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Final Project: *Glowmorph* WIP

Research Description

5-second read TLDR

Glowmorph: a living, shapeshifting lamp that breathes, dances, and responds to its surroundings like a moody roommate with good (or potentially questionable) vibes.

30-second read

The following is the progress of my final project: Glowmorph. It is a lamp. It moves. More specifically, I’m imagining a living, shape-shifting lamp that retracts and expands in response to its surroundings. Will it be a lighting fixture that’s introverted and shy, or extroverted and animated by nearby crowds and movements? Perhaps it responds to sounds or even dances to music. Its a playful object that blurs the line between object and organism. This project explores light as a living, responsive presence rather than a static fixture. The lamp will be constructed as an inflated or tensile membrane that can transform its geometry through air pressure or mechanical actuation. Im considering materials such as latex, nylon, or another stretchable skin. Its form is not fixed but mutable: it expands, contracts, and reshapes itself in dialogue with external stimuli such as the day-night cycle, the presence of people, sound, or proximity. By linking light with responsive motion, the lamp becomes a performer—alternately shy or expressive, retreating when approached or dancing to music. Im drawn to how this can explore the tension between attraction and withdrawal, desire and distance, presence and absence. At once organic and technological, the lamp blurs the boundary between inert object and animated being, suggesting a new kind of domestic companion: one that glows, breathes, and responds to its environment in unexpected ways.

Inspiration


Above, clockwise from top left: Noguchi Akari Lamps, microscopic image of an Acantharian, Frei Otto Expo 1967, Haeckel drawings of Radiolaria, a tent built by tent caterpillars, Castiglioni's Pendant Lamp, Haeckel drawings of Acanthometra


Design, forms and nature

I am inspired by both Isamu Noguchi’s Akari lamps and the tensile and inflatable structures pioneered in the 1960s. Noguchi’s lamps are poetic and ephemeral, with delicate paper stretched over lightweight frames that reimagine traditional Japanese Gifu lanterns. Similarly, tensile and inflatable experiments of the 1960s, such as Frei Otto’s membrane structures, explored flexible, adaptive forms that responded to environmental forces. Both precedents resonate with my interest in lightweight, transformable structures: minimal yet expressive, responsive yet intimate. Alongside these architectural and artistic references, I am also drawn to natural geometries. Ernst Haeckel’s illustrations of microscopic organisms such as Radiolaria and Acanthometra reveal intricate, symmetrical forms that are both delicate and dynamic. These organisms embody a balance of structure and fluidity, precision and adaptability—qualities that echo the design ambitions of Glowmorph. The pendant light fixture typology brings these threads together. The poetic fragility of Noguchi’s lamps, the deployable qualities of tensile membrane structures, and the intricate geometries found in protozoa converge in Glowmorph, a lamp that is not only illuminated but alive: shifting, breathing, and responsive to its environment.

Precedent

Anicka Yi's Dewdrop Continuum Series 2023- made of PMMA optical fiber, LEDs, silicone, acrylic, epoxy, aluminum, stainless steel, steel, brass, motors and microcontrollers


Michael Dubno's wild kinetic 'Tentelux' light fixture. Programmed on Python, home-made servo motors with worm-gear motors.


Initial Sketches


Final Sketch 02 Final Sketch 03

Initial behavior ideas

I have been debating whether to proceed with pneumatics, mechanical actuators, or inflatables. In the end, I think I will drop the inflatables, as I prefer the concave geometries of minimal surfaces over the pillowy qualities of air-filled forms. Moreover, managing closed inflatable cells introduces unnecessary complexity compared to working with an elastic or woven surface.

Initial Proposed Design

Above I'm testing different forms as a base condition wherein all compressive elements are fully in their retracted condition. For the formal implications of what the membrane will look like due to extended compressive arms, I would have to rely on simulation, as follows.

Material Simulation and Animation

What does it look like? It’s tough to tell just by imagining it, and even tougher to predict the results in 3D. Using Kangaroo, a physics engine plug-in for Grasshopper (which itself is a plug-in for Rhino), I can simulate a stretchy skin. I had to set up the parametric definitions to run the simulation, but now I can both model and animate forms while respecting these constraints.


Physics Simulator Script




I put together this simulation to test forms and behaviors. In short, it begins with input geometry—in this case, an icosahedron. The icosahedron has small offset holes on each of its faces, which become the base mesh for the simulation. You then define which of these holes are static and which are kinetic. This is done by sorting through lists and moving selected points away from the structure's center. Each point has an “input” and a “goal” that the solver works toward in order to generate a real-time parametric simulation. All of this data is fed into the Kangaroo solver, and I am displaying its resulting mesh.



Initial Simulation: Skin


Initial Simulation: Mechanics


Proof of concept of kinetic elements. I think it would be interesting to start working on "behavior" as in, patterns and sequences affecting the linear actuators. For instance, I might test having each arm on a sin curve, syncopated from each adjacent arm. The amplitude of shaft distance traveled could be related to crowds or proximity of people, for instance. I'll return to this later.

Mechanics Concept



Summary of Parts

In-Depth Summary of Parts

Ceiling Module (Control / Electronics Hub)
Purpose: Houses all electronics, drives the actuators, and processes sensor input.
Contents:

Kinetic Pendant
Purpose: The shape-shifting, moving part of Glowmorph that emits light.
Contents:



Above: my engineer friend Max Summers suggested I can "make a very smooth telescoping mechanism, you could probably spring load it so it always wants to be extended and use like a string and a pully on a small servo/stepper to wind up and suck in the telescope, that way you dont have like a long screw or something that will affect overall footprint"


Glowmorph 3D printed structure with sliding rods

Above is a printed structure with working sliding rods, used to start testing membrane skins.


Membrane Skin

For the 'skin' of Glowmorph, I'm looking for a material that will allow light transmittance and has a strong 4-way stretch. I'm currently testing nylon or performance mesh. In order to join the material, I'm thinking about either tiling a repeated triangular shape, or unrolling the skin as a sort of 'Dymaxion Map'. Regardless of what material I'm using, it's important to get a consistent sewed and cut edge with minimal material being expressed on the interior. Graham help me set up the serger machine which sews and cuts for a very small expressed inner edge and a precise overlocking stitch.


Above I'm referencing the dymaxion map as a potential strategy to unrolling the skin to keep a minimal amount of edges to sew.

Serger sewing machine Serger machine detail

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