In 1958 the French sociologist Roger Caillois opined that "L'esprit du jeu est essentiel à la culture"1, 'the spirit of play is essential to culture', an opinion that finds an echo in a Charles Eames' "toys are not really as innocent as they look. Toys and games are the preludes to serious ideas".2
A position that, in many regards, underscores the argument made from and by Design for Children at the Bröhan Museum, Berlin, that design for the playful world of the child is the best location to begin designing for the world of adults. A world with its own definition of play that wouldn't be harmed by a few more childish inputs.
Thoughts which, may or may not, have underscored the genesis of the project Play and Playfulness at the University of Gothenburg's HDK-Valand – Academy of Art and Design which challenged students to design "with and towards playfulness".
A project presented in context of the Greenhouse at Stockholm Furniture Fair 2025; and a brief which amongst other expressions brought forth the oD-Lamp by Erik Koivusaari, a work that also goes under the name Golvad, which if we're correctly informed is Swedish for 'floored'. Which Erik's lamp very much is.
A lamp that could also be called Snurra based as it very much appears to be on the spinning top, one whose spindle expresses itself as a drop of colour drawn from the centre of the diffuser, one of several character traits, and an aesthetic playfulness, that imply a work created in the company of imagined memories of a 1970s that didn't exist, but could have.
A globular central spindle on which oD-Lamp can't spin vertically, but around which it can roll, which is where not only the physical playfulness but the magic, that important aspect of all play, enters: through rolling the oD-Lamp around its axis in an arc one decreases and increases the illumination, one can dim or intensify the illumination, can play with the light intensity through playing with the lamp. A simple physical movement, an effortless piece of playful interaction, that results in a functional response from the lamp. Or at least that's the theory, for us the lamp was most reluctant to remain in the place we wanted it, kept rolling clockwise or anti-clockwise to where it wanted to be, thereby deciding itself the level of illumination rather than letting us decide. If that was associated with our incompetence in lamp rolling, or a peculiarity of the floor in the section of Stockholmsmässan oD-Lamp stood, or an inaccuracy, an imbalance, in the construction, we no know.
Nor care. On the one hand it is the action, the interactivity, the fun, that is and was important, the thinking inherent in the object about what a dimmable lamp is, how a dimmable lamp relates to space and the user, how one achieves a dimmable lamp and how one brings a functionality to an object beyond the aesthetic and technical that allows it to stand in a room, in relation to a room, as an object greater than the sum of its parts. How, what, play can add to an object. And on the other it's a student semester project not an actual product you can actually buy. And as such is still a work in development, still a work with a lot of refinement and change and questioning ahead of it. A lot of moments to correct any deficiencies. To question if the red light it emits is part of the concept or simply by way of enabling a more media friendly presentation. And it may never become a product, its stability, its reliable positionability, may always be theoretical rather than critical. And whether it becomes a product or not, the thinking that underscores it remains, and remains a thought-provoking joy to engage with.
But should it become a product, as a floor lamp that primarily illuminates the floor oD-Lamp is clearly more a lamp for atmospheric background light than a technical illumination, whereby an outdoor version would be phenomenally interesting, possibly at a greatly increased scale, one you could roll through lying on, roll through rolling over: it's what a child would do, and what an adult should do. An outdoor version also because of the resemblance to a mushroom in the off state. An off state, a formally, graphically, very satisfying off state, that, we'll argue, enables the oD-Lamp to exist as an unilluminated object in any interior every bit as engagingly, communicatively, playfully as it exists not only in the on, illuminated, state, but for all as it exists in the transition from on to off to on to off to ad nauseam, ad infinitum.
More information on Erik Koivusaari can be found at https://koivusaari.se
More information on Play and Playfulness, including details of all realised projects, can be found at www.gu.se/hdk-valand
1Roger Caillois, Les jeux et les hommes (Le masque et le vertige), Librairie Gallimard, Paris, 1958, page 95
2see James B. O'Connell. A visit with Charles Eames, Think, Vol. 27, Nr. 4, April 1961 pages 7-9, reprinted in Daniel Ostroff [Ed.] An Eames Anthology, Yale University Press, 2015 pages 218 - 223, quote page 219
