A room above the water in Bergen. The fjord is the reason anyone comes, and the windows were never going to share it with a ceiling full of downlights. What the space asked for was light low down — light that stayed at table height and left the dark to do the rest.

We sent the Nacre portables out first. Brass and black, one to each table: a slender rod, a floating disc, three steps of light under a fingertip. Nothing is wired, so nothing is fixed. A table for two becomes a table for eight, and the lamps simply go with it.

Evening, and then winter

The light here changes by the hour. Pale blue in the afternoon, gone by four in January. The portables hold the room together through all of it — warm at the level of hands and glasses, leaving the ceiling and the water to themselves. In summer they go out onto the terrace too, and nobody thinks twice about carrying them.

Hospitality comes down to small adjustments. A dimmer. A moved table. A lamp carried towards the conversation. That was all we asked of them. They answered quietly.