Light Modulator
In an attempt to study the material properties of Birch plywood pieces, Richard Sweeney and Liam Hopkins of Manchester based design studio Lazerian, stumbled upon a design that cast such a beautiful shadow that they decided to create a lampshade out of it. What started out as an experiment by the duo to come up with a CNC-cut module to mould into a variety of configurations (with the help of screws and wing nuts) that could then be furthered into a plethora of objects of daily use such as tables, lamps – anything that requires a base structure – led to the formation of the lampshade that you see above. 
Feeding the material constraints of the ply, the studio used computer-aided methods to conceptualise forms stable enough for these base structures. The duo used 1.5 and 3mm Birch ply on a cutting bed size of 750 square mm and the lampshade that they arrived at in the process is by no means is the end product of this experiment, but rather a happy coincidence that they managed to stumble upon. Some would call it a stroke of serendipity – Studio Lazerian chooses to call it the Light Modulator. 
By: Shamita Chaudhry
