in an industrial design studio, I sought to experiment with manufacturing techniques in making new forms

brainstorming for this project centered around form before to create a truly minimal and seamless design—unlike engineering-first work.

I decided on a symmetrical curved design that uses the weight of the brass itself as the counterweight. all electronics and wiring would be hidden within the thin frame of the lamp itself—or separately on the power line.

after test bends with various metal stocks, the first prototype was made using 1/8" brass tube stock. the three-part brass was held with friction at the base joints.

acrylic-welded acrylic pins acting as tubes held an flush acrylic tube at the top.

a rigid test filament was directly pulled from an bulb. the filament was too short and required too much power to run, but a sense of the final product was there.

with some test bends under my belt, I went to work perfecting a better set of brass parts. acrylic was changed to glass as acrylic-weld proved unreliable.

in addition to the arms and base, two of each style of pin was lathed from tube stock. one stepped for fitting the brass to the glass and one flush for fitting brass to brass.

the parts were soldered together with the joints.

finally, crossbar (shown below), which was used to link the electronic connections and act as a capacitive switch, was added via soldering.

a schema was drawn for the electronics, which were housed in a small, custom box inline with the power. the electronics allow for the touch-based operation of the lamp.