Most lighting gets chosen the same way people pick curtains: functional, inoffensive, and quickly forgotten. You walk through a showroom, you point at something that won’t clash with the sofa, and that’s more or less the end of the design conversation. That’s not a criticism of how people live; it’s just an observation of how light, despite being the single most transformative element in any space, rarely gets to have fun.

Davide Groppi’s Race of Lights is the exception to all of that. The Italian lighting brand, based in Piacenza and known for making some of the most quietly radical lamps in contemporary design, released Race of Lights in 2025. On paper, it is a modular wall lamp. In reality, it is a slot-car racing track that someone decided should also be your light source, and the whole thing somehow works beautifully.

Designer: Davide Groppi

The concept is exactly what it sounds like. An electrified track, made from textured matte black polyethylene, gets mounted on the wall in whatever configuration you want. The track carries current, and the light sources are tiny car-shaped spotlights that snap into place magnetically and can be moved, repositioned, or rearranged any time the mood strikes. The basic kit includes two short straight modules, four longer sections, six curves, and four colored light-cars in green, white, blue, and red. The whole system can run up to five metres across your wall and power up to eight spotlights, each with an adjustable head so you can direct the beam exactly where you want it. This is, objectively, absurd. It is also one of the most genuinely exciting things to come out of the lighting world in years.

What makes Race of Lights so interesting to think about is how it sits within Davide Groppi’s broader body of work. This is a designer who built his reputation on doing less. His lamp Nulla, which won the Compasso d’Oro in 2014, measures just 18 millimetres in diameter and is practically invisible in a ceiling. The name literally translates to “nothing.” The philosophy has always been that the lamp should disappear so the light can remain. Race of Lights does not disappear. It sits on your wall, looped and curved, with little colored cars parked along the track. It makes a statement in the exact opposite direction of everything Groppi has been doing, and yet it makes complete sense.

Because the brand has never really been about minimalism for minimalism’s sake. The design language has always carried a sense of emotion. Groppi has spoken about light as a tool for seduction and curiosity, about design emerging from the heart as much as the mind. Race of Lights just takes that emotional dimension and makes it literal. The inspiration was childhood, specifically the memory of electric slot-car racing sets, the kind where small cars zip around a winding track spread across the living room floor. The track moves to the wall; the cars stay put and illuminate. Play becomes design, and the object retains the spirit of the original thing it was borrowing from.

The result is a piece that functions as a legitimate lighting solution and as a conversation starter and as something closer to a sculptural installation. You can compose it in a new shape whenever you want. That kind of flexibility tends to age well in a space, because you never quite exhaust the possibilities.

Cynics will say it is a gimmick. I understand the instinct, but I think that reading misses the point. Good design has always borrowed from play. The best chairs make sitting feel effortless. The best lamps make light feel intentional. Race of Lights makes light feel like something you chose with genuine enthusiasm rather than resigned practicality.

Lighting does not have to be a decision you make and then stop thinking about. Davide Groppi has spent decades proving that point in quietly different ways. Race of Lights is just the first time the argument came painted in red, white, blue, and green, with tiny cars attached.

The post The Italian Lamp That Uses Toy Race Cars as Light Bulbs first appeared on Yanko Design.

Coat stands have always occupied an awkward position in a room. They’re functional enough to keep around but rarely considered anything beyond a place to pile things on the way out the door. Pin boards face a similar problem, useful at a desk but hard to integrate into a living space without making it feel like an office. Objects that try to do both tend to resolve that tension poorly.

Corctus starts from a different premise. The name merges “cork” and “cactus,” which is also a fair summary of the concept: a floor-standing object shaped like a saguaro cactus, made entirely from cork, and quietly capable of handling most of what people need to keep close at hand. Rather than solving the storage problem with hooks and brackets, it solves it by making the form itself the function.

Designer: Liam de la Bedoyere (boredeye)

Cork is the central material here, both practically and conceptually. The surface is textured enough to grip a pair of sunglasses on the rounded top without anything extra, and receptive to pins without reinforcement or a backing board. A sketch, a sticky note, or a reference card pins straight into the body of the object wherever it’s needed, with no designated zone for it.

The cactus arms extend outward with a slight upward curve that happens to work exactly like a hook. A backpack hangs from one, a tote bag from another, a scarf draped over without sliding off. Headphones sit naturally over an arm when not in use. None of this requires any hardware, any dedicated accessories, or any particular intention. The geometry of the form handles all of it.

The disc-shaped base adds one more surface. Magazines stack on it, a few books sit within reach, and it grounds the form without demanding much floor space. The compact proportions keep the whole object from reading as a coat stand, which is deliberate. The intention was always a sculptural companion rather than a piece of utilitarian furniture, and the scale reflects that.

That distinction matters in practice. Next to a desk, the Corctus functions as an immediate, physical task board without a screen. Move it into a living room or hallway and it shifts roles without changing character. The warm texture of the cork sits alongside the kinds of materials, and its sandy color sits comfortably against most interior palettes.

Most multifunctional objects succeed at one thing and compromise on everything else. Corctus earns its place as a sculptural form first, and the utility follows naturally from the shape rather than being imposed on it. There are no brackets, no hooks, no panels, and no assembly decisions to make. It stands where it’s put, and the room tends to organize itself around it.

The post This Cork Cactus Looks Like Decor and Acts Like 3 Pieces of Furniture first appeared on Yanko Design.