Design studio: Lighting Engines
Step 1: Take photos of lighting
Task: Taking photos of the lighting in our daily life.
After taking these photos, I begin to notice the lighting that I took for granted before.
After looking at a wall of lighting people took, I began to think about the lighting which I took for granted before.
There are so many different types of lighting: working light, task light, navigation light, to name a few. Even within one types of lighting, there are a lot of variations such as difference in color and size. Why people need different lighting? This is because different lighting serve different purposes. Light is not just made for people to see things, but made to serves as other functions. For example, the lighting in the staircase in Wean Hall is mainly for decorative purpose. The lighting in the restaurant is usually dim for the purpose of letting people eat more. Apart from these, light can also arose certain kind of emotions.
Step 2: Playing with light and paper
Task: By using paper and light bulb, see how they can form different effects.
I divide my experiment into three categories: material, thickness and patterns.
For the first category, material, I choose four different types of paper (print paper, tracing paper, 250g Bristol paper, 300g watercolor paper) and see how they differ from each other. I found that the lighter/thiner the paper, the more light penetrated through them which makes the light softer. In addition, the lighter/thiner the paper, the edges of the light source will be less blurred. Apart from these, the light reflected on the table also differ each other. For example, the light reflected on the table through watercolor paper is much softer than the light through tracing paper. In short, different kinds of paper can definitely produce different effects of light, which may be helpful in my future exploration of this project.
The second category of my experimentation is the thickness of paper. This is different from the first category because in this case I want to explore overlapping paper on top of each other and see what the result might be. In this category, I mainly focus on tracing paper and print paper. For the tracing paper, I fold it to make increase layers of some parts. I observe that the more layers, the less light penetrating through it. Another interesting finding is that the place where is the edge of folding also creates an effect on light which can’t be created by other ways. For the printing paper, I cut some shapes and stick them to another piece of paper, and I find out light can create patterns through variation of thickness of paper.
The third category of my experimentation is exploring different patterns that can be created by paper. In this part of the experiment, I cut, fold and even crumple the paper into different forms. Each form can create different artistic effects. For example, the crumpled paper diffuses a lot of light, making it look like a cloud.
Step 3: Early concepts
Task: According to the task assigned, we are asked to form some early rough concept by making sketch models.
My task is “designing a lighting engine that supports collaborating with peers in a conference room.” When I first receive this prompt, I am confused because there are three conditions (collaboration, peers, conference room) and each of them can be interpreted in different ways: How big is the conference room? What kind of collaboration? A series of questions pops out in my head. I know it is challenging for me.
In order to tackle this task, I plan to decode the prompt into three different conditions which I mentioned before: collaboration, peers and conference room. I create a mind map for each of the three keywords to get some inspirations for my sketch models.
Concept 1
This concept mainly focuses on adjusting the amount of light according to people’s needs. During collaborating, people may sometimes need a brighter light and sometimes need a dimmer light.
Concept 2
This concept is combining pen holder and lighting together. The reason I come up with this idea is that in the mind map I made before, I found that people often draw and write a lot during collaboration. So I want to combine the pen holder to the lighting to make this unique to this context.
Concept 3
This is a light standing on the table. This concept is mainly for decorative purpose which can add some fun to the conference room. I take the form of iceberg and use two kinds of paper with different thicknesses: tracing paper and thick white paper.
Concept 4
During the class, we discussed a lot of things we need to concern while making the lighting, which can be seen on the picture of the class notes. For me personally, I found several criteria that are really important to me. The first one is scale. I feel like my designs are too small for a conference room, and I may scale them up to fit more with the context. Second thing that is particular important for me is to consider what the material can support. As we are using paper, not cardboard, we can create more organic shape and complexity from this material. Last but not least, I need to consider how different POVs may affect the lighting. For my next step, I may try to do the lighting with a bigger scale and do more lighting hanging from the ceiling.
In order to get inspiration, I go to the conference room on the first floor in MM. I have to say that this is one of the best conference rooms I have ever seen. This room gives me a totally different feeling that the ones in Tapper Quad give me. In this room, I can feel a sense of warmth and comfort, whereas the conference room in Tapper gives me a feeling of coldness. I feel like the difference in my feeling may result from the difference in lighting in both conference room. The lighting in Tapper is white and coming out from a small source. However, in the conference room at MM, the lighting is warmer and the shape of the lighting hanging from the ceiling is long, making the light evenly distributed throughout the room. For me, I think that this kind of lighting can promote collaboration between peers in a better way because people will feel more comfortable while sitting in the room with such lighting.
I then begin to realize that the simple details such as color and shape can function a lot and affect people’s emotion.
