Ontwerpinterview
Moono Primaire functie: Schuivende Hanglamp · 20 vragen
Moono was conceived from a single, persistent observation about the way we inhabit spaces: we spend enormous energy designing the perfect position for furniture, for objects, for people within a room — yet the light…
What is the main principle, idea and inspiration behind your design?
Moono was conceived from a single, persistent observation about the way we inhabit spaces: we spend enormous energy designing the perfect position for furniture, for objects, for people within a room — yet the light above, which defines everything we see and feel, is almost always fixed. It hangs where the architect placed it, where the ceiling rose was installed decades ago, and it remains there regardless of how the space evolves around it. We found this contradiction troubling and compelling in equal measure.The primary inspiration came from lunar phases — the way moonlight shifts across a space throughout the night, changing the mood, the shadows, and the perception of the environment without altering anything physical within it. We asked ourselves: what if a pendant light could behave more like natural light? What if it could move — not dramatically, not mechanically, but quietly and intentionally — following the rhythms of the people who live beneath it?The result is Moono, a pendant sliding light that travels along a precision track system, allowing the user to reposition the light source fluidly as their life within the space demands. It is a design rooted in the belief that truly responsive environments require responsive light — and that the best design solution is often the one that removes a constraint we had simply accepted as inevitable.
What has been your main focus in designing this work? Especially what did you want to achieve?
The central focus throughout the design of Moono was the quality of user interaction — specifically, how a person experiences the act of adjusting their environment. We were not interested in creating movement for its own sake. Mechanical novelty without purpose quickly becomes noise. What we wanted to achieve was something much more subtle: a light that makes a space feel genuinely alive and responsive, without drawing attention to itself.This meant that the sliding mechanism had to feel effortless — not the effortfulness of a precision instrument that requires care and attention, but the effortlessness of something that simply works, intuitively, without instruction. We also focused heavily on the visual resolution of the form. A pendant light that moves along a track could easily look industrial or provisional, as though the track system were an afterthought or a retrofit. We wanted the opposite: for the track and the pendant to read as a unified, architecturally considered composition, where the hardware of movement became an integral part of the design language rather than something to be concealed.Ultimately, what we wanted to achieve was a product that would feel, to the person who lives with it, as though it had always existed — as though it was simply the obvious way a pendant light should work.
What are your future plans for this award winning design?
Moono is not a finished story — it is the beginning of one. Our immediate plans involve expanding the product into a more complete family: variations in scale, material, and finish that allow Moono to serve a wider range of spatial contexts, from intimate residential rooms to larger hospitality environments. We are currently exploring options in brushed metals, matte ceramics, and natural stone composites for future versions, each of which would bring a distinct character while preserving the core design logic.Beyond product development, we are actively working to expand Moono's presence in European markets, with a particular focus on Italy and France — two countries whose design cultures we deeply respect and whose contract and hospitality sectors represent significant opportunities for a product of this kind. We are also in early conversations with manufacturers and distributors who share our commitment to quality and craft. If the right partnership emerges, we are open to exploring licensed production at a larger scale. In the meantime, we continue to produce and control the product ourselves, which allows us to maintain the quality standards that the design demands.
How long did it take you to design this particular concept?
From initial concept to the first production-ready prototype, Moono took approximately one year to develop. That timeline reflects the true complexity of the challenge — not just the design of the form, which evolved relatively quickly from the initial sketches, but the engineering of the sliding mechanism, which required extensive iteration.We prototyped the mechanism many times across different material combinations and tolerance specifications before arriving at a solution that performed with the smoothness and reliability we required. There were versions that looked right but felt wrong. There were versions that worked mechanically but revealed structural weaknesses after repeated use. Each failure was informative. The final solution emerged not from a single moment of inspiration but from a sustained process of making, testing, and refining — which is, we believe, how durable design always works.
Why did you design this particular concept? Was this design commissioned or did you decide to pursuit an inspiration?
Moono was entirely self-initiated — a product of internal curiosity rather than a client brief. There was no commission, no specification document, no brief from a manufacturer. It began with a conversation within the studio about a problem we kept encountering in our interior design projects: the frustration of working with fixed pendant lights in spaces where the furniture arrangement needed to be flexible.We started the project simply to answer a question that bothered us. That independence was essential to the outcome. Because there was no client to satisfy and no budget constraint to manage against external expectations, we were free to follow the problem wherever it led — to prototype freely, to discard solutions that were adequate but not excellent, and to continue working until the design felt genuinely resolved. The best products, we believe, come from designers who are solving problems they have personally experienced and care about deeply. Moono is that kind of product.
Is your design being produced or used by another company, or do you plan to sell or lease the production rights or do you intent to produce your work yourself?
Currently, Moono is produced independently by SHRE Studio, in collaboration with our manufacturing partner ELIA, who handled the transition from prototype to production. This arrangement gives us full control over the quality of every component and the integrity of the final product — something we consider non-negotiable, particularly at this stage of the product's life.That said, we are realistic and ambitious about Moono's potential reach. If the right industrial partner were to approach us — a manufacturer whose quality standards and market positioning genuinely aligned with what Moono represents — we would be open to discussing production licensing or a co-manufacturing arrangement. The priority would always be ensuring that any larger-scale production preserved the precision and material quality that define the product. We would not trade quality for volume.
