Human Scale

Early sketches for Individual components left me dwelling on looming deadlines and pondering the "human condition" and what is means to design on a human-scale. Quite literally I ended up exploring the natural structures that have been designed within humans over thousands of years through Nature's trial and error. Here I've been working on an early prototype of a task lamp influenced by the anatomy of the human arm and shoulder. I purposely wanted to use a relatively weak material so I could force myself to design a functional structure that was as elegant as it was efficient.

I'm finding these lamps particularly inspiring given that foamcore is usually used to produce static models, and not incorporated into any type of mechanism for movement. I've also been pretty surprised at the rigidity of the structure given that the pieces are as thin as 3/8 inch and are up to 18 inches long!

I've ordered some fasteners from McMaster Carr and hope to resolve issues with the lamp shade soon after they arrive. Ideally the final design will be produced using black foamcore and aluminum binding posts. The shade will also incorporate a cylindrical vacuum-formed element to help reduce glare. Ideally, I would like to be able to produce these at or below a $10 material cost.