Downtown Design
redazione 23/04/2026

Cru Lighting

Lighting design is pushing new boundaries, blending revisited archetypes with poetic and interactive gestures, and transforming multisensory light into architecture. Material research merges with innovation, creating sustainable and customizable solutions that redefine how we experience illuminated spaces

DIY lighting
Requiring active participation, interaction, and a dose of creativity, MAAP, designed by Erwan Bouroullec for Flos, is far from a simple lamp. It’s built around an ultralight Tyvek® envelope, paper-like in appearance but tear-resistant. This envelope, forming the lamp’s body, is magnetically attached to the wall via four light sources and a cross support. Here lies the project’s originality: MAAP can evolve over time with endless interpretations. Luminous “Dots” allow for infinite reshaping, lightly securing the envelope which must be crumpled each time to form a micro-structure for shape and stability. “MAAP is designed to be shaped by our innate inclination to create, by our impulse to give form to objects in response to the context,” explains the designer. Three envelope sizes are available, with the largest extending up to 3.22 meters in width.

MDW26: Corso Monforte 15

Torche by Foscarini, design Dordoni Studio

Torche by Foscarini, design Dordoni Studio

Archetype of light
A simple, archetypal gesture – like carrying and sharing a torch – becomes a familiar and discreet presence in the environment with Torche, Foscarini’s new lamp. Conceived by Rodolfo Dordoni and developed by Architects Cimadoro and Mauro of Dordoni Studio, Torche boasts clean lines and is crafted from cast aluminum. It offers a dual light emission: broad and diffused upwards, and more concentrated and intimate downwards.

MDW26: Corso Monforte 19

Boltons by Artemide, design Herzog & de Meuron - Photo © Pierpaolo Ferrari

Boltons by Artemide, design Herzog & de Meuron – Photo © Pierpaolo Ferrari

Poetic gestures
Boltons is a lamp that marries a patented optical study with the beauty of hand-worked glass, embodying both innovation and tradition. Herzog & de Meuron envisioned it for Artemide as a union of a transparent body and an adjustable metal disc that acts as a shade. The glass body is uniquely crafted with a delicate internal air bubble, thicker at the top and tapering towards the sides. The disc serves as both a poetic element and a functional tool to control and direct light. The light source within the lamp projects upwards, animating the glass with reflections without compromising optical efficiency. As the designers explain, “The Boltons lamp encourages interaction and the exploration of fundamental lighting principles.”

MDW26: Corso Monforte 19

Slider by PLH

Slider by PLH

Return to analog
Tactility returns to the forefront of contemporary design, a trend interpreted by PLH with their new Slider control system. At its core is the natural sliding motion – a fluid movement from right to left or top to bottom – to easily adjust “scale-based” controls like light intensity, sound volume, and motorized devices such as blinds and fans. This return to an “analog” dimension is also reflected in the design, inspired by audio mixer faders. “With a simple gesture, everything becomes modulable, creating tailor-made atmospheres”” says the company. While the interaction evokes a past era, Slider’s versatility is thoroughly contemporary, integrating with advanced home automation systems and available in various configurations and finishes for seamless integration into collections like MakeUp, Skin, Slim, Mono, and Keyboard.

MDW26: Via Voghera 4a

Clip by Italamp, design Pio&Tito Toso

Clip by Italamp, design Pio&Tito Toso

JackO by Linea Light Group

JackO by Linea Light Group

Harmony of opposites
Like a drop suspended in space, the Clip lamp creates a poetic imagery defined by the encounter of two materials: glass and metal. Designers Pio&Tito Toso expand Italamp’s collection with this new pendant, where balance and dynamism, freedom and rigor seem to meet. On one side, glass captures and modulates light, diffusing soft reflections reminiscent of dawn; on the other, metal acts as a counterpoint, supporting and lending a decisive, firm, yet lightweight character. Equipped with two downward-oriented spots for targeted and functional illumination, the Clip pendant is designed for both residential and contract/hospitality settings.

Lighting as architecture
Linea Light Group‘s expanded vision of illumination positions lighting as a tool for transforming and connecting spaces and the people within them. JackO, their new modular pole-mounted lighting system for public and private outdoor areas (available from 2027), embodies this philosophy. JackO is a customizable system combining pole modules, diffused light modules, and projector housing modules, ranging from 2.5 to 4.5 meters in height. This allows for configurations with diffused light, targeted beams, or a combination of both. The diffuser, positioned at the top, provides uniform, wide light emission, reaching a diameter of 10 meters on the ground. The combination of diffusers and projectors of various sizes generates personalized scenarios.

Drifting Lights by Preciosa

Drifting Lights by Preciosa

Multisensory light
Preciosa consistently delivers spectacular light installations during Milan Design Week, and this year is no exception. The Czech company presents “Drifting Lights” at Tempesta Gallery in Brera: 60 vertically and horizontally suspended glass panels form an impressive structure measuring 8.7 × 3.2 × 3 meters. The installation highlights Preciosa’s unique 3D Patch light effect, where light flows through the structure and diffuses into the glass, illuminating encapsulated micro-bubbles like suspended constellations.

MDW26: Drifting Lights | Foro Buonaparte 68

Axia by Lodes, design Vittorio Venezia & Carolina Martinelli

Axia by Lodes, design Vittorio Venezia & Carolina Martinelli

Revisited classics
In Axia, decorative form, light, and technique merge in a subtle, continuous gesture. Lodes’ new lamp, designed by Vittorio Venezia and Carolina Martinelli, reinterprets the traditional chandelier archetype with a contemporary sensibility. Offered in a single size (approx. 80 cm) and two metallic finishes – Polished Bronze and Black Chrome – that define its personality.

MDW26: Via Moscova 33

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