Designer Eero Aarnio, long known for the seminal Bubble Chair and lately lauded for the recent Ring Chair, has chosen to dazzle us with a dalliance into lighting. Kubo, created by Aarnio and manufactured by Helsinki’s Innojok, Ltd., represents a departure for the organically inclined Aarnio, as its formal lexicon does not involve the big, bulbous shapes for which the designer is known, but rather the harmonious edges of the classic cube. One might have discerned this from Kubo’s name, but the piece has functional capacities that might be more difficult to intuit, however much they reveal the bright, white heart at Kubo’s pragmatic center.

Kubo Lamp. Designed by Eero Aarnio.

A Multi-Modal Approach to Bright Light Therapy

The strategy mentioned above begins with Kubo’s shape—an intriguing assemblage of differently-sized rectangles, each glowing white—and ends with the lamp’s application to behavioral therapy. Uniquely suited, perhaps, to the upper latitudes of Scandinavia, Kubo is an effective tool for banishing the wintertime blues, providing “10,000 lux treatment or 2,500 lux at 46 cm… according to studies bright light therapy has proven to increase vitality and energy levels during the wintertime.”

The one-two punch of artificial sun and a sunny aesthetic will have you off the couch in no time, out the door and eager to confront the worst of winter’s seasonal ferocities, perhaps parlaying them into vigorous physical exertion of one sort or another. Embracing the latter is perhaps the best way to withstand the rigors of a Northern winter, and Kubo will likely keep you up to the challenge, as it provides just the kind of soft, even ambient light that enhances the relaxations of reading, while replenishing your spirit—not to mention your Vitamin D. Neither can it hurt that Kubo’s cubist look might pass for Picasso’s take on an Arizona icon: the sunny contours of a Saguaro cactus.