For a designer, it’s rare to get the opportunity to design from the very beginning of the production line with the engineers who extrude aluminium through a die to create aluminium profiles. My first question was simple: How big can I go? I asked for the maximum width that their biggest press would allow, then drew right up to that line.
Extrusion’s hidden superpower
Extruding aluminium gives you a superpower I had never fully appreciated. Length is not really a limit, you can pull profiles in very long runs and decide the final sizes later. The real constraint is the cross section, the width of the profile. For my lamp, that meant I could imagine pieces from small accents to floor to ceiling elements, all from one continuous profile. The two-meter lamp that exists today could just as easily be a six-meter column in a hall because the body is still a single extrusion.
I tried to keep assembly almost nonexistent. I wanted the object to be the extrusion itself, not a kit of parts. In the end, the only additions were an LED strip and a diffuser. That decision kept the design honest, a mono material body that reads as one gesture in space. It also kept the number of steps down, which matters to me as a designer who likes things stripped to their essence.
Drawing with opacity
I usually work with glass and resin, so light for me has often been about transparency, reflection and diffusion through a body. Aluminium is opaque, so the challenge became more about how I could make light feel generous without seeing through anything. The answer was to sculpt the profile so that light could wash across it, a kind of sweeping wing that carries illumination over the surface rather than through it.
Because aluminium is opaque, surface became my main instrument. I learned quickly how much character lives in finish, polish, brushing and the way an anodized layer catches light. Some anodized colors will soften and hold a glow, while a natural finish reads sharper and cooler under the same LED. When we assembled a batch of lamps in the studio, each anodized colour transformed once the LEDs went in. Warm bronzes felt like a sunset, while natural aluminium felt crisp and architectural. You can still compose with colour and light, even when nothing is transparent.
The cross-section of the lamp is intentionally asymmetric, with more material on one side to create that wing. When extruding the lamp, that imbalance wants to twist as the profile exits the die. Hydro’s engineers worked hard on bearing design and process tuning so the profile would not turn into itself. These are the invisible problems that make or break a minimal object. Watching that first press appear, true to the drawing, was a collective exhale.
One of my favorite moments was standing with other designers at the press, watching the first meters of each profile arrive. We were not allowed to know one another’s designs ahead of time, so it felt like unwrapping gifts none of us had asked for but all secretly wanted. There was a sense of tension in the air. Since my design really pushed the limits when it came to size, Hydro’s engineers said there was about 50/50 percent chance that it would work. Either the profile would come out, or it would blow the die. Every time we wondered if something would be too difficult, the answer was, we do not know yet, but we will try.
This lamp was a team effort. Projects like this take specialists who care about the outcome as much as you do. Seeing the shape come out of the press for the first time and knowing how many people had a hand in that moment is exactly why I love being a designer. When it works, it feels a little bit like magic.
Where I want to take it
I like designing in a way that is stripped back, simple and, hopefully, timeless. Limits help me get there. A single process and a single material make choices clearer. You have a finite set of moves, so you work harder to make each one count. With extrusion, the question is what is the best way to use this profile. In this project the profile is the object, which is a very satisfying kind of clarity.
I keep imagining this lamp in architecture, rising from floor to ceiling in a tall space, or lined up as a rhythm along a corridor. The profile scales beautifully because the object is not stitched together. It is one gesture you can stretch. I would happily keep working like this, starting from process, letting the material tell me what it wants to be, and aiming for pieces that are minimal without being boring. Extrusion makes that possible.
