Diseñar con luz y sentido

Developing the lamp exercise using The Little Prince, allows the students to connect with humanity itself, and give meaning to the profession by doing, creating and materializing.

Why is it important for a product design engineer to reflect on friendship, ego, humility or appearances? Because these qualities as well as how they are going to launch out into the world determines their value as professionals. The Little Prince encourages the students to think about these values, and they can be made tangible in the exercise of the luminaire. The inspiration is sought thinking about the meaning of life with the purpose of reflecting it in the design of a product.

On the concept of inspiration, the psychologist Carlos Arturo Ramírez tells us: “Inspiration is a gift of the spirit, which, in the form of an occurrence and of enthusiastic enlightenment, provides what may appear as a simple idea; but it guides us, drives us, and comforts us.” (2012, p. 362).

If the leimoteif is to learn to design with meaning and not as a mechanical exercise, where it would be the same to design one object or another: How should the process be developed for the students to learn a profound lesson, endowed with meaning?

Chapter 2

The Methodology: A Step by Step Inner Journey

Designing with meaning implies that the PDE student understands that the higher purpose of design is not only learning to create a beautiful, functional, firm and innovative product. It is fundamental for the object to be able to communicate something, to move its users; it should have a thought process and a story behind it, which corresponds to a reality that is more transcendent and deeper than the object itself.

Design methodologies are important because they become a way to organize and use the attitudes and aptitudes that students have to be able to design. They are a roadmap that facilitates the design process, so that it is organized and coherent. At the same time, they allow the students to generate a concept and develop ideas, that they then embody and elaborate to build as a final product. These methodologies are based on good practices and are simpler or more complex, depending on the difficulty of the exercise and the academic level of the students. However, as mentioned in Chapter 1, methodologies alone do not guarantee motivation; the students must be encouraged with a valuable educational project (Marina, 2011). The lamp project allows for the generation of a stimulating, emotional climate. This is because it opens possibilities for the students to select a topic that drives them as individuals. José Antonio Marina calls this educational resource in learning, the “change of wishes and feelings” (2011).

In Project 2, a methodology was applied and developed in seven weeks and relied on other educational resources Marina exposed: the prize, wishes and feelings, reasoning, training and the elimination of obstacles to learning. The following tables summarize this methodology.

Table 1. Stages of the Exercise in the Second Semester

The following is an explanation of the methodology, step by step.

Week 1. Presentation of the Brief and Introduction to the Exercise

Clarity about what happens during the 16 weeks of undergraduate academic courses at Universidad EAFIT is fundamental, both for professors and for students. Communicating the step by step process of each of the sessions and clearly defining the responsibilities of the professor and the students, generates confidence and tranquility, and sets the stage for the development of the course.

With these responsibilities in mind, even before starting the course, students had to begin reading The Little Prince. In this way, by week 1 –when the meaning of the exercise and the methodology was explained to them– they understood what this adventure was about a little better. In that first encounter, after the general presentation of the course, we explained why the Center for Integrity had joined the group of professors, composed of engineers and architects. The students were also given a notebook with illustrations of the book (which would be used as a logbook) and they were invited to select the concept that most moved them and with which they felt a special connection. The idea was that by week 2, the students would have done a mind mapping² exercise based on the concept that they would work with.

Additionally, the students had to draw two lamps: one, exhibited in a store in the city, in order to observe and familiarize themselves with the architecture of the product: its materials and assembly. The other lamp had to be found on a web page, so that they understood the complexity of the world of design.

The exercise was, without a doubt, a bold idea because a design project based on a book that had become a literary classic, had never been done in quite this way before. It was bold not only because the students would have to approach Saint-Exupéry’s work of literature –which was apparently simple– but also because they had to choose a chapter, concept or phrase that was related to a past or present personal experience.

The goal was to let themselves be moved by the story, which, in itself, is full of fascinating stories, unexpected details, profound revelations and, at the same time, is quite a simple narrative. All this was done with the purpose of learning to design with meaning. Designing with meaning implies that the PDE student understands that the higher purpose³ of design is not only learning to create a beautiful, functional, firm and innovative product. It is fundamental for the object to be able to communicate something, to move its users; it should have a thought process and a story behind it, which corresponds to a reality that is more transcendent and deeper than the object itself.

