EDITOR’ S CHOICE
Molfar Restaurant. Expolight Photo: Ivan Avdeenko
Emerging lighting designers also shone bright this year. Flight into Shadow, created by students from the Deggendorf Institute of Technology, explores how light shapes perception, comfort, and relief in overheated urban environments. Presented during the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025 as part of the Keep Cool! initiative, the project transforms the ephemeral dance of sunlight through leaves into an architectural experience, a living meditation on adaptation in a warming world.
Meanwhile, Yuxin Luo, from the ArtCenter College of Design, earned Emerging Lighting Product Designer of the Year with CinderGlow, a pendant inspired by the California wildfires. Crafted from recycled wood filament, the piece transforms burned material into a source of warmth and beauty, a poetic metaphor for regeneration and hope.
This year’ s Spotlight Prize was awarded to GreenLamp, a Swiss non-profit empowering women and midwives across rural Ethiopia through its three-pillar approach: LEARN | LIGHT | LEAD. Since 2012, GreenLamp has improved maternal healthcare for over 1.6 million women by providing solar-powered lighting and solar equipment for safe childbirth. The 2025 award supports their upcoming expansion by providing lighting infrastructure and equipment to two additional rural clinics. Each new solar lighting package includes 100- watt solar panels, vaccine refrigerators, LED lighting kits, fetal Doppler monitors, thermometers, headlamps for midwives, and complete installation, maintenance,
and training support, ensuring sustainable, reliable light where it is needed most.
In the words of Joanna Boyd, President of GreenLamp:“ We are deeply honoured to receive the 2025 Spotlight Award from LIT Lighting Design Awards. This recognition highlights the importance of reliable, sustainable energy for women’ s health. With every solar system we install, we help ensure that women can give birth safely, midwives can work with dignity, and communities can thrive. Thank you, LIT Lighting Design Awards, for supporting our mission to create brighter futures for women and babies in Ethiopia.”
Flight into Shadow. Deggendorf Institute of Technology( DIT), Faculty Electrical Engineering and Media Technology
Photo: Jacopo La Forgia
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