Pli: sinuous like a drapery, essential in design — Design: Felicia Arvid

A new development for 2023, PLI is a pendant lamp in which the light source becomes a support structure: like a needle crossing a thin sheet, it creates and holds in place a series of soft folds, drapings and waves. An item that narrates Foscarini’s ongoing research, while at the same time embodying the poetics of Arvid, 28 years old and already a winner of a Compasso d’Oro award in 2022 for the design of an acoustic panel. Felicia Arvid focuses on simplification: the functional elements coincide with the decorative factors. In her works, she uses materials as if they were fabrics, folding them like drapes to transform them into load-bearing structures of great aesthetic and evocative force.

“PLI is my first lamp”, Arvid explains. “In the collective imaginary lamps bring together a body and a shade, inside which a light source is inserted. I have chosen to begin with the light source, building around it a diffuser whose form had to be a direct consequence, with the objective of obtaining gentle, non-invasive light”.

In PLI the light source is a tube that contains the LED strip, on which to directly insert – like a needle in fabric – a very thin perforated sheet that forms a series of soft folds, overhangs and draping effects, resembling waves. From a two-dimensional element, the material of the diffuser thus becomes a three-dimensional form: and it is the light source that holds it in position. Light, sinuous and poetic, PLI comes in wood or paper, for two different luminous effects.

In PLI the light source is a tube that contains the LED strip, on which to directly insert – like a needle in fabric – a very thin perforated sheet that forms a series of soft folds, overhangs and draping effects, resembling waves. From a two-dimensional element, the material of the diffuser thus becomes a three-dimensional form: and it is the light source that holds it in position. Light, sinuous and poetic, PLI comes in wood or paper, for two different luminous effects.

In the wooden version the light is concentrated upward and downward, while in the paper version it spreads thanks to the extreme thinness of the sheet that triggers delicate translucence at the sides of the lamp: “thinking about placing on a table, the lamp is perfect to forcefully brighten the top, with a more delicate glow on the faces of the guests”, Arvid remarks.

Felicia Arvid’s passion for fabrics stems from her background: before taking a degree in architecture, she studied fashion design and developed a collection of multifunctional garment-objects. A short adventure that helped her to discover her own true interest: the possibility of creating essential solutions in which function mingles with form, with material that becomes the absolute protagonist of the design – precisely as in PLI.