Hollis+Morris’ Beaufort Lighting Draws From Arctic Ice

The idea for Hollis+Morris’ Beaufort lighting collection began somewhere over the Atlantic. Founder and lead designer Mischa Couvrette was flying home from Copenhagen after 3daysofdesign when a conversation about ice and climate change led to an exploration of ice depth, transparency, and formation.

“For years I have been drawn to the beauty of ice above a body of water, the layered gradients, the shifting transparency, and the mysterious world concealed beneath the surface,” Couvrette says. “That conversation ultimately inspired us to conceive of a light fixture that holds that sense of hidden depth and quiet mystery.”

Rather than translating those references literally, the Beaufort Collection explores them through material and light. Each fixture begins with rough-sawn solid oak or walnut shaped into a half cylinder with softly rounded ends. The wood is then carved from within, concealing the lighting technology while creating a chamber that controls how illumination escapes the fixture.

Beaufort R5 Horizontal Pendant by Hollis+Morris. Photography courtesy of Hollis+Morris.

Sandblasted acrylic forms the other half of the equation. Stepped shoulders and faceted surfaces meet the carved wood in layered planes, creating subtle shifts in depth even when the fixture is switched off. Turn it on, and the acrylic takes on a different role as light passes through its translucent form in soft gradients—an effect intended to recall the changing density and transparency of ice.

That relationship between wood and acrylic is the building block for the entire collection. Hollis+Morris repeats, mirrors, and rotates the same basic component to change each fixture’s silhouette and the way it distributes light.

Beaufort R5 Vertical Pendants and Table Lamp by Hollis+Morris. Photography courtesy of Hollis+Morris.

The simplest form is the Beaufort Sconce. The M2 Horizontal Pendant mirrors two components, directing light upward and downward, and comes in four lengths from 13 to 60 inches.

Beaufort Sconce by Hollis+Morris. Photography courtesy of Hollis+Morris.

The R5 Horizontal Pendant pushes the repetition further. Five elements form a circular composition that can be suspended horizontally to create an almost orbital fixture or rotated vertically to become a compact lantern. The same arrangement, placed on a surface rather than suspended from above, becomes the Beaufort Table Lamp.

From sconce to pendant to table lamp, the Beaufort Collection changes orientation and scale without losing the material tension at its center—a fitting approach for a collection inspired by ice formations, which are continually reshaped by time and light.

Beaufort M2 Horizontal Pendant by Hollis+Morris. Photography courtesy of Hollis+Morris.

Editorial Transparency: This article was developed with the assistance of AI tools, which may have been used for research, outlining, editing, or copy refinement. Reporting, fact-checking, and editorial decisions were made by the Design Milk editorial team.