Designing for free spirits and open spaces: Lampcake, AALF’s debut creation
AALF (Authentic, Artful Loft Foundation) is a new Italian brand specializing in home décor and lighting, created for what is called the Loft Lover community: free and creative spirits who surround themselves with objects that give meaning to spaces, rather than simply filling them.
The objects that inhabit our homes can be seen as a kind of layering of our own lives. Whether we are aware of this domestic metaphor or not, we surround ourselves with countless little stories that reveal, to those who come to visit, our tastes, our priorities, our philosophy of life, and even our limits. In short, they tell who we are.
With this idea in mind, Alessia Colonna and Federico Bonamici founded the newly born home décor and lighting Italian brand AALF – Authentic, Artful Loft Foundation. A product designer, interior consultant, and content creator, she; a marketing and fashion retail professional, he — Alessia and Federico are partners not only in work but also in life. Drawing on her experience, Alessia places space and people at the heart of her work, while Federico contributes a strategic vision.
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It was in the intimacy of their loft in Milan — their laboratory of ideas and a rich melting pot of inspirations — that the idea for AALF took shape: a brand that creates objects not meant to merely fill empty spaces, but to animate them. Silent companions that help tell stories, convey emotions, and preserve memories. Debuting alongside the brand was the Lampcake lamp, not a randomly chosen product, but the favorite design piece of co-founder Alessia, as it perfectly captures the overall spirit of the environment and helps create the right atmosphere. It’s a sort of magnetic, indispensable object; the one we naturally gather around in the evening, and that quietly listens as we recount the moments of our day.
All these qualities and characteristics, which the brand highlights in this launch project, are anything but accidental. The brand draws inspiration from the spirit embodied by the loft, not just as an architectural space, but as a concept. A free, open environment that celebrates sociability, creative cross-pollination, fluidity, and authenticity. It’s a place for free spirits, where things are built, walls come down, and a bit of privacy is traded for the pleasure of sharing.
“We didn’t just want to create a lamp. We wanted to give shape to a shared memory,” say Alessia and Federico. Lampcake was inspired by a very specific moment of togetherness: the family Sunday brunches, when pancake after pancake stacks up on the plates, dripping with maple syrup or melted chocolate.
That’s what Lampcake is: a stack of pancakes made of Green Cast®, a 100% recycled cast acrylic, and the tangible memory of a moment that, hopefully, brings a smile. Entirely made in Italy, the first lamp was conceived as a truly unique object, an icon: 1,200 numbered, non-replicable pieces. Its color palette — transparent, orange, green, and blue — is dedicated to the four members of the founders’ family, a symbol of how this project embodies the brand’s core values: uniqueness, belonging, the search for meaning, and sharing.
Lampcake answers a precise question, the same one that has guided and continues to inspire AALF: What is it that we truly miss at home? What do we really need? Only by asking questions like these, we’re able to create objects that never lose their value, that outlive passing trends and continue to hold meaning, no matter where they are placed.
With this, and through their future projects, Alessia and Federico have chosen to speak to a very specific community, the Loft Lovers. In their imagination, they address people who are unconventional, creative, and free. Individuals drawn to warm, fluid, and enveloping atmospheres, guided by a receptive, inclusive, and label-free attitude. Lampcake, with its playful aesthetic and its story, is the first result of this four-handed creative laboratory; one that was born in a loft and aims, through its objects, to find new forms, even if only metaphorically, in new environments. Spaces where free spirits will continue to layer shelves, tables, wardrobes, and bedside tables with always new stories.
