The 2010 Milan Furniture Fair wrapped up on Monday but I’m guessing more than a couple of attendees are getting an unexpected extended vacation thanks to a certain Icelandic volcano.

 

As a tribute to my stranded-in-Milan compatriots, here’s one last post committed to the Salone Internazionale del Mobile 2010 although I’m sure I’ll be taking a look at some of the more notable eco-designs unveiled there in the months to come. For a few highlights, check out my posts on Coke and Emeco’s 111 Navy Chair, Dupont’s Karim Rashid-designed Smart-ologic Corian Living home (which, by the way, looks just as bizarro in-the-flesh as it does in computer renderings), and new projects from both Disney and Droog. Also be sure to swing by TreeHugger for comprehensive coverage.

 

Not only did big-name companies and designers garner a fair amount of “wows” in Milan; a team of graduate design students from Israeli, d-Vision, managed to turn heads at Salon Satellite with their “On/Off” project centered around one of my favorite topics, LED lighting.

For “On/Off,” the d-Vision team created a slew of innovative lighting designs (see the whole program catalog here in PDF form) to demonstrate that “"LED is on the verge of becoming the common technology in lighting. Installed in an electrical room, the "On/Off" project emphasizes the urgent need to reduce power consumption. The collection designed by D-vision explores various applications of LED lighting and pushes it towards surprising limits.”

 

Two of the standout designs? “Still Light,” a tomato-based “hybrid LED light system integrating organic and metal parts within a single electric circuit. Similar to a simple battery, the LED lamp is powered by the electrochemical reaction of cooper and zinc electrodes placed in the tomatoes.”

And then there’s my favorite, the “97% Soap” lamp. Reads the description: “The low temperatures that the LED light produces enables us to choose materials with a low melting temperature. The glycerin soap is a soft light scattering and low temperature melting material. It has many advantages as a material for lighting fixtures: cheap, convenient processing and environmentally friendly.”

 

Wow. I don't think we'll be seeing either of these LED creations at a local Lamps n' Things outlet any time soon but still quite exciting.

 

Via [TreeHugger]