Zupanc designed the Runaway lamp as limited-edition torch to give modern travellers off-grid illumination in an emergency.

"This diminutive object breaks the rules of contemporary traveling, bringing back the romance of isolation," says Zupanc. "In its basic function, a portable lamp now becomes an enchanting companion but also a real saviour in the event of an electricity shortage."

Winding the brass key powers a dynamo hidden inside the simple, vacuum-formed plastic shade to light recessed LEDs.

A shallow indent in the shade and a telescopic stand allow the table lamp to fold into a flashlight or pendant. In its torch-state, the circular base becomes a metallic trim to the plastic shade. The glossy shade will be available in a choice of black or white.

The project will be on show at Spazio Rossana Orlandi, Via Matteo Bandello 14/16 from 9 to 14 April.

Last year Zupanc presented a set of bubble-like outdoor furniture and lamps called Summertime at the same venue. See all our stories about work by Nika Zupanc.

Other lamps launching in Milan next week include pendant lamps by Resident and some angular lamps that form part of Tom Dixon's Rough and Smooth collection. See all our previews of design at Milan 2013.

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Nika Zupanc appeared first on Dezeen.

Milan 2012: Slovenian designer Nika Zupanc presented a set of outdoor furniture and lamps like huge pink bubbles at Spazio Rossana Orlandi in Milan.

The Summertime collection includes folding chairs with metallic pink frames and black leather seats upholstered with material normally used for yachts, and a table with turnkeys at the sides so the top flips upright to become a blackboard.

The Bubble lamps are blown from pink glass with black holders and come in 45 or 60cm diameters.

See more work by Nika Zupanc on Dezeen here.

Bubble lamps were also presented by Swedish designers Front at Spazio Rossana Orlandi, although theirs blow actual soap bubbles every few seconds - check it out here.

The Salone Internazionale del Mobile took place from 17 to 22 April. See all our stories about Milan 2012 here, and check out photos on Facebook and Pinterest.

Top image is by Saša Hess. Product photos are by Dragan Arrigler.

Here are some more details from Zupanc:

Another year, and a bunch of new poems for taking Milan out of its comfort zone. This time, Nika Zupanc is bringing with her a squat of innocent looking pieces that mindfully explore the limits of the industry when it comes to emotional effect and the juxtaposition of materials.

Zupanc has no intention of taking anything lightly so she makes something as forgiving as summer a hostage for the quest of finding novel expressions to transgress the rationalism, utilitarism and practical common sense. To accomplish this, she uses her poetic judgment, inner battles with stereotypes and long-lasting affairs with technologies.

The ultimate design repertoire, consisting of a lamp, a chair and a table, are now taken into a completely wild territory: the summery outdoors. Numerous interpretations of their generic nature equip the objects with a disturbing beauty and defamiliarization of collective summer memories brings an uncanny allure to the Summertime collection. The Bubble lamps are made of an extraordinary pink glass, produced by Vistosi brand with centenary tradition in glass of Murano for Nika Zupanc. But the flourish blow up of rosa antico is what makes them an intruder to the mise-en-scène of dying glory of Lord Byron's Venice. Foldable Summertime chairs with their red gold embroidered seat cushions are unsettlingly engaging, while the Summertime table in its noir surface and toy-like winding mechanism hides the potential of an impromptu blackboard or a mirror, your own private vanity fair.

Summertime

The sweet feeling of forever and the permanent bitter lack of nowness are the main characteristics that Nika Zupanc extracts from summer and multiplies in her objects du jour.

The Summertime pieces are stripped down to pure form, to their utilitarian value only to be inflated with poetic longing.

In the quest of finding new ways to transgress the practical common sense and to test its limits of emotive effects, Zupanc argues technologies and ways predominantly associated with the so called boys club and their playground. To accomplish this, she uses her poetic judgment, inner battles with stereotypes and long-lasting affairs with technologies.

The repertoire with which Nika Zupanc likes to play hard consists of a lamp, a chair and a table. A true classic is this time taken into a completely wild territory: the summery outdoors, resulting in numerous interpretations of their generic nature. The iconic summer elements and sounds of seagulls have to survive in a new context. Defamiliarization of viewer's perception of these memories is something that brings an uncanny allure to the collection.

The Bubble lamps are made of an extraordinary pink glass, produced by Vistosi brand with centenary tradition in glass of Murano for Nika Zupanc. But the flourish blow up of rosa antico is what makes them an intruder to the mise-en-scène of dying glory of Lord Byron's Venice. Foldable Summertime chairs with their red gold embroidered ancors and tubular metal frames are unsettlingly engaging, while the Summertime table in its noir surface and toy-like winding mechanism hides the potential of an impromptu blackboard or a mirror, your own private vanity fair.

