusion of all the concepts in which light becomes the connecting factor between decorative element and technical performance. Flos, for example, continues to produce a strong range of decorative authorial pieces, but with extremely important lighting content. Vibia has also started to include increasingly few decorative elements compared with technical ones, and therefore to simply have an extremely wide range of pieces that speak to light; just as Cariboni is going to great lengths to play its part in this paradigm shift.”
“Electronics, multimedia and components have evolved to such an extent that companies are being forced to change their approach. The technological aspect permeates all design initiatives, because now even decorative objects have become extremely interactive and are set to become even more so, extending to objects that previously only had the option of being switched on or off. They have now become tools that allow us to inhabit spaces as comfortably as possible.”
Vibia at Euroluce 2023, ph. Ruggiero Scardigno
“On the subject of objects, the need to revisit the concept of light body design emerged during one of the round tables, because architecture is changing, demands are changing, users have different habits and therefore, even when technical, products need to be increasingly integrated into architecture and to reflect people’s ways of life. These discussions showed how a design approach to light can be initiated, along with extensive sharing of the problems that need to be taken into account, which have now become numerous: energy efficiency, comfort, sustainability, technology, recycling, end of product life etc. The main take-away from the meetings was that the situation today is complex, because there are so many actors, so many criticalities, ever tighter timeframes, increasingly difficult costs to manage, and consequently maintaining the strength and competence to grow the lighting culture becomes increasingly important.”
