‘Flow’ is a bamboo-made, self maintaining public lighting which operates on the principle of vertical wind turbine. The whole lamp disintegrates in nature excpet for the electronics – LEDs, wires and dynamo.

The light sources situated at the ends of the windblades can form continous lighting surface or slow, waving movements and play of light, depending on the speed of the rotation. Due to its spiral form, the lamp can hold the wind from every direction.

The bamboo lamp called ’Flow’ was born as a university design task and was completed in the frames of an international project. After finishing the design process Empresa Colombiana Akiyai corporation became its customer. During the design process Flow intended to solve a serious problem of the Colombian seaside. Due to the lack of public lighting the busy beaches become abandoned and dangerous at night, as the electric network cannot be channeled to the beach. Additionally, the project's aim was to stand up against the trends in design and to create a real eco-product.

The constant prevailing wind on the coast is an ideal source for lighting. The product is a self maintaining public lighting for the coasts of Cartagena (Colombia) based on the principle of vertical wind power plants, and it is made of bamboo. Bamboo is one of the easiest to find and cheapest to produce raw material in Colombia and its utilization is not „eco-harmful” even at small and medium serial number products. The whole lamp decomposes in nature, except for the long life electronics components – LEDs, wires and dynamo.

Since the concrete manufacturing is a rather harmful procedure the project tried to avoid using that material.  The sections at the joinpoint are filled with a bamboo fiber composit resin, and the team members fix the construction in the ground with crossing bamboo bars instead of concrete basement.

It was an important consideration to adapt the design to the native culture and make it easy to manufacture by the natives themselves. The assembly of the electronic components and bearing is very easy because high precision is not required due to the simple construction.

In spring Flow will start building 1:1 prototypes of the plans at Lake Balaton (in Hungary) where, according to research, the wind-force is appropriate for testing (due to the efficiency of the vertical axis and energy, – at 10 meter height – the wind circumstances in Hungary are sufficient for the operation). The planting of the lamps is planned to be executed next summer.