Relvãokellermann is a Munich-based design studio, run by industrial designers Ana Relvão and Gerhardt Kellermann. (They’re the ones who did those handsome, stackable cork storage boxes.) In addition to doing client work, they have an in-house skunkworks called RK Lab. “RK Lab is a space within our practice where we explore new ways of experiencing objects,” they write. “It serves as an independent playground, enabling us to question established typologies and open pathways to new forms of perception and use.”
Out of that playground came this experimental Tangent lamp:
A magnetic sphere. A block of oxidized steel. A light filament.
Now picture this: the moment when the magnetic sphere touches the block of oxidized steel. A single point of contact. In that instant, the circuit wakes up, current flows, and the filament lights up.
It all happens through the tangent. Yet, every time the hand decides differently, and both the light mood and the lamp transform accordingly to the hand’s intentions.
Tangent is a product exploration produced and developed within RK Lab, our in-house platform for experimentation. Conceived as an exercise in questioning conventions, the object investigates the relationship between experience, technology and the purpose of light itself. By focusing on essential elements, the lamp highlights how a simple tangent connection can create both functionality and a new way of experiencing an everyday object.