Discover the Sublime with Skynest

The new Skynest pendant lamp from FLOS, designed by Marcel Wanders studios, is a sublime experience. Fusing thin, woven textile tubes and flexible LED strips, the loosely netted lamp shade echoes spiritual symbolism in its modern design. For those seeking inspiration, gazing upon the Skynest’s silhouette might inspire answers from beyond the known universe.

Skynest in tourmaline blue. Photo provided by FLOS

Last year, Marcel suspended his studio operations to take a sabbatical and refocus on living life fully. Marcel has now returned to the design world, and it appears that during his time off, spirituality entered his practice.

The name Skynest brings to mind sacred beings, like the eagle and condor, who build their homes in mountain tops, far and away from other creatures. Wanders aims to cultivate such magnetic associations through design.

“We are poets, secretly engineering,” he says.

Marcel used ancient weaving as the foundation for the Skynest, playing with the idea that a basket itself could be the vessel that emits light, rather than serving as an object that holds the electrical infrastructure. The Skynest forgoes a lightbulb or lightboard in favor of 24 LED light sticks, which are fastened to the underside of a thick, woven textile that structures the unconventional lampshade. With the light following the weft’s curves, it gently spills into the room like individual rays beaming from the sun. The shadows’ graphic texture could replace the impact of a rug, and its dramatic form creates a cinematic experience, alternating plays of light and dark that drape veil-like over one’s face.

The weaving resembles sacred geometry. Skynest in anthracite. Photo provided by FLOS

The woven threads move around the pendant’s center in a repetitive, circular manner, leaving wide gaps between crossed paths. When viewed from below, this pattern happens to recreate the Torus, a shape associated with sacred geometry. The ancient Greeks believed that the donut-shaped Torus was an infinite flow of energy, a conduit between physical and spiritual worlds, and a sign that all things were interconnected. It’s a fitting form for a light fixture, a literal conduit of everflowing power currents.

The pendant comes in two variations, suspended or ceiling-mounted, and four different color schemes. Rather than a pure black or white color, there is the warmly tinted almond and a velvety anthracite. Fans of bolder colors will gravitate towards the reddish brick or the tranquil tourmaline blue. The anthracite and tourmaline colorways continue the throughline of spiritual connection. The former, which references a form of coal, is known to provide clarity, and the latter brings forth deep meditation.

Photo by Alessandro Olivia

Whether you are already connected to the divine, or want to begin manifesting that energy, the Skynest will transfer Wanders’s exploration of spirituality into your life.

Detail of Skynest in tourmaline blue. Photo provided by FLOS

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