Hasta La Ideas

More and more we’re seeing designers turning to local materials for their products, and we couldn’t be happier about it. Not only does it streamline the production process for the designers, but it feeds their local economy and gives their work an edge as well as (bonus points) a design story. One of the best recent examples of this we’ve seen are two limestone lamps by Marco Maturo and Alessio Roscini, founders of the Milanese design group, Studio Klass.

For their Tegola bedside lamp, Maturo and Roscini turned to Pimar, a family owned, fourth-generation Italian limestone manufacturer. Made of just two pieces that fit together without fixings, the slanted surface on the base is designed to harness the natural luminescent properties of limestone to reflect the light from the overhanging piece, angling the light towards the user.

Petra, the second table lamp in their limestone collection, was apparently inspired by “the famous monument in Jordan, entirely dug and carved into the rock.” They’re talking about the great sandstone tombs and Djin blocks, or God blocks, cut directly into the massive walls along the Siq canyon trail, at the end of which, by the way, lies the Khazneh, or Treasury, better known to us as The Temple of the Holy Grail from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Drawing from the work of those great, ancient stone masons, Maturo and Roscini made the Petra lamp—again, out of just two pieces from the same block of stone, eliminating waste and adding continuity. The sculptural yet fully functional lamp houses a light source in the base with a lid that can be removed for a brighter light or left in place for a pure white ambient glow.

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