How marble waste is reused to become mesmerizing eclipse-inspired wall lamps

When people hear the word “waste,” they most probably think of trash or rubbish that no longer has use, like leftover food, paper cups, and plastic bags. In reality, a lot of waste material also comes from production, whether it’s food, wooden furniture, textile, or even rock pieces. Marble, for example, is a much sought-after material for making luxurious-looking products, from furniture to decorations. Not all parts of a chunk of marble end up in the final product, though, and plenty is thrown away without much consideration of how they affect the environment in the long run. It might not be easy to work with unused marble waste, but this rather creative design reuses those pieces to turn them into parts of a wall lamp cluster that gives your space an unearthly glow.

Designer: Hadiye Ozdemir

Beautiful as it may be, marble isn’t exactly an easy material to work with, and its sustainability value is a bit all over the place. It’s a naturally occurring rock, yes, but extracting it and processing it requires a lot of energy and water. It isn’t an easily renewable resource either, but it is at least recyclable and reusable when ground and added to a concrete mixture or other hard materials. Reusing bits and pieces of polished marble as they are, however, is harder to pull off, and that’s exactly the feat that the Sole Lamp concept design accomplishes.

Pieces of thin marble, such as those used in tiles, are combined with resin in square or circular molds, depending on the shape of the discarded marble. This combination of marble and translucent resin serve has a cover layer for a circular LED lamp underneath, creating a visual effect that’s similar to a corona during a solar eclipse. On its own, this lamp design is already striking, it becomes even more impactful when combined with other pieces of the puzzle.

Horizontal and vertical wall fixing bars bridge the lamps together, either directly or with an intermediary piece in between. These can also be made from reused marble pieces, often in the shape of discs, that only have small or no parts broken off. Unlike the lamp parts, these are mixed with opaque resin and are used to create unlit segments that break apart would be a visually monotonous sequence of lights.

With an almost random series of lights and opaque discs arranged in a maze-like structure, the Sole Lamp provides not only illumination but also an artistic decoration for your wall. The light from the circular LEDs gets diffused not only through the resin but also on the wall itself, creating a softer glow that contrasts with the sharp light of the lamps. More importantly, the design concept also introduces a novel way to utilize marble waste and even potentially recoup economic losses from these beautiful but underutilized pieces.