What made you design this particular type of work?
Lighting has always occupied a particular place in our thinking at SHRE — not as decoration or accessory, but as the primary medium through which architecture and interior design are actually experienced. Light is what makes materials visible, what defines the mood of a space, what tells you whether you are in a place of comfort or tension. Yet the design of lighting fixtures has, for many years, focused almost entirely on form and luminous output while largely ignoring the question of position and adaptability.We design this type of work because we believe the field has underexplored the relationship between light and human movement within space
Where there any other designs and/or designers that helped the influence the design of your work?
Japanese interior design philosophy was a significant reference point for Moono — specifically the principle of ma, the Japanese concept of negative space and the meaningful pause between elements. Japanese interiors tend to treat light with extraordinary restraint and intention, understanding that where light falls is as important as the light source itself. That sensibility deeply influenced how we thought about the relationship between the pendant form and the track system, and why we were so committed to making the mechanism feel unhurried and natural rather than mechanical.
Who is the target customer for his design?
Moono is designed for clients who regard their environment as a reflection of how they think and live — people who choose objects deliberately and understand the difference between a product that merely functions and one that genuinely elevates the quality of daily life. In residential contexts, that means private clients with a sophisticated relationship to interior design, people who are likely to work with an architect or interior designer on their home and who value craft and considered detail.
What sets this design apart from other similar or resembling concepts?
The most fundamental differentiator is that Moono is not a track light in the conventional sense. Most track lighting systems are designed for directional, functional illumination — the kind of adjustable spotlights you find in retail or gallery environments. They solve a different problem and they do so with a very different aesthetic logic: industrial, technical, deliberately utilitarian.Moono belongs to a completely different register. It is a pendant light — soft, sculptural, atmospheric — that happens to slide. The track is not a display of function; it is a quiet enabler of flexibility, integrated into the design in a way that makes it feel natural and architecturally considered. The form references the moon in both name and silhouette, creating a visual presence that is calm and refined. The mechanism is precise and smooth, designed to feel like an intentional gesture rather than a mechanical operation. To our knowledge, no other product in the premium lighting market combines this level of formal elegance with this specific kind of spatial flexibility. That combination is what makes Moono genuinely original.
How did you come up with the name for this design? What does it mean?
The name Moono emerged naturally from the design itself — which is perhaps the best sign that a name is right. The form of the pendant references the moon: its silhouette, its quiet luminosity, its presence in a space that is felt rather than demanded. When we placed the first physical prototype in a room and turned it on, the name simply arrived. It felt correct before we had even discussed it.Moono also carries a second layer of meaning. The addition of the letter "o" beyond "moon" gives the name a slightly open, unfinished quality — as though it is a word still in motion, which felt appropriate for a light that moves. It also gives the name a soft, contemporary sound that works well across languages, which was important for a product we always intended to position internationally. Names that carry meaning in one language and still sound right in another are rare and worth keeping when they appear.
Which design tools did you use when you were working on this project?
The design process for Moono began where all of our best work begins: with hand sketching. There is a directness to drawing by hand that no digital tool has yet replicated — the ability to move quickly between ideas, to think through proportion and gesture simultaneously, to produce something imperfect and honest that can be discussed and built upon.From sketching, we moved into 3D modeling software for formal development and refinement, which allowed us to study the proportions of the pendant and its relationship to the track system at scale. We then produced a series of physical prototypes using 3D printing, which was invaluable for testing both the form and the mechanical tolerances of the sliding mechanism. Physical models reveal things that screen-based visualization cannot — particularly the way a form occupies space, how it catches light, and how it feels to touch and handle. The final stages of development involved close collaboration with our manufacturing partner, using CNC machining and precision metalwork to produce the components that would meet our quality standards in production.
What is the most unique aspect of your design?
The sliding mechanism — and specifically the quality of the experience it creates. This was the aspect of the design that required the most extensive development and caused us the greatest difficulty, but it is also what makes Moono genuinely different from anything else available in the market.Many products have moving parts. Very few products have moving parts that feel truly considered — where the movement itself has been designed with the same care and intentionality as the form. In early prototypes, the sliding mechanism would sometimes catch or drag, producing a sensation that felt contrary to the refinement of the overall design. We worked through many iterations before arriving at a solution where the movement is genuinely smooth and effortless — where repositioning the light feels like a natural gesture rather than an adjustment. That quality of movement, invisible when it is working correctly, is what we consider the most unique and most hard-won aspect of Moono.
Who did you collaborate with for this design? Did you work with people with technical / specialized skills?
The concept and design development of Moono was carried out independently within SHRE Studio, without external creative collaborators. This was a deliberate choice — we wanted the design to emerge from a single, coherent point of view without the compromises that can occur when creative direction is shared too early in the process.For the transition from prototype to production, however, we worked with ELIA, our manufacturing partner, whose technical expertise in precision metalwork and component fabrication was essential. The collaboration with ELIA was less about co-design and more about translation — taking a design that had been developed in prototype form and engineering it for consistent, repeatable production at a quality level that met our standards. That kind of technical collaboration is, we have learned, one of the most critical and undervalued phases of product development. A beautiful prototype that cannot be reliably reproduced is not a product; it is a sketch.
