Monday, April 13, 2015

Michael Bradley: Lamp

This project was one I had been looking forward to practically since the beginning of the class.  Because of this, I had done research into other student work that had been done previously for this assignment.  I chose the final shape based on the work of Andrea Young and, Karla Ronaszegi because of their unique shadow cast of the former, and for the smooth almost organic edge flows of the latter. The final lamp reminds me a lot of some kind of three dimensional spiderweb.
 Andrea Young - Reference

Karla Ronaszegi - Reference


I went through several iterations of this shape before figuring out exactly how I wanted to create it.  I ended up using truncated pyramids modified to have 6 sides, with a cylindrical bore in the middle.  I used projection curves to create my segments and piped the intersection of my radial and horizontal cuts to create my slots.  Initially I forgot to change the measurements of the pips from radius to diameter, so I had to redo a lot of my final model to fix the slit sizing, but the final model turned out fine.

Shape Study 1

Shape Study 2

Shape Study 3


I wanted to use wood for this project, and I had left over MDF from my waffle project, so that is what I used in the end.  When it was finished being cut, however, I didn't like the marks left on the wood by the laser cutter, and sanding the marks wasn't possible without significantly reducing the size of my pieces, so I decided to try and stain the wood to cover the marks.  After trying a form of homemade stain made with Tea bags, I was actually able to make a fantastic brown stain with red and green food coloring mixed with black ink and a little water.   I applied several coats until I had a consistent look that maintains the wooden aesthetic but covers the undesired marks.  I am very happy with how it came out.  I also chose to pay a little more for the bulb and use an "Edison Bulb" which is a tad dimmer than normal incandescent, but with very vibrant and artistic filaments reminiscent of Edison's early hand made products. 


Root Model

Planar Model

Cut Sheet

Render 1

Render 2

Final 1

Final 2

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