Thomas Vincent

Behind this apparent weightlessness lies a working method grounded directly in the material. In order to design in immediate dialogue with production, Vincent’s path led him from France to Vietnam. His design studio is located between two factory buildings: from the drawing table to the workbench and back again, an idea becomes a tested object. “Design ain’t no office job” is his motto. For Vincent, fabrication is not merely the final stage of a design, but the place where its possibilities first reveal themselves. This approach is also embedded in the name of BằNG, the brand he co-founded: the Vietnamese word refers both to the material something is made from and to the process through which it comes into being.

“Lớp”, too, names its own design principle: in Vietnamese, the word means “layer”. The starting point was the idea of something floating inside something else. Vincent translates it into a sequence of thin, parallel acrylic glass panels, between which the luminous sphere is positioned. Each surface picks up its reflection; through repetition, the single body appears to acquire a direction of movement. The panels contain the light while simultaneously multiplying its presence. Yet the construction remains visible: four stainless-steel rods connect the layers at their corners. This openness reflects Vincent’s ambition to design objects that are comprehensible and repairable – even the light source can be replaced. The lightness of the appearance is built on an intentionally tangible construction.

“Small Square Orange” and “Small Square Blue” demonstrate how differently the same geometry can behave. In the orange version, the yellow of the glowing sphere merges into the warm colour of the surrounding panels. The blue version strikes a different note: here, a red light source meets blue acrylic glass, making the sphere appear violet. At times, the luminous body and its surroundings are connected through related tones; at others, they separate through colour contrast. Colour does not merely decorate the construction – it determines how we perceive its layers, reflections and spatial depth.

In “Lớp”, Vincent’s guiding idea of “Unboring Objects” takes precise form: everyday objects that fulfil their function while still giving us something to discover. Even in daylight, the layered structure emerges as a sculptural object; once illuminated, it transforms through the very light it produces. Its particular tension lies in the fact that the visible components explain the optical effect without dissolving it. We understand what we see – and yet see more than is actually there.