Iron Lighting Products and Fixtures Design · 2026
Altera Interactive Lamp
- A' Design Award 2026 Iron Winner in Lighting Products and Fixtures Design
- Awarded April 15, 2026
- CLIENT: Dilara Özbent
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 4,816
- Verification code 7FF2D5B6E9 · Verify this award
About Altera Interactive Lamp
The delicate, fluid and almost translucent character of marble evokes water. While exploring this relationship, waterfall walls emerged as inspiration. Water shimmering over textured stone suggested light filtering through marble elements. Reflecting the human desire to touch nature, this idea evolved into a modern, tactile lighting design that goes beyond illumination, offering a dynamic and personal experience. With rotatable marble wings, users can shape both light and form by hand. The design combines thin cut marble for light diffusion, a brass structure and frosted Led diffusers.
Dilara Özbent's Altera Interactive Lamp engages the venerable design tradition of modular lighting systems while offering a refined contemporary interpretation that balances geometric clarity with atmospheric warmth, the work positioning itself within lineages extending from early twentieth-century modernist experiments in standardized components and rational design through mid-century explorations of adaptable domestic furnishings and into contemporary investigations of user-responsive environmental systems. The compositional achievement of the Altera system resides in its elegant resolution of multiple design challenges: the cylindrical modules wrapped in translucent diffusing material create soft omnidirectional light distribution while maintaining crisp formal legibility, the proportional relationships between module height, diameter, and spacing demonstrate sophisticated understanding of visual rhythm and structural balance, and the metallic connective hardware provides both functional joining and visual punctuation that articulates the modular logic without overwhelming the luminous presence. The chromatic restraint, limiting the palette to warm white light emission and cool metallic tones, allows form and light quality to assume primacy, while the translucent diffuser material achieves optimal balance between light transmission and glare control, creating visual comfort across varied viewing angles. The modular stacking principle embedded in the floor lamp configuration invites user participation in determining fixture height and light intensity, suggesting democratic design philosophy that honors individual spatial needs and preferences, while the typological variety across floor, wall-mounted, and pendant applications demonstrates systematic thinking that extends a coherent formal and material vocabulary across functional contexts. The work appears to draw inspiration from the International Style's emphasis on universal solutions and honest material expression, the Scandinavian modern tradition's humanistic restraint and attention to domestic atmosphere, and Japanese design sensibilities valuing simplicity, modularity, and the interplay of light and shadow, creating a synthesis that feels both historically informed and contemporarily relevant. The lamps seem to meditate on fundamental questions of how artificial light shapes interior experience, how modular systems can balance standardization with adaptability, and how geometric form can achieve expressive warmth through material selection and proportion, the translucent diffusers transforming utilitarian light sources into glowing presences that suggest lanterns, luminous columns, or abstract sculptural forms that happen to illuminate. One might contemplate how the Altera system negotiates the tension between light as pure function and light as atmospheric creator, how its modular logic empowers users while maintaining design coherence, and how its restrained material vocabulary achieves richness through subtle variation in scale, configuration, and spatial relationship rather than through ornamental elaboration.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- Altera is an interactive lighting family that goes beyond illumination, offering a dynamic and personal experience. With rotatable marble wings, it allows users to shape both light and form by hand. By embracing diversity and individuality, it creates an emotional connection, making lighting an organic part of everyday life. With its simple design, Altera generates endless alternatives, offering a balance of function, aesthetics, and personalization while transforming spaces with ever-changing play of light and shadow.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Dimensions of the Altera lighting fixture family. Width x Depth x Height in mm:
Floor Lamp: 320 x 320 x 1385 mm.
Wall Lamp: 240 x 320 x 420 mm.
Pendant Lamp: 240 x 240 x 420 mm plus cable. - Tags
- Lamp, Floor Lamp, Pendant Lamp, Wall Lamp, Lighting, Marble, Rotating Panels, Interactive, User-Centered Design, Customizable
- Production Technology
- The design integrates thin-cut marble for controlled light diffusion, brass for structural support, and frosted LED diffusers. CNC cutting enables precise fabrication of the marble panels, mounted to vertical profiles through custom hinge components based on two-piece shaft collars seated in milled grooves. The panels are bonded with epoxy adhesive. The modular structure allows easy assembly, disassembly, and compact packaging. Waste marble pieces could be combined for sustainable marble panels.
- Design Challenge
- The biggest challenge in this project was developing a reliable rotating system for marble panels without the possibility of building a physical prototype. At the same time, the marble needed to be thin enough to allow light transmission while remaining durable enough to avoid damage during production and use. Balancing these structural and material constraints required extensive independent research, persistence, and iterative design decisions.
- Project Duration
- The project started in November 2023 in Verona and finished in July 2024 in Istanbul.
- Operation Flow
- Each wing manually rotates around its center vertically, allowing users to alter the direction, intensity, and overall composition of light according to their needs and aesthetic preferences. This adaptability transforms the fixture into a living design, constantly evolving with its user. Countless configurations are possible, making it more than just a lighting object; it becomes an extension of the space where function and emotion meet.
- Research
- This research examined the technical feasibility of a kinetic modular lighting system with rotating marble panels. It explored the material limits of marble, structural stability, and a balanced mechanism allowing panels to rotate freely yet stay in place. The study included research based on manufacturer specifications, ergonomic considerations, and rotating mechanisms. Proportion and structural balance analysis played a key role in developing a system supporting user interaction.
- Inspiration
- The delicate, fluid and almost translucent character of marble is often comparable to water. While exploring this relationship, waterfall walls emerged as a source of inspiration. The shimmering movement of water flowing over textured stone surfaces suggested the image of light filtering through marble elements. Humans long to touch nature, and a design they can shape and form a bond with can also touch their soul. This idea evolved into a modern, tactile lighting design that invites users to interact with the object and form a personal connection with light. With this aim, the expressive limits of marble were explored.
- Image Credits
- Image #1: Designer Dilara Özbent, Altera Lighting Family Render, 2024.
Image #2: Designer Dilara Özbent, Altera Lighting Family Render, 2024.
Image #3: Designer Dilara Özbent, Altera Lighting Family Render, 2024.
Image #4: Designer Dilara Özbent, Altera Lighting Family Render, 2024.
Image #5: Designer Dilara Özbent, Altera Lighting Family Render, 2024.