Rationale

‘Upcycled Utility’, the aim of my design for this project is to express how recycled material can be used to create sophisticated and elegant pendant mood lighting. I wanted to accentuate both the fluidity and the rigidness of the material (polypropylene) and by creating this lighting design, it allows me to playfully produce a somewhat literate form of a beehive, which paradoxes how something (the material)that’s so artificially man made can depict to the notion of nature. Originally I wanted to re create the conventional design of the lamp shade, this form intrigued me and by trialling with various folding techniques with the polypropylene I was able to construct the conventional ‘lamp shade’. With the intense foldings they create depth and form , I was intending to create a tower however felt that too much material was being used and was uncertain about how the connections of each shade would. Although I liked that Idea, I continued to expand and delve deeper on the shape and folds applied. Before hand the material I was testing with was more rigid and hard, making the forms more rigid, however in the final role of polypropylene softer/thinner thus creating the more fluid form.Eventually over trial and error I was able to create a more elegant and simplistic form, which was more environmentally efficient as it used less material, and thus capable to make numerous lights out of one single sheet.