“Traditional lighting serves a purely functional role—it helps us see,” says Ran Hu, lighting designer and co-founder of recently established Seattle studio MIRORLab. “When we notice light in everyday life, on leaves, on water, or in those quiet, simple reflections, we feel its power to awaken curiosity and transform the way we experience space. In our accelerated world, we’re constantly bombarded by digital stimulation and external demands.”
The practice’s inaugural The MIROR Collection comes as an antidote to the often hurried and confused pace of life. It’s a bridge between external noise and inner calm. Harnessing the power of motion and protected color in that effort, the concept was scrupulously developed by Hu, alongside co-founders Ke Zheng, Shirley Chen, Shinan Liu – architects, industrial designers, and landscape specialists in their own right. The design cooperative rejects sterile uniformity in favor of, as Hu puts it, “luminous experiences that honor human emotion and natural phenomena.”
The relatively straightforward, minimalistic, and not formally distracting table and floor lamps feature a head that rotates 360-degree within a minute. Along the way, it casts an ever-changing spectrum of color across the space it occupies. There are four meticulously calibrated lens “mood” variations to choose from.
“In nature, light is never static—think of how sunlight moves across a room throughout the day, or how clouds create shifting patterns of shadow and illumination,” she explains. “We wanted to capture this organic quality of natural light. At one revolution per minute, it creates a meditative rhythm that mirrors natural breathing cycles.”
This calibration of time and movement isn’t arbitrary. The designers researched how different rotation speeds affect human psychology. “Too fast becomes distracting; too slow becomes imperceptible. One minute creates the perfect interval for mindful awareness,” Hu said. “The rotating element also ensures that the lighting experience is never repetitive. Unlike static fixtures ones become accustomed to, THE MIROR continuously reveals new patterns and color relationships.”
The same level of intensive scientific and artistic investigation went into developing this facet of the design. “We spent months studying how different color palettes affect psychological states and circadian rhythms, but our inspiration came from an unexpected source: NASA’s photographic archives,” she explains.
“We found ourselves captivated by the images captured from space—those breathtaking views of Earth from the International Space Station, the Hubble telescope’s deep space photography, and satellite imagery of our planet’s natural phenomena. There’s something profoundly moving about seeing our world from that cosmic perspective—it evokes both calm and awe, a sense of our place in the vast universe while celebrating the beauty of our home planet.”
With its rich amber and honey tones, the Earth variant is perhaps the one most aligned with that reasoning. While Nebula draws inspiration from NASA’s stunning imagery of cosmic formations, Dune represents rebirth and renewal. The latter includes water rippling lens effects so ask to evoke the feelings of being reborn, refreshed, and ready to restart. Conjuring the experience of walking through a major city—perhaps what only a few might find comforting—Metropolis captures the vibrant energy of urban landscapes through a dynamic interplay of yellows, pinks, blues, and purples.
“By using our magnetic glass lenses as filters, MIROR’s motion transforms into something larger: an infinite play of light within a finite cycle,” Hu concludes. “In this way, the lamp reflects both the order of the universe and its boundless variation, offering a space where time, light, and wonder converge.”
To learn more about the brand and shop the collection, visit mirorlab.com.
Photography courtesy of MIRORlab.
