The Seattle Needle Lamp
A functioning table lamp inspired by Seattle's famous architectural landmark
Project Brief: Create a lamp using Rhinoceros. Utilize the contour and section command and lay out the design to be laser cut. Assemble laser cut lamp into a final, functional, three-dimensional model.
For the design of my laser cut lamp, I wanted to create something atypical and interesting. Not only is city life beautifully modern and inspiring to me, but every city has a variety of architecture that is unique to its foundation and history. I decided to create my lamp based off of the designs of the buildings in Seattle, Washington because of their varying styles and forms. Being intrigued by the Pacific Northwest, I thought it would be a good challenge to try to capture the aesthetic form of a building and translate that into a lamp.
Using the mood board, I started sketching lamp forms to figure out how I could get the most interesting forms from the simplest aspects and shapes from the architecture. The lamp could not be too complex due to the final assembly and size.
Concept Sketches of different lamps based on various buildings
For the final lamp design, I decided to go with the Seattle Needle as inspiration for the form. The top observation deck of the needle proved to be a fascinating and workable form to model in Rhinoceros. After modeling, the lamp was rendered in Keyshot.
Following the modeling and rendering, the lamp design was laid out on an 18" by 24" sheet of plywood and laser cut. The pieces easily fit together and a lightbulb and fixture were placed inside.
