Sonumbra, 2008, by Loop.Ph (Rachel Wingfield and Mathias Gmachl, UK/Austria). Developed as part of the World Bank project Lighting Africa, Sonumbra is a proposal for low-cost, low-maintenance lighting for regions without access to the electrical grid. An outsize parasol, by day it provides shelter from the sun. By night it lights up, using the energy collected in solar cells embedded in its canopy. Photo by Paola Pieroni