Browse our edit of the best rechargeable light designs to brighten up your garden after sunset this spring. These portable lamps are the perfect friendly accessories to accompany our everyday needs, also swinging between home and (home) office with impeccable ease.
Portable lamp designs: from rechargeable lights for your desk to garden lanterns
Lanterns by Zanellato Bortotto for Louis Vuitton Objets Nomades
Italian designers Daniele Bortotto and Giorgia Zanellato have created a duo of rechargeable lamps for Louis Vuitton Objets Nomades, featuring a blown glass light dome diffusing light through the intricate leather pattern of the shell. Characterized by a honeycomb pattern made of interwoven strips of Louis Vuitton leather, the lamp also includes details inspired by the maison’s bags such as a practical carrying strap and three brass feet protecting the leather. ‘A journey East, a summer dinner with friends, a walk on the beach: we imagined this project as a collection of memories woven into a lantern,’ say the designers. ‘An intimate and personal object to keep with you to gently illuminate precious moments.’
Nui Mini outdoor portable lamp by Meneghello Paolelli Associati for Luceplan
Part of a family of outdoor lamps comprising floor and wall lighting defined by simple geometric compositions, the Nui portable lamp by Luceplan is an outdoor table lamp whose rechargeable nature makes it perfect for an evening in the garden. Featuring a transparent crystal base and a top available in three colours (white, greige and sand), this elegant, dimmable light seamlessly transitions from terrace illumination to indoor lamp.
Bellhop Portable Light by Barber Osgerby for Flos
Originally designed for the Design Museum’s restaurant and inspired by a simple formal intuition, Barber Osgerby’s Bellhop lamp for Flos is a small but mighty portable light. The flexible, rechargeable lamp now features brand new bright shades – yellow and grey-blue – which light up the product’s existing rich palette of red, white, grey and brown. The compact portable light lasts up to 24 hours between charges, and the designers selected edge-lighting technology that ensures an evenly-lit surface. Bellhop also includes anti-glare glow and a dimmer to modify the light’s intensity from ten to a hundred percent.
Mini Portable Light by Studio Word
This minimal portable lamp is the result of a collaboration between Korean designers Kyuhyung Cho and Jungyou Choi of Studio Word and ceramic craftsmen Kim Deok Ho and Lee In Wha. A project initiated by the Korean Heritage Preservation Society, the piece is a functional piece that merges the designers’ simple sculptural language with a sublime craft touch. The portable, rechargeable lamp was created using traditional throwing technique, first shaping the form on a rapidly spinning wheel, then finishing it by slowly shaving away at the sides by hand: a method that achieves different levels of transparency and brightness.
PC Portable Light by Pierre Charpin for Hay
Suitable for indoor or outdoor use, Pierre Charpin’s PC Portable light for Hay is updated with a colorful palette. Featuring a composition of shapes characteristic of Charpin’s work, and a chromatic arrangement referencing Memphis designs’ colours, the battery powered light’s injection moulded plastic body is completed with a matte finish that is both scratch and water-resistant.
Pepa by Francesco Faccin for Astep
Italian designer Francesco Faccin was inspired by the movement of a pepper grinder to create this wireless portable lamp for Danish lighting brand Astep. As you would twist a pepper grinder to finish a dish, the Pepa rechargeable lamp is switched on by twisting, lighting up your environment (and freely adjusting the light intensity in the process). Made of a solid wood body concealing a technological soul (featuring a sophisticated multi-axis magnetic field sensor technology that eliminates any wiring), the tactile lamp is the result of a marriage of craft and innovation. It’s a piece that well exemplifies Astep’s approach to lighting: founder Alessandro Sarfatti has been creating meaningful pieces that celebrate the design heritage of the lighting industry while looking to its future.
Haute by Federico Peri for Purho
Designer Francesco Faccin’s Haute portable light is a piece that bridges innovation and tradition. Working with Murano glass artisans, Italian manufacturer Purho has been developing a new approach to an ancient craft. Their latest piece by Peri, takes this collaborative method to the next level: the designer experimented with glass textures and minimal contemporary shapes to reinterpret the ancient craftsmanship traditions. The rechargeable glass lamp is the result of Peri’s research around the theme of glass engraving, with techniques such as banding, pleating and ribbed excavations creating three different models. Inside, the lamp’s technology merges with more artisanal marvel, with a multilayered coloured glass composition (called murrina) which adds depth to the illumination. The final effect, the designer explains, is like ’a soul is suspended inside.’
Mūn Rechargeable Lantern by OEO Studio for Stellar Works
This rechargeable lamp’s design combines Asian aesthetic sensibilities with Danish design practice OEO’s signature timeless aesthetic, packaged in a practical portable lamp. Designed to be ‘playful, analogue and sculptural’, the Mūn Lantern’s design marries essential form and function and is part of a larger family of lighting accessories. Its name references the Japanese word for moon, and its sophisticated appearance mimics its subtle movement.
Arca by Philippe Malouin for Matter Made
Philippe Malouin continues his collaboration with Matter Made with the new Arca portable lamp. Developed as a multi-functional rechargeable light, it features a 110lm LED module and promises up to 30 hours of use depending on the setting (which can be selected from night, ambient, reading or task). Demountable to easily pack it and take it on trips, it’s the perfect flexible light, ‘from bedside to bath-side’.
Bontà by Davide Oldani for Artemide
The ultimate combination of light and gastronomy, chef Davide Oldani’s Bontà light conceived for Artemide is intended as a tool for conviviality. The rechargeable light bottom is topped with bowls of different shapes and sizes, to combine serving food with illuminating the table. ‘Bontà is not a decorative element,’ says Oldani. ‘It creates an atmosphere, it supports and enhances food, it is open to welcome different shapes of containers.’
FollowMe by Inma Bermúdez for Marset
Portable in name and spirit, this classic rechargeable lamp by Inma Bemúdez for Marset comes back in a new palette of pastel hues. This small lantern’s playful spirit makes it a perfect indoor or outdoor lamp adding a touch of serenity to darkness.
Sylvestrina by Enric Sòria and Jordi Garcés for Santa & Cole
A 1974 design revisited to fit with contemporary life, Enric Sòria and Jordi Garcés’s portable lantern design for Spanish lighting company Santa & Cole was originally conceived with the intention to reproduce the effect of an oil lamp. After nearly five decades, the simple formality of the Sylvestrina lamp is updated as a rechargeable lamp that preserves the original’s warmth with the added practicality of LED technology and long-life battery.
Easy Peasy by Luca Nichetto for Lodes
Italian designer Luca Nichetto has created this series of doll-like portable lamps for Lodes. With a combination of jewel tones and smoked glass concealing the light source, the rechargeable lamps are playful and practical. Lightweight and dimmable, Nichetto’s characteristic designs are intended to enrich a domestic environment, or to add a special touch to hospitality spaces.
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