Bubble lamp - a natural born intruder

Taking Venetian street lamps for a hostage of its poetic needs is what you will come to expect from this illuminator of the most mischievous kind. That it unprecedentedly blows up the proportions of Murano glass and does so in pink implies its role of an invader to the mise-en-scène of Lord Byron‘s Venice. Perfectly shaped, it silently glows with no buzz or fuzz, like it is just waiting for the next vaporetto. Its misplaced beauty is noticed instantly, even from across the room.

Materials: glass, metal
Glass blowing produced by Vistosi brand with centenary tradition in glass of Murano.
Colours: pink glass, black lamp holder
Lamp diameter: 60 and 45 cm

Summertime chair - the disruption of the outdoors

With its strong foldable tubular metal frame it could have been just another well-behaved object, resisting the demanding life in lush gardens, however, it has a more subversive role to play. Dipped in red gold colour it brings an uncanny allure to the sweet tackiness of summer memories. In the meantime the embroidery of an iconic summer visual, an anchor, stirs up a palette of novel connotations, finally allowing you to have an affair with this post-suburban bad boy gone red gold.

Materials: tubular metal frame, shark outdoor textile, embroidery
Colours: black upholstery, red gold frame

Summertime table - an afternoon painted noir

Designed as a surface of purification and temptation, it makes a staggering first impression and a lifelong obsession. Of course it can take all the challenges of a sleek coffee table, but its toy-like winding mechanisms hint at the potential of switching perspectives. On the one side it is, how very cerebral, an impromptu blackboard for taking down emotional bits and bobs. On the other, your own private vanity fair with a full length mirror, waiting for the first blink of an eye.

Materials: tubular metal frame, enameled tin plates, mirror foil
Colours: blackboard, red gold legs

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Milan 2010: Slovenian designer Nika Zupanc presented a chair decorated with rose patterns in Milan earlier this month.

The 5 O'Clock Chair, presented by Dutch brand Moooi, is based on Zupanc's memories of retro furniture and English porcelain.

The chair is part of a set for Moooi that also includes a small table.

See all our stories about Milan 2010 in our special category.

Here's some text from Zupanc:

I.

Secrets

Tito’s tea house, Belvedere Pavilion, lake Bled, Wednesday, September 2009. Just after 5 o clock.

If a supreme commander of an army has a tea house, than you can imagine it is one of very special architecture. And it is. Presiding over an alpine lake it offers the magnificent view and an interior that is so much more than just charming place to drink a cup of tea. Its retro interior stayed unchanged, frozen in time all the way from the 50es. This place is able to take you back in the fragile times of forgotten values, forbidden loves and secret talks. From up here, you can see battalion of life’s that since silently passed by.

And it was there when I first thought I just had to design a chair.
One that would radiate the beauty and the pain of irreversibility of time.

II.

Boys don‘t cry

Window of any porcelain store, from when I can remember.

Since I can remember, I always just loved the traditional English china. With pink rose patterns. My romantic soul just couldn’t help itself - whenever I passed the shopping window of a store, selling any kind of china with pink roses, I just had to stop. And admire. Desire. Many times, there were also boys accompanying me -(how funny, If I rethink that - all of them described in just few words) always very tall, very handsome, dressed in black (well, maybe also dark grey). As a rule they were all architects by profession, raised by dogmatic form, strictly following the function, in love with Neufert and Le Corbusier  and unable to separate themselves from modernistic fantasias. Yes, they all were blessed with an exceptional taste, of course - but in this case they just couldn‘t go along with my girllie whishfull retro, coded in picculliarites of my mind.
And of course  - if something is anyhow forbidden, it becomes even more intriguing. For me, at least.

So there we were,  my china with pink roses and me.
A pair, that always enjoys to challenge the clean, minimal and - above all - safe choices.

III.

The name of the game

Smarna mountain, just before the sun set

I am designer of a strange. And I almost never sketch on paper. Most of my sketches are mind works, invisible byproducts of walking or running. If it is a hill and a lot of trees around me, the designs usually turn out really good. Smarna gora is a hill just few steps away from my home and is my second and most creative studio. One day, somewhere in the middle of descent - I just new it - this is a 5 o’ clock chair!  A chair with roses, resembling the china I loved so much.

Since I loved the name so much, I took it as an assurance that an excellent product will follow.

IV.

Blender

Home, after eight in the morning and at 5 o’clock in the afternoon

It is the tea that I drink every morning and every evening or afternoon. Japanese one and green in the morning, the one full of herbs anywhere after 5 o’clock. I just love the combination, the attitude, the imagination Japanese have toward drinking tea ceremonies. Their taste, the one that travels through countless unexpected designs and materials, is so overwhelming. Wood with ceramic, colours, combinations, forms. The chair has to have something of that Japan elegance, an unexpected twist in the mixture of materials.

Mixing Japan with English? Very eclectic, I admit.

V.

