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Bilboquet, Shedding Light on the Game

Philippe Malouin designs an adjustable table lamp for Flos, inspired by the popular French game

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17/10/2023 - The use of light becomes a playful experience with Bilboquet, the Flos table lamp designed by Canadian designer Philippe Malouin, inspired by the eponymous popular French game. Built on natural gestures, Bilboquet consists of two colored cylinders connected by a magnetic sphere that allows you to adjust the light flow. Formal clarity and visual solidity come together to create a "poetic lamp," the result of a quest for an emotional connection through play. "Simple in appearance but rich in personality," as designer Philippe Malouin explains, "Bilboquet is an adjustable table lamp that allows you to direct the light in a playful yet precise manner. Drawing inspiration from magnetic ball joints, Bilboquet offers a complete range of movements for various functions. Whether used as a task light on a workspace, to provide soft lighting on a wall, or for direct light when reading a good book, Bilboquet brings light wherever it's needed."

The Flos table lamp: from game to light

All the elements that make up the lamp are inspired by the bilboquet, a game born in France in the 16th century, to which Malouin's design owes its name.

In bilboquet, a perforated wooden ball with a cord attached to the middle of a pointed stick, equipped with a concave disc on the other end, was used. The game involved bouncing the ball and then catching it either on the point that fits into the ball's hole or on the disc. With the Bilboquet lamp, Malouin transforms the use of light. Not only in its design, but the playful aspect is also central in the choice of the color palette: sage, tomato, and linen are the three colors that not only tint the lamp's body but also the cord and plug, creating a visually coherent whole.

Bilboquet has been designed to adapt to various needs: in addition to the adjustable cylinder, the cord can be left free or hidden, securely fixed in a designated slot under the base.

The sustainable design of the Flos table lamp

The sustainability of Bilboquet is evident from the project's inception, through material selection, and throughout the production process.

The lamp's outer body is made of a special polycarbonate derived from a by-product of paper production rather than petroleum.

In the process of extracting cellulose from wood to make paper, a special viscous liquid known as "tallolja" in Swedish and "tall oil" in English is produced. Thanks to a recently introduced industrial process, this oil, traditionally used for making inks, can now be used to create a polycarbonate with the same characteristics as conventional polycarbonate.

This results in a sustainable plastic material based on renewable natural resources, which does not require further land use or water waste, unlike other bio-based plastics that necessitate dedicated cultivation.

As for the lamp's steel sphere, the traditional anti-corrosive galvanic coating used to protect against oxidation and enhance its form is replaced by a PVD (Physical Vapor Deposition) surface treatment, providing high aesthetic qualities without the need for invasive production processes.

The steel spheres, traditionally used in wind turbines, are sometimes discarded due to minor diameter defects, on the order of hundredths of a millimeter. Bilboquet makes use of this negligible flaw, avoiding the need for discarded spheres to return to an energy-intensive production cycle.

The entire life cycle of Bilboquet, from the origin of raw materials to disposal, follows strict criteria established by ISO standards for Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), thanks to the absence of glued parts in the lamp: the product is easily disassembled, and each component is replaceable and recyclable. The lamp is packaged in an ultra-compact packaging. Shipping and storage volumes are minimized as the product is disassembled inside the packaging.

Flos on Archiproducts

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