Assignment 7 - Luminaire Poster

Our final course assignment was to create a poster for our luminaire. I approached it from the standpoint that it was a "marketing" piece used to promote the luminaire for sale. Shown here is the final poster, as well as a couple of my favorite images at larger scale.

More digital sketches

Over the course of several class periods, I used the digital pen to take notes--for my facade class, studio design development, and for architectural history. Here are some of the more interesting recorded drawings.

Assignment 6 - digital sketchs revised

Based on a suggestion from Nancy, I created two new layouts--one showing the vertically oriented facade sketches, and the other showing the horizontal facade sketches. She felt that having both orientations in one layout made it hard to understand the development of each line of sketches. I agree. The new layout is a lot easier to grasp conceptually.

The Stockholm Public Library Competition

In contrast to the experimentation of form and light that we've been exploring with FormZ, I've also tried to utilize the program for architectural purposes in the modeling of my studio project. Shown here is the Stockholm Public Library (designed by Erik Gunnar Asplund), and my proposed addition to the library. This is a preliminary model--very much a work in progress, both in terms of the design of the library addition, and my modeling of it with FormZ.

Luminaire Development Images

This sequence of images simply shows the evolution of the spherical luminaire design.

The first sequence (above) consists of 17 tilted discs; in the second sequence (below) I removed some discs so there are now only 12, and they too are rotated; and last you'll find the upside-down version.

The shadow casting makes me feel like I'm in a jungle surrounded by tigers. Not really the effect I was hoping for. I thought the discs would simply diffuse the light, but instead they create really sharp-edged shadows. That wouldn't create a very soothing or pleasant lighting condition if it were a real luminaire.

The Luminaire Revisited. . .Again

I wasn't thrilled with the effect of the rendering for the previous luminaire. Therefore I decided to once again tackle FormZ to learn some new tools and create a new luminaire. This time I worked with the Boolean and Derivative operations: intersection, difference, and boolean split. In the end, I used the intersection and different tools the most, as I didn't need to split objects so much as I needed to remove pieces of one object from another.

I started with a sphere, then split it with rectangular slabs to create the circular discs. Then I inserted smaller spheres within the largest one, and used the difference tool to hollow out the center. At first I left the resulting discs parallel to each other, but didn't like the effect of the shadow casting. So then I rotated the discs to try to shield some of the distributed light, but that created even more distorted shadows. I decided to try reversing the effect by turning the luminaire upside down and hanging it from the ceiling, but that didn't help.

So, I'm returning to the first luminaire I created, the S-curved face. That is unless I decide to try one more thing. . .

The Luminaire - Round 2

To create the first digital rendition of my luminaire (see Assignment 4), I drew a simple rectangle on a flat plane, rotated it to stand vertically, then manipulated it using the distort tool. All this enabled me to do was twist the rectangle. I was not able to create the S-curve that was created in my physical model. However, I was able to easily create the punch-outs on the face of the plane.

By using the loft tool, I was finally able to develop the s-curve and create, essentially, two different planes that meet at the center. I was also able to curve the edge planes as well. I did this by drawing lines in different planes (XY, XZ, and YZ), then using the loft tool to create a continuous plane between the lines.

Once the luminaire was done, I built a simple room and table upon which the luminaire stands. The first rendering is confusing because the light source is positioned in a way that it casts uncomfortable shadows on the wall. The second rendering shows the light source adjusted more appropriately.