Header: Rodrigo Parada
Spora is a table lamp made entirely of glazed ceramic, with a domed shade that sits over its base in the shape of a mushroom and a textile cable running out from underneath. The bulb is hidden inside the dome, so the light comes out as a soft, indirect glow.
It was designed by Lorena Gracia, a Chilean architect, interior designer and ceramicist who has been working with clay for over a decade and who makes the lamp in Santiago under her own brand, Nébula. It is one of the most recent winners of the LIT Lighting Design Awards, having won the “Desk Lamps, Floor Lamps” category of the prestigious award.
Inspired by the fungi
Gracia took the form from the fungi kingdom, looking at the organic shapes that grow up out of the ground, and named the lamp after the spore, the single cell that fungi release to reproduce. The cap is the main part of the design, since the glaze inside it is hard and glossy and sends the light back down and outwards. What reaches the room is indirect, with no bulb in sight and no beam, which is why Gracia recommends the lamp for bedside tables, side tables, desks and shelves.
The limited edition
The version that won the award is the first limited edition, made in stoneware, a clay fired at high temperature until it is hard and no longer porous. Each piece is thrown on the wheel and combined with flat slabs of clay, then glazed by hand. A finished lamp weighs 3.5 kilograms and takes around thirteen hours of work.
Twenty were made, each one different, in four finishes: a raw clay colour, a grey, a deep red Gracia calls Granada, and a rust she calls Óxido. They take a GU10 LED bulb, the small twist-in spotlight fitting used in ceiling downlights, which comes with the lamp, and a textile cable a metre and a half long.
The white series
Alongside the limited pieces, there is a series in white, made in moulds so that the outline stays exactly the same from one lamp to the next, and, of course, finished by hand. These are fired at a lower temperature and glazed, as the name suggests, in gloss white. 25 centimetres across the shade and 25 centimetres tall, they weigh 1.2 kilograms, which is less than half the weight of the stoneware pieces. The bulb here is a 4.7-watt Philips GU10 LED, and the cable is the one part that changes in jute, red, orange, copper, white or blue.
Project information
Lighting Design Company: nebula.gracia
Lead Designer: Lorena Gracia
Other Credits: Cerámicas Grof
Photography: Rodrigo Parada
Location: Santiago, Chile