Moooi of the hearth

Studio, 23rd of September 2009, 15.10. p.m.

It is a story, this one about Moooi and me. So many details, emotions, small steps, inspirations, and tears -no doubt. Lolita was a big step for me and in some ways even bigger for Moooi. To work on things which are beautifull with an extra o is such a challenge. The standards are  high and the parameters the design has to have in order to fit in the collection so tricky and so simple at once. And there are realities to meet: the tooling, the priceing, the earnings. The beautiful problems of a real product world.
So yes, after Lolita, my personal challenge here was simplicity - a chair, made out of lasting, simple materials and basic technologies. Can I be sincere but new and strong at the same time?

5 o clock seemed as a perfect match.
With one klick, it was sent to the Netherlands.
And it was excactly 2 years after Lolita was born. Coincidence? I wouldn’t say.

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Milan 2010: Dezeen are in Milan today where the design shows are underway, including this pavilion covered in wooden windmills by Slovenian designer Nika Zupanc.

Called Gone With the Wind, the house-shaped structure has been erected at Superstudio Più in the Zona Tortona district, and houses Zupanc's latest collection of furniture.

See all our stories about Milan 2010 in our special category.

The information below is from Zupanc:

This year’s edition of Superstudio Più will again be marked by the intriguing spirit of Nika Zupanc.

With her exhibition Gone with the Wind, Nika Zupanc continues to be sincere while uncovering the excuses for a socially acceptable status quo.

By positioning archetypes that are considered feminine in the carefully selected centers of public attention, her chillingly beautiful forms become emerging reference points.

Her battles are of a higher style, and so the presence of famous female literary heroines remains mandatory.

The entry point to the world of Nika Zupanc – a frame for her gallery and a prism for readings of her work – is also a metaphorical structure.

It is a tiny house driven by toy-like windmills on the outside and with a big bang of connota- tions from the inside.

The Wind Pavilion stands as an icon evoking a sense for nature. With it, Nika Zupanc embraces the issue of responsibility by introducing the elegance and poetry of creative expression into predominately technical solutions.

Like so many magic pavilions in the past, this one is also outfitted in one of the latest wonders of the industry – the unique modular façade system Qbiss by trimo.

Optically smooth surfaces, unique rounded corner elements, and “shadow joints” allow great freedom of expression and enable an optically enchanting combination of an inclined grid and an attractive landscape of 45 restless windmills.

Inside the Wind Pavilion, Nika Zupanc will put her newest family of objects on display.

This time they came to address you as advocates of a sort because they present a case for new symbolic and emotional readings of design, and are told through elements of modesty and self-reliance.

See also:

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Ljubljana designer Nika Zupanc has designed two lamps for Slovenian lighting brand Vertigo Bird.

Force Lamp (above and top image) is a pendant light almost one metre in diametre, made of epoxy and steel.

Turning the protruding wing-nut on the aluminium Boy's Lamp (above and below) adjusts the height of the shade and alters the spread of the beam.

Here's some further information from Nika Zupanc:

--

Boy’s Lamp and Force Lamp by Nika Zupanc for Vertigo Bird

Force Lamp and Boys Lamp are two of Nika Zupanc’s designs that have been launched by Slovenian producer Vertigo Bird. After a successful presentation at Light + Building last year they are now available as final products. Both reflect Nika’s special touch of emotional extravagance, her desire to push the limits of aesthetics and speculate with new visual codes.

FORCE LAMP

No, this charismatic and almost flying lamp was not recycled from a WW2 bomber nor from a soviet nuclear submarine. Its seriousness, fatality and its “impossible to ignore” nature are all genuine. This lamp was not crafted to impress, but to conquer. It gives you a reason to stop.

It gives you an excuse to escape. It gently pushes you to surrender. Under its powerful embrace you are free to feel protected.

Due to its size the chandelier needs an open and airy space. Force lamp is a logical continuation of the development of the Boy’s lamp. With its dimension and unpredictable use of the two forms it can be used in various situations.

BOY’S LAMP

You know, missions and treasons. Cars and rockets. Guns and bikinis. This light is a shiny tribute to the madness of them all. In the beginning it was conceived as a song about boyhood and manhood. It ended up as music that will give any room, office or conspiracy cabinet abundant reasons to feel sharp, confident and restless at heart. The lamp shines downwards. By changing the height of the lampshade it is possible to regulate the width of the beam on the surface.

Further information from manufacturer Vertigo Bird:

Vertigo Bird is a family of gentle yet forceful lighting equipment. ‘Unpredictably elegant + unexpectedly functional’ is the brand message which carries the belief in creativity as the well-conceived union of two different poles that jointly attain new value.

The brand products are created in close cooperation with different Slovenian and international designers. It’s ambition is to employ the talents and business experience of renowned creatives with energy and originality of a younger generation of emerging designers.

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