From biology to architecture and engineering, a survey of the hexagon’s history boasts exceptional strength, material efficiency, and iconic forms among its many accolades. Italian high-end lighting company FLOS adds to the shape’s storied experiences with their expansive SuperWire family of modular lamps designed by research-based design studio Formafantasma, founded by Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin. Almost alchemical when illuminated, SuperWire transforms glass and metal into something exceptionally ethereal.
The collection multiples from a single geometric idea: a hexagonal module formed by six sheets of industrial planar glass, joined at the top and base by polished aluminum plates with exposed steel screws. Within each glass plane, cylindrical diffusers house a luminous filament, allowing light to exit at 360 degrees. When lit, the glass shifts from transparent structure to radiant vessel, capturing and softening light in a way that recalls historic lanterns yet rendered as something unmistakably fresh.
But at the crux of this collection lies the radical rethinking of the LED filament. What’s typically hidden inside a bulb, then behind a shade or within a globe, is here elevated as the design’s physical expression. The hardware, developed in close collaboration with the FLOS Research & Development team, is SuperWire’s custom light source. A thin, flexible LED filament stretches up to one meter emitting a warm, homogeneous glow along its entire length.
The result is a rare example of a bulb-less lamp, where light radiates evenly across the entire glass surface, dissolving the boundary between object and illumination, which celebrates the aesthetics of exposure. Somewhere between home furnishing and fixture, each unit is a vessel for atmosphere where light becomes an architecture of repetition and rhythm.
Rather than romanticize traditional craftsmanship or lean into the craftiness of some collectibles, Formafantasma intentionally embraces a new industrial language of their own. Refined mechanical elements remain visible, emphasizing clarity, honesty, and ease of disassembly without pandering to a generic ‘industrial-chic’ look. All the while a removable filament underscores their commitment to longevity and repair, offering a quiet but pointed critique of disposability within modern lighting.
And like typography, SuperWire is designed as a super family system with robust capacity to expand based on need, a language of lamps – Floor, Table, and Suspension, available in the U.S. as well as Wall, available to the European market – each comprising one or more modules.
From a single, lantern-like table lamp to dramatic multi-level suspension clusters conceived for large architectural volumes, the collection adapts fluidly across residential and contract environments. In every configuration, SuperWire maintains a sober elegance and a commanding presence with great promise moving forward.
“The project was a decidedly important technical challenge,” Formafantasma explains, “and the filament obtained is, to all intents and purposes, a new light source with great potential which we will certainly use in the future.”
To shop the SuperWire family by Formafantasma for FLOS, visit flos.com.
Photography by Robert Rieger.
