Constructing the Lamp and Addition Design Aspects

With my Autocad draughts drawings done for the cut out of my sides, I took it straight down to the laser cutting room on the Monday morning, dropped off my materials and managed to pick it up only a few hours later after underestimating the fast time of cutting of the machine, which I was quite impressed by. The result was for the most really well cut sides, although due to the nature of the material (stained MDF board 3mm) there was some slight warping in a couple of the pieces meaning that the laser had not cut the whole way through meaning the use of a scalpel and ruler was unfortunately necessary but the final result was pretty much the same.

For the past couple of days I have been going around and planning the structure of my differents sections with addition end bits being cut and edges trimmed to create the 3 central boxes. I found some already bent metal pipes that just happened to be ideal for my main structural backbone but required a bit of trimming and welding together. Further, I started constructing the top bit of my lamp from the same MDF material used for the laser cut box edge, while for the base of the lamp due to the unavailability of any large wood pieces I had to end up sticking together a massive lump of off-cuts and then with tedious time consuming effort sand all the edges to create something that was representative of my stretched pyramid shape.

With time looming, with regret I was unable to actually put a working light bulb within the light itself due to time pressures both of design times and workshop hours but also because of my lack of transport to a shop/hardware store where they can be purchased but it will definitely get done in the future because of the time and effort put into it.

Tricky sections of the construction centered around the drilling of a circular hole in the base to accommodate the metal backbone required hand chiseling a flat edge horizontally into a slanted edge to allow a 25 mm circular drill bit to sit flush on it, however it ended up being a perfect diameter and holding the metal backbone very stiffly. Another problem which I anticipated but ended up not being able to fix was the weighting that was need for the base to counterbalance the weight of the metal supports, boxes and the end light that aim to tip over, but again due to time pressures, this was not attainable and i may have to exterior weight it down or clamp it for the light to be presentable, unfortunate, but a casualty of the design process.

In the evening taking all the sections of the lamp to my accommodation hall, the entire lamp was slowly assembled and glued together and masking taped to stop it from falling apart, with addition grills being placed on the main light area and all areas joined to each other, while finally to stop it counterbalancing, old kiwi and university ingenuity lead me to placing books to stop the base from tipping over under the pressure of the rest of the lamp.

Overall I am extremely, extremely happy with the outcome of the light, with the design completing all necessary goals and aims that I wanted to achieve. The lamp creates the journey of waking up in the Old Railway hotel and walking towards the window. The three main boxes, rising up, each with its own ascending pattern letting through more light and creating more intricate patter emulates the idea of increased light as the visitor walks towards the outside window. The transition between darkness and light. The different patterns further reference the different objects and mullions found on the windows allowing different silhouettes and patterns of light to come through around the area, an essential idea relevant to awaking, while the light on top also aims through the overlapping use of grills to represent this idea of patterns and line creation further. Finally, the entire lamp combines the sense of antiquity through the use of Beaux Arts patterns with the shape, elegance and movement of the modern with a lightning bolt type pattern joining together the ideas of the early 20th Century of travel and speed and comparable modernity and joining it truthfully and honestly with relevant ideas in the modern world, something that I think this area of town should aim to do more.

Final note: This lamp is as, an exhibition piece however one that I envision on the exterior of surrounding Beaux Arts Buildings as a first step to creating that connection of the old and the new. I have purposely not put the model as a picture into photoshop, firstly as its form unlike many others that I will see is not totally abstract in form with a fairly familiar shape to antique lamps, but also due to its 1:1 scale, which though large is also easily envisioned through no need for rescaling through the imagination. While finally again due to the added need to complete the matrix for the class, though this use of photoshop would have aided my final presentation, in the time frame and pressures of workshop times and completion due to complexity, it was unattainable, although in essence unnecessary.