The Hurricane Luminaire

Constraints

Timeline: 1 Month

For this project, I was challenged to create a beautiful tabletop lamp that plays with gradients, reflective light, and emittance.

Flat pack materials

Laser cutter

Ponoko cost calculation

Assembly with no fixtures, fasteners, or glues.

Initial Ideation

Having never spent much time playing with light I began by simply experimenting with some different kinds of light diffusion techniques using different kinds of materials.

Searching for Inspiration from both Nature & Technology

Exploring Light Play

Bending Flat Materials

After many iterations attempting to create a structural yet unique and repeatable bend in flat petal leaves, I came to the outcome that I would not be able to solve this given the time I had, which forced me to shift the design and attempt to replicate this flowing form in another way that would provide more structure.

Structure

In order to replicate the flowing forms I wanted I created a feather-like form and put it at an angle to try to replicate this spiral effect. From here I decided to play with how I might play with light emittance within this structure and finally decided to reduce the structure from 8 "legs" to 4 while also adding a secondary ring for strength. Finally, I wanted to see how light might interact with this structure with black pieces rather than white.

Beginning Structure

creating flowing structure

Layered Light Play

Playing with emittance

Iteration

Playing with different materials

Structure Study

Discovering sturdier builds

Improving structure &

cost calculation

Using Ponoko to calculate productions costs

Simplification

Simplifying the design

Iterations

From here I played with the shade design trying to find the balance between visual interest, shadow play, and contrast.

Black Acrylic

I made a few iterations out of 1/4'' black glossy acrylic to see what kind of interesting reflections I could get with this form in addition the what kind of visual contrast this would create.

developing a layered Petal design

I decided to try breaking the shade up into a petal-like design rather than a ribbon-styled shade to add more visual motion and add to the spiral visual effects.

Petal Iteration

Iterating what shadow play might be like with different petal designs.

The Finished Product

The final product is The Hurricane Luminaire. Visually fast but processable if studied the hurricane luminaire has a bright eye and throws light and shadows widely.