Step 4: More concepts
Concept 1
For this lighting, I try two ways of installing them: hanging and sticking on the wall. For the hanging one, the tracing paper makes the other parts of the lighting impossible to be seen. So I try another way of installing, which is sticking on the wall. I find the lighting reflected on the wall is very interesting. However, later I realize that this lighting is just a decoration which is not suitable for my context: conference room. In addition, the light bulb is exposed to people’s eyes.
Concept 2
In this concept, instead of geometric shape, I want to explore the organic shapes. I cut the paper into stripes and see how they can combine with each other. However, after critique, I realize that there are a lot of problems with this lighting. First of all, the organic shape does not have much patterns in it. I was told that If I want to make a organic shape, I need to let people know that this shape is intentionally made, not randomly. Second, people can see the lightbulb from outside, which makes this lighting unsatisfactory to see.
Step 5: Refinement of ideas
Based on the feedback I received, I feel I need to change the design.
I realized that sketching is not a good way to experiment as it is two-dimensional. So a made some small paper models to see how they can combine with each other. I believe while making the model there are some unexpected encountering which can probably inspire me.
Take-aways from critique:
After peer review and talking to professors, I found that I need to improve in the following ways:
- Improve craftsmanship. The craftsmanship should be good enough, otherwise it will affect the design. If the form is symmetrical, make it symmetrical. In this way, people will know the intention of the design. For mine, there are a lot of places that are not crafted carefully. First of all, the cut stripes are not in same width, which makes people thinks that I randomly did it. In order to improve it, I need to at least make them equally wide. In addition, the directions of the cut stripes also fail to show a lot of intention and planning, as I just randomly choose the directions. To improve, I need to play with some stuff related to math and geometry.
- Form consistency. The circular shape of the light bulb can be seen from the tracing paper, which is inconsistent with the other part of the lighting. In order to improve it, I need to diffuse the light from the lightbulb in order to make the light more evenly distributed. Maybe I can change the material: using a thicker tracking paper.
- Vertical form. Another thing some people comment on it is the aggressiveness of the form especially the bottom part of it which seems pointing directly towards people. In addition, the vertical structure also adds to the aggressiveness. Right now I’m not sure if I should make a big change to the form, I may do some small models to experiment.
Improvement:
Based on the feedback I got, I decided to change the form into a more horizontal one, which will fit better with my context: conference room. In addition, I plan to organize the cut in a more designed way.
I use the small model I made before to experiment with the the form.
Feedback:
I asked Stacie that if my lighting had some problems with it. Instead of pointing out directly the problems with my lighting, she made me to think what I want to achieve initially.
What I want to achieve:
- Bright light. As my context is “Conference room” in which people work together. The lighting for working should be brighter rather than dimmer to create a good lighting condition to support working.
- Should not be the focal point. When people walk into the conference room, the lighting should not be the first thing they see.
- People sitting around should get the same amount of light.
- Geometric form rather than the organic form to make people focus/concentrate on their work, as the organic form is serving more as a decorative purpose.
After telling her about what I want to achieve, the problems suddenly come to the surface. Here are some problems with the light:
- Scale: the scale is too small for a conference room with 4–6 people.
- Contrast: The part of the strips form a big contrast with the rest of the lighting, which makes this light a focal point. In order to not make it so noticeable, I need to reduce the contrast through changing the material: either use a thinner bristol paper or a thicker tracing paper. As it is the lighting for working, the light should be enough. So I will probably find another type of thinner Bristol paper such as Bristol vellum.
Step 6: Final version
Reflection:
- Learn more about the lighting and how it affects our lives. Before doing this project, I took the lighting in our lives for granted and fail to notice the different functions of different lights. However, after the first lecture, I found that lighting serves as different purposes and even convey various emotions.
- Decoding the prompt into keywords. Another important thing I learn from this project is a way to decode the prompt or the task by listing some keywords. For my context (collaborating in a conference room), the keywords I choose is “bright,” “large scale,” “not decorative,” “support working”. These keywords are actually the goal I want to achieve. Based on these, I can guide my design in the right direction.
- Importance of craftsmanship. Craftsmanship is really important as it will affect the design. To elaborate, when an object is poorly crafted, people will think that it is intentionally designed in this way. That’s how craftsmanship affect how people perceive the object. So if the shape is symmetrical, make it symmetrical. If the line is straight, do not make it a curve.
- Making model instead of sketching. Another thing I learned is experience-based, which I conclude from a lot of iterations. At first, I drew a lot on my sketchbook but failing to generate a good idea. Then I began to realize that drawing is 2D, which is very hard to experiment with the form in 3D. In addition, during the making process, I can also encounter some unanticipated forms, which are very inspirational.
