Tidal by Lodes: Needs Studio’s balance of light in professional spaces

14 October 2026

In the workplace, light has one clear job: to illuminate without imposing itself. Tidal, the Lodes light designed by Needs Studio, answers this with a slender ring that emits light upward, toward the ceiling, and downward, into the space below, concealing every technical element within its form. The ring changes shape depending on where it is viewed from.

Tidal draws on the tides and the movement of celestial bodies, translating them into a ring with one side wider than the other, to represent high and low tide. Needs Studio began from a few firm premises: to create a fully resolved object, with a character unlike anything already on the market, working with pure forms and a varying cross-section. The result is a design that stays interesting from every angle and alters perception without giving up formal rigor.

Tidal began as a ceiling light and is now available in three sizes: 45, 60 and 75 centimeters. Lodes designs it for settings that range from residential to professional and contract projects, whether used on its own or repeated, playing with the different sizes of the family. In a professional interior, this range allows the light to be scaled to the room: the 45 can be pictured in a more intimate space, the 75 in a larger one, such as a meeting room or reception area, and the 60 somewhere in between. Being able to modulate scale without changing design language means the presence of the object and the amount of light can be calibrated together, since each size has its own baseline luminous flux.

The 2025 pendant takes the project a step further. The body has been reworked with a double-shell structure that balances direct and indirect light to prevent glare, and that gives the ring a twisting effect, as though it were hovering in the air. Within this compact form sits a source of over 6,000 lumens, divided exactly fifty-fifty between the two emissions and adjustable through dual switching. Above a meeting table it finds a natural setting: the direct light supports work on the surface, the indirect light softens the room, and the two can be balanced separately. Three slender cables suspend it, anchored to a matte metal canopy in white or black, just slightly smaller than the ring, so that the canopy blends in and the ring appears to float, weightless, on the ceiling.

For long tables, the logic is repetition. The pendant comes in a single size, 60 centimeters, and can be used singly or repeated according to the length of the table: two or three rings in a row punctuate the surface and give the room its rhythm. In the rise-and-fall version the gesture becomes almost physical: you take the body of the light in both hands and bring it to the height you want, up to a meter and a half from the ceiling. Lodes recommends it for restaurants and hospitality, where tables are easily reconfigured, and the same solution is easy to imagine in an office, for tables that are rearranged depending on use. The fixed version, by contrast, has cables about four meters long, a length that points to spaces with high ceilings.

The four matte finishes, white, black, champagne and earth, work in counterpoint: the first two suit more pared-back interiors, the other two warm the space with soft tones. These are colors that do not seek the spotlight and leave it to the ring to set the rhythm.

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