About the Project
The purpose of this group project is to design lighting device with LED for Light Up the World Foundation. We chose garden light for the North American market.
This is a group project of Harald Albrecht, Meghan Armstrong, Ashwini Borker, Connor Hayduck, Damien Hortsing, Quentin Mattie, James Sloane, Janice Yuen, and Hiro Shibata. Our group explored design concept, marketing consideration, funding, technical issues, and design development and details. The stem part of the light is designed by Connor Hayduk. The lighting part is designed by Hiro Shibata.
Concept
I wanted to design lighting that would naturally exist in a garden through a year even during the winter. On the other hand, I did not want to make it represent any object or organism that exists in the nature. Rather, I tried to reproduce what I feel when I see warm and natural lighting.
Kamakura
The first thing I imagined was kamakura, Japanese temporary hut made of snow. A typical kamakura has one entrance without door, and light comes out from the entrance during night and makes a fantastic scene.
Hotaru-bukuro
The second thing I imagined was a kind of plant that is called hotaru-bukuro (firefly bag) in Japanese. Every flower of hotaru-bukuro has petals that look like a pocket, and it is said that people in old times put a firefly in every pocket-like flower to make fantastic lighting.
Snow Light
I combined those two images. However, since neither kamakura nor hotaru-bukuro is known in North America, it does not make sense to make the lighting looking like them. I rather tried to make a shape that would be somehow fantastic on snow and remind people of plant, flower, or some organisms that naturally exist in a garden.
