Nature’s Echo
This is a lighting project made to discover how the implementation of natural patterns and their castings create echoes of their effects within indoor environments. The juxtaposition of aluminum metal as the primary material with the delicate nature of the patterns creates opportunity for these elements to be depicted within a space, capturing their essence and focusing on their detail. This approach aims to add a sense of calmness, connectivity, intrigue, and grounding, to lighting as it becomes focused on the patterns that are being casted. The patterns were adapted from photography I had taken around Vancouver this year, and the light is made from aluminum, steel, halogen lights and some hardware. I began this project by investigating different methods of projecting, but ultimately discovered how the function of shadow casting was something very natural yet depictive. The combination of the casts with the warm tone of a halogen light can create a subtle yet descriptive storytelling of some of these elements from nature.
Process Information
This was my capstone project for my bachelors degree at University. The summer before beginning this project, I knew I wanted to work in lightning and within the aspect of nature because those two categories were most important and exciting to me, and were great prospects for a project. I was excited by colour and lighting, as colour was fundamental in our lives and connects people to space in different ways- similar to the effect of lighting. I wanted to design something that started away from the typical function of lighting, in the sense that it was based around patterns.
In September when the project began, I was investigating lighting and the function of projecting. I was looking into how captivating pattern casting can be. I looked into translucent slides with images but had difficulty in enlarging the images through the projections. In the new year, I decided that I wanted to design a standing light with multiple opportunities to project patterns found from nature. I spent a lot of time outdoors capturing patterns that were abundant on a closer view which I then used in my final prototype. I iterated a lot on the shape and general design choices, but landed on one that I visually really loved.
September 2023- May 2024