Yes it’s copper again. It just shows how popular this warm and colourful material is and in this case tubing. Incredible how many designers use copper in one way or another. It’s used mainly to create lamps, but it’s also used for upcycle design furniture.
There’s one thing I do want to mention, and I’ve said this several times, it’s only pure upcycle design if one uses discarded/old materials or objects. And with these copper pipes that’s not always the case. But it shows what can be done with this material and that’s why it fits right in here on upcycleDZINE.
Copper tubing in fashionable colours
When I saw the designs you’re seeing in this post I was immediately charmed by the form of the lamp and especially by the faucet knob. These upcycle design lamps are made out of copper tubing. Polish company Zapalgo, based in Warsaw, created this dimmable collection with a stylish, industrial look and feel. The company, founded by Maciek Papiński, Tomek Kudelski, Andrzej Ruszkowski, started out as small lighting company in 2013, and after 4 years extended there collection to furniture and accessories.
They love to play with styles, allusions and inspirations like quotes, borrowings and tributes. Every detail in their design is fully operational. And the best detail in my opinion is the faucet knob, a sort of trademark. It gives you as a customer the ability to set a mood in the room by dimming warm, retro incandescent bulbs. By turning the knob it’s almost like pouring the light into the bulb just like you pour water from the tap. The colorful knob can be changed easily.
They also have another dimmable version that makes use of an inbuilt touch dimmer. All one has to do is touch the lamp and hold it for a second or two. A slight touch of your finger is enough to change the atmosphere of lamp and interior.
Zapalgo:
“As for lighting, we believe in one simple rule – where there’s a pipe, there’s a lamp.”
Another interesting feature of the Zapalgo dimmable copper lamps collection is that it consists of several colors. They range from fashionable millennial pink copper, through warm, golden brass to pastel, modern turquoise blue. You would expect that they used paint. But no, because copper is a very reactive metal, it easily develops a patina in a process of oxidation and can be used as a base metal for many kinds of plating, like brass or nickel for instance.
Photos © Zapalgo
All in all Zapalgo created a recognizable style by mixing colors, materials and finishes. They want to balance evenly between being fairly functional and safely unconventional. Thereby bringing fun, joy and happiness to their customers and themselves.