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 colourful 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 colours. The first variant has a natural colour with contrasting warm red stitching; the second one has a warm red colour 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. Bul-Bo Soft will be exclusively available in Loro Piana stores and Loro Piana Interiors showrooms.

Says Axolight CEO Giuseppe Scaturro, "After having given a second life to the original Bul-Bo with an outstanding partnership with Aimaro Isola, Guido Drocco, Lodovico Gabetti and Fabrizio Pellegrino, we really enjoyed working on this special edition of the lamp. We are aware that all the distinctive elements of this unique object have been perfectly maintained, while adding a tactile and colourful aspect and other small details that always aim at comfort and pleasure". 

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.