What is the role of technology in this particular design?
Technology in Moono serves a specific and bounded role: it enables the sliding mechanism to function with the precision and smoothness that the design requires, and it supports the quality and consistency of production. It is not technology as spectacle — there are no smart systems, no app connectivity, no sensor-driven automation. We made this choice deliberately.We believe that the most enduring products are those whose relationship with technology is honest and purposeful rather than demonstrative. Moono's technology is almost entirely invisible when the product is working correctly. The track system uses precision-engineered components that allow smooth, controlled movement. The LED light source delivers a quality of illumination appropriate to the premium residential and hospitality contexts for which the product is designed. The manufacturing process uses CNC machining and 3D printing at the prototyping stage, which allowed us to achieve levels of formal precision and mechanical tolerance that would have been impossible or prohibitively expensive using traditional methods alone. Technology, in this sense, was a tool in service of the design — not the other way around.
Is your design influenced by data or analytical research in any way? What kind of research did you conduct for making this design?
The research that informed Moono was primarily observational and experiential rather than data-driven. We began by examining the existing landscape of pendant lighting — studying both historical fixtures and contemporary products to understand the conventions of the category, where those conventions had remained unchallenged, and where genuine innovation might be possible.We also looked at how track lighting had been used in commercial and retail environments, where the principle of repositionable light was already well established but where the formal and experiential quality of the products was typically sacrificed for function. This confirmed our hypothesis: there was a genuine gap in the premium residential and hospitality market for a product that combined the flexibility of track mounting with the formal refinement of a considered pendant design.Beyond category research, we drew on our own experience as interior designers — years of working with clients in real spaces, understanding how they actually inhabit their environments, where the mismatch between fixed light and flexible living most frequently created frustration. That lived, qualitative research was ultimately more informative than any quantitative data could have been.
What are some of the challenges you faced during the design/realization of your concept?
In early prototypes, the mechanism would sometimes catch or create friction that made the sliding feel effortful and imprecise — the opposite of what we intended. We rebuilt the mechanism multiple times, testing different materials, different tolerances, different surface treatments, before arriving at a solution that performed with genuine elegance. A related challenge was the integration of the technical components — the wiring, the mounting hardware, the connection points between pendant and track — into the design in a way that felt resolved rather than improvised. In the final product, what began as a problem of concealment became something more interesting: the technical elements were incorporated into the design language itself, so that what might have been hidden instead became part of the product's visible logic. The challenge, in the end, taught us something important about design: constraints, properly engaged with, often produce better solutions than freedom alone.
How did you decide to submit your design to an international design competition?
The decision followed naturally from our experience at the LIT Lighting Design Awards in 2025, where Moono was recognized and awarded. That recognition gave us confidence that the design had genuine merit beyond our own assessment of it — that an independent jury of professionals in the field saw value in what we had created.
What did you learn or how did you improve yourself during the designing of this work?
Moono taught us, above all, the value of persistence in the face of technical difficulty. There were moments during the development of the sliding mechanism when the most pragmatic solution would have been to simplify the concept — to design a fixed pendant and abandon the sliding ambition. We chose not to, and the final design is entirely defined by that choice. That experience reinforced something we now consider a core principle of the studio: the problems that are most difficult to solve are usually the ones most worth solving, because they are the ones that produce genuine differentiation.
We also grew significantly in our understanding of the relationship between design and manufacturing — specifically, how much of a design's quality is determined not at the conceptual stage but at the production stage. Working closely with ELIA to translate the prototype into a manufacturable product taught us to think about tolerances, material behavior, and assembly logic much earlier in the design process than we had previously done. That knowledge has changed how we approach product development at SHRE, and it will benefit every product we design from this point forward.
Any other things you would like to cover that have not been covered in these questions?
Moono represents something larger than a single product for SHRE Studio. It is the clearest expression to date of what we believe design can and should do: solve real problems with formal intelligence, respect the person who lives with the result, and contribute something to the world that is genuinely new rather than merely refined.
We are a small studio from Georgia — a country whose design tradition is rich and deep but whose voice in the international design conversation has historically been limited. We see every product we bring to market, every award we receive, every press feature and conversation we initiate, as part of a longer project of making Georgian design legible and respected on the world stage. Moono is a significant step in that direction.
We are also, at this moment, developing SHRE LAB — a physical space in Tbilisi that will integrate concept development, prototyping, production, and exhibition under one roof. It is the infrastructure that will allow us to realize more ambitious projects, to work with more complex materials and processes, and to invite the wider design community into our process. We believe deeply in transparency about how things are made, and SHRE LAB is our commitment to that belief made physical.
For anyone who wishes to follow our work, collaborate, or discuss how Moono might be right for their project or space, we welcome the conversation. We can be reached through our website at shre.ge.