This small portable lamp by ECAL graduate Claudio Gatto is powerful enough to be used on a balcony, in the basement or at the park.

While studying in at the École Cantonale d'Art de Lausanne (ECAL), Italian designer Claudio Gatto realised the entire street of houses where he lived had been built without any provision for lighting in the basements.

Inspired by the improvised solutions his neighbours came up with, from torches to lighters and glowsticks, he created the Bolla lamp.

"The main goal was to be elegant and cute but also functional," Gatto told Dezeen. "I wanted to escape from all the very complex multitask lamps on the market."

The lamp is made from an injection-moulded thermo plastic called acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) with a translucent polypropylene diffuser.

The handle can be rotated or opened up so that the lamp can be placed or hung in various positions giving it its multi-functionality, and is available in six colours.

"I hope people will consider it their own personal lamp that can be taken everywhere they go," Gatto said.

In order to achieve the most powerful circuit within the smallest space possible, Gatto collaborated with an engineer at the ECAL+EPFL Lab – part of the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in cooperation with École Cantonale d'Art.

The circuit is made from a six-watt LED light source - equivalent to a 35-watt traditional light bulb, powered with rechargeable batteries and controlled by a tiny microchip. The light takes four to five hours to charge fully and will then work for 30 hours.

Claudio Gatto recently graduated from a Masters degree in Product Design at ECAL, where the Bolla lamp was his final project. The institution's graduate exhibition is open until 11 October.