Ecal X Helinox : Polaris

Long before modern equipment, there was a single star travelers looked to when the ground gave no clues, steady above the horizon, marking north through even the darkest nights. In collaboration with Helinox, the Korean brand specialising in ultra-lightweight and compact furniture, ECAL Bachelor Industrial Design students, under the guidance of designer Julie Richoz, have designed ingenious, foldable and portable lights. Made for the outdoors, yet naturally at home anywhere.

Collaboration (2026) with Stéphane Halmaï-Voisard, Julie Richoz

Assistants: Titouan Longatte, Marco Renna, Chiara Torterolo
Students: Damien Barman, Laura Cipriano, Benjamin Claus, Mélissa Da Silva Nicolet, Matheo Dusong, Damien Gabriel, Nicola Guet, Chloé Hamel, Violeta Kostadinova, Gabrielle Lefèvre, Zoé Letocque, Dona Levy, Gion Luginbühl, Thaïs Matty, Valentin Meghit, Jonas Meynet, Séraphin Monnard, Arthur Moreillon, Anouck Morlon, Arthur Németh, Leo Niksch, Léa Perrelet, Anouk Quillet, Romain Ricci, Aurélie Richard, Matthieu Rigelo, Archibald Simon, Clara Uzunovic, Mathilda Zubek
Partenaire: helinox.com
Know-how: soft goods / accessories, Furniture, Electronics, Textile

Focusing primarily on the tension between technical rigour and poetic simplicity, our approach was to design lights built around Helinox's own connectors and tensioned textiles, rather than creating conventional lamps.

ECAL - 2DI - HELINOX - Gut Nicola - Rayline - 01_1.jpg — Nicolas Gut - Rayline

ECAL - 2DI - Helinox - Levy Dona - Halo - 01_1.jpg — Dona Levy - Halo

ECAL - 2DI - Helinox Renaud Flavia_1.jpg — Flavia Renaud - Ring

ECAL – 2DI – Helinox – Claus Benjamin – Nénuphar - 02 _1.jpg — Benjamin Claus - Nénuphar

ECAL – 2DI – Helinox – Meynet Jonas – Presence_6_1.jpg — Jonas Meynet - Presence

ECAL – 2DI – Helinox – Myard Melchior – Softbox – 04_1.jpg — Melchior Myard - Softbox

Students had to explore and reinterpret the brand's core language — its aluminium poles, spring clips, hubs and technical fabrics — imagining how light could travel with us into the wild and back home again. Based on their research, they designed a range of typologies suited to camping and beyond: a clip-on flashlight that adapts to any tube diameter and swings to direct its beam up or down; a modular hub built around the sunflower connector, letting light be cast wherever it's needed, from a single accent to a full standing structure; a tensioned fabric square that clips onto camp lines to diffuse a soft, ambient glow; a floor lamp whose light module can slide to shift the intensity; a foldable bedside lamp, collapsing flat for storage; and a self-erecting lantern that pops into shape the moment it leaves its pouch, echoing the silhouette of a scout tent.

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The challenge the students set themselves was to reimagine the camp light, an object built for necessity, while giving it the presence and warmth of a true piece of lighting design. Presented for the first time during Paris Design Week 2026.

Paris Design Week 2026 / Images by Samuel Spreyz

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