The iconic Bul-Bo lamp designed by Gabetti and Isola Studio was recently re-edited by the lighting design company Axolight, introducing contemporary elements with philological regard for the original design

Bul-Bo is debuting today in a new soft and colorful version called Bul-Bo Soft thanks to the collaboration with the Italian textile company Loro Piana. Created between 1968 and 1971 to light the spaces of the Olivetti Residential Centre in Ivrea, Bul-Bo was conceived as a playful, hilarious and almost irreverent item. This thanks to its faux leather base whose shape reminds of a bulb or an onion – as the architects themselves claim – filled inside with marble granules. It allows the stem to be tilted, making it assume different positions.

At the top there is an aluminum ‘flag’ with the silhouette of the original incandescent light bulb, now replaced by a LED source. A brilliant object in its simplicity and deep contemporaneity that Axolight and Loro Piana chose to propose in an even more playful variant. The base of the lamp has been covered in wool and cashmere Altai fabric in two different colors. The first variant has a natural color with contrasting warm red stitching; the second one has a warm red color with tone-on-tone stitching.

This is how Bul-Bo Soft lamp was born, referring to one of the main features of the fabric in which it is made: softness. The functionality of the lamp has also remained unchanged, designed to guarantee perfect lighting for different uses, obtainable by changing the inclination of the rod – reading lamp, work lamp for the desk or light point similar to a suspension lamp – and further improved by the possibility of positioning the LED source independently.