Material, Process And Fascinating Beauty

Bocci’s mesmerising lighting designs are not known by a word-based nomenclature. Rather, every alluring product takes a number. Omar Arbel, the Creative Director of this process-driven Vancouver and Berlin-based design and manufacturing company, works in a way that is as dynamic as light itself. Through Bocci and Omar Arbel Office, or OAO, he cultivates a creative world that encompasses design, architecture, sculpture and invention.

Everything he creates – be it a light or a buliding – is given a number. Every work, after all, is part of the same creative constellation of ideas, experimentation, material and technique. From concrete poured into fabric formwork for trumpet-shaped columns in a house, to beeswax candles shaped by shards of ice in a centrifugal chamber, Arbel’s output is an experimental odyssey that pushes the limits of expectation about how materials can be used.

His portfolio of sculptural lighting designs for Bocci is fostered by his characteristic open-ended explorations of design and craft. His first lighting design, 14 (an articulated cast-glass sphere designed in 2005), quickly became a classic and is often hung in glittering gem-like clusters. Since then he has experimented with layering molten glass (16), draping sheets of porcelain (21), and manipulating the temperature and direction of air flow into blown glass

(28, pictured).

Other lighting pieces have resulted from free-pouring aluminium (44), blowing glass into ceramic fabric vessels (73), and extruding glass through copper mesh using a vaccuum technique (76). His lighting is produced by hand in Vancouver for the Bocci catalogue as well as for custom installations, several of which are in Asia.

View a selection of Arbel’s Bocci lights in Singapore at

Space Furniture. And be sure to take the time to peruse the beautiful variation in each handmade piece.