Twelve Eccentric Lighting designs in NYC. Above: Head Hi Lamps Show 2026 – Photo by Wade James Michael, courtesy of Head Hi.

Design. From upcycled hockey sticks to pulsating sculptural bubbles, New York’s appetite for eccentric lighting shows no sign of dimming. This year’s NYCxDESIGN is delivering another generous helping of the unexpected — here’s what’s catching our eye.

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DUDD LITE exhibition – Courtesy of The Future Perfect.

The Future Perfect sets the tone with DUUD LITE, a sweeping collaboration between DUDD HAUS and Bocci uniting over 120 artists in reimagining the night light as creative territory. Sculpture, design, and personal narrative all have a seat at the table, with contributions from Bethan Laura Wood, Lindsey, and others. A quiet standout: Nicholas Baker‘s Reading Man1m, a piece so delicate it practically wants to read you a bedtime story.

Reading Man1m by Nicholas Baker at DUUD LITE exhibition – Courtesy of The Future Perfect.

The liminal space between wakefulness and sleep gets its own dedicated moment at Night Stand: What We Bring To Bed, organised by American Design Club. Bang‘s acrylic-layered sphere conjures the illusion of subtle movement the moment it’s lit — reflections blooming across the room like something half-remembered. Sihan Chen‘s hydro-formed steel candleholders navigate the push and pull of tension and softness with real elegance.

Bang at the One Night Stand exhibition – Photo by Kendall Mills, Courtesy of AmDC.

SHINE offers some of the week’s most compelling eccentric lighting work. Efecem Kutuk salvages broken carbon fibre hockey sticks from the rink and recasts them as floor lamps — a material so indestructible it practically demands a second life. “It’s a meditation on relit resilience — on material honesty and the afterlife of objects.” Shattered on ice, reborn in light.

High Stick Lamp by Efecem Kutuk – Courtesy of NYCxDESIGN.

Also at SHINE, Annabelle Schneider‘s Light On Me, Breathe On Me offers something altogether softer: a gently pulsating bubble that folds into itself, described by its maker as “an illuminating symbol as well as a quiet reminder to rediscover the magic within the folds of New York” — “the subtle pulse next to us, a companion that is soft yet alive.”

Light On Me, Breathe On Me by Annabelle Schneider – Courtesy of NYCxDESIGN.

Over at Afternoon Light, Stickbulb debuts Pleat, a collection that combines salvaged wood from New York’s urban forest cuts with traditional Japanese Kozo paper, pleated and embedded in the fixture. It’s the kind of eccentric lighting that manages to feel both considered and quietly radical.

Pleat by Stickbulb – Photo by Stickbulb.

Alongside it, Philadelphia’s Rarify joined forces with San Francisco’s Gantri and designer Christian Borger on a modular lamp system with plant-based polymer shades on aluminium, stackable to varying heights.

MLS-01 by Christian Borger and Gantri for Rarify – Photo via IG, follow @see_borg and @rarify.

At ICFF, KĀDNS presents Horizon, a collection taking its cues from the shifting colours of sunrise and sunset. “We design each light with the mission of resonating with people emotionally and enhancing their well-being,” the studio explains, positioning the series as something “designed to bring you calm.”

Horizon lamp by KADN – Photo by Louise Huang.

At WANTED DESIGN‘s Launch Pad, Riccardo Toldo‘s XY project pushes eccentric lighting in a more conceptual direction, running low-voltage LED filaments across welded wire mesh: “Perfect trajectories run along the X and Y axes, where the Z axis becomes the human gaze.”

XY by Riccardo Toldo – Courtesy of the designer.

The ALIEN exhibition by Paraphernalia is always going to attract the week’s more otherworldly proposals. Liam Monaghan delivers with Beam, a sci-fi-inflected table lamp that “explores this tension between the familiar and the foreign, translating the mythology of UFOs into a quiet, minimal, domestic artefact.” Understated but oddly magnetic.

Beam by Liam Monaghan at Paraphernalia’s ALIEN exhibition – courtesy of Paraphernalia.

At The New York Edit by Design Hotels and Lumens, Pelle studio’s Be Patient floor lamp — milled entirely from aluminium — references analogue machinery and automotive design with a satisfying mechanical logic.

Be Patient Floor Lamp by Pelle – Photo by Pelle.

And just before the week officially kicked off, the sixth Head Hi Lamp Show at BOOM at The Standard Highline gathered 36 pieces from international designers. Among the most memorable: David Ruperti‘s Teem, where New York’s sticker culture literally becomes the lamp — a collage of colourful, text-heavy stickers wrapping a standing spherical light. Eccentric lighting, in its most joyfully literal form.

Teem by David Rupetti – Aaron S Cheung, Esto, 2026:Courtesy Head Hi.

Pillow Candleholder by Sihan Chen x American Design Club – Courtesy of American Design Club.