L'Accordion
Unfold radiance, enfold ambience.
Company
GT BSID
My Role
Industrial Designer
Tools
Illustrator · Fusion · Arduino
Timeline
Mar 2023 - Feb 2023
Description
An origami lamp fusing convenience of smart home and joy of physical interaction.
Context
Winner of 2023 LIT Lighting Design Award. Flipping light switches ties to ritual moments in life: focus, recollect, relax… Smart home tech brings versatility and convenience, but loses the sensual interaction. L'Accordion seeks to condense the daily odyssey into a desktop lighting experience. By moving the handle, the user adjusts the lamp's brightness along its physical span, bringing the perfect glow for any given moment.
Inspiration
To celebrate physicality, I observed activities centered around body movements and existing objects associated with motions. Craft was another field of exploration for understanding sensuality in tangible items. Since the project implies the process of condensation, I looked into origami and architecture for both ends of the spectrum.
Concept Development
Postmodernist approaches dominated the ideation for this project. I borrowed from existing icons with motion associated with them already. Playing with their form, materials, scale, and interaction gave me many ideas. After landing on the final concept, the Miura fold stood out as the perfect structure for adding dimensionality to the original unidirectional valley and mountains.
Construction
Diffuser: Mylar
Mylar was chosen for its excellent capability at diffusing light and for laser cutting, making accurate Miura patterns possible.
Scissor Extension: Acrylic
When designing lights, shadows must be taken into consideration. Acrylic wins over metal, for it keeps the internal self-shadow minimal.
Electronics: Slide Pot
A Feather board and NeoPixels provided control and light. A slide pot, mounted to the scissors at two points, tracks the exact span of the light.
Credit
Special Thanks
Steve Chininis