Each student was given a log so that they could depict their designs. The log would record their thoughts week by week, as well as their first sketches and their reflections during the exercise. The log also contained memorable phrases of the story and characters that allowed the students to remember the object of their inspiration.

Log designed for the luminaire exercise

Week 2. Defining the Concept: Bonding with What Is Essential

Examples of student’s radial mind mapping in Project 2

Once lamps exhibited in stores and websites have been drawn, it is important to note that the students observe the objective of the exercise for the first time. They begin to understand the materiality, the details in the assembly, what the scale and proportions are like, and examine how well they draw while drawing (this process is called metacognition). In summary, the students –in this stage– experience their first turning point with the object that is to be designed.

After receiving feedback from the group, the students carry out a radial mind mapping in order to find sources of inspiration for their design. In this case, a radial format is used to generate an optical vocabulary that allows the exercise to be developed.⁴ The observation process must be greater and deeper. If they chose an element or character in the story, the tangibility of these concepts is easier, but if the concept chosen is friendship, it is a different matter. A concept like friendship requires greater analysis from the students to generate proposals.

The radial mind mapping tool helps generate concepts in the initial stage of ideas and can be very powerful when it comes to making the intangible, tangible.

When reviewing the mind mapping in Week 2, we saw how powerful the exercise could be. Some students managed to capture the idea. With depth and rigor, they shared very complete, illustrative, detailed maps that corresponded to a question, a dream, something painful, or a strong bond that they wanted to express in the lamp’s design. Others, however, were lost and could not connect with the emotion, memory, or feeling, that would lead them to start their creative process in a powerful way.

Accompanying the students –both the most connected to their emotions, and the others– was very important and enriching. For example, there were cases like that of a girl who, when asked about her map, burst into tears. She showed us the edition of The Little Prince that her father had given her eleven years before, with a dedication expressing the hope that this great text could become a beacon throughout her life. With deep sadness, the student told us that her father had forgotten the meaning of the book, because he constantly complained about a lack of money and time. It was recommended to the student to design the lamp for her father, as a way of reminding him of the meaning of the life that he had wanted to transmit to her years ago.

Another very significant story was that of Santiago Montoya, who from the beginning showed great clarity in the concept he wanted to work on and how he wanted to express his reflection through the lamp. This young man told us, once he finished the design and detail of the luminaire, that the biggest dream of his life had been to get into the university to study PDE. Once he had attended the first semester, his idea of continuing with the regular curriculum was frustrated when he failed an English test meant to prove his knowledge of a second language. As a result, he had to wait a year to take Project 2. During that year, he watched sadly as his colleagues made progress in the course and managed to make objects that they exhibited in the square, located at the heart of campus. That difficulty – which represented frustration and discouragement for him at the beginning of his career – ended up becoming a source of inspiration.

This student then designed a lamp with a metal base which held a vertical rectangle of acrylic. On the triangle he drew the little prince in a cape, which symbolized the obstacles that we face. Further up, one could see the stars that were the transformation of the cape – Santiago explained – and represented the way in which those difficulties can become opportunities when one perseveres and manages to overcome obstacles. The process of this student clearly transcended an academic exercise; he managed to hear the voice of his spirit.

It is unwise to ignore the voice of the spirit: however crazy inspiration may seem, it is preferable to listen to it, to pay attention to it. Even the intuitions that turn out to be wrong, teach us about ourselves. They teach us about our prejudices and about the barriers and defenses that we have created to not listen to ourselves, to not know about our inner being and distort or disguise its manifestations (Ramírez, 2012, p. 363).

While some students connected with feelings of fear, pain or sadness, others drew on experiences of love and close bonds they had established with people – or over the years. The latter was the case of Ana Sofía Victoria, who mentioned from the first class that her biggest fear was losing her pet because she had developed a very significant relationship with her dog. She decided to design a luminaire in wood with two vertical bodies that formed a silhouette: on one side was the little prince and on the other, the fox, hinting at the friendship that they cultivated and that reminded her of the great affection she felt for her pet.

Another student was thinking about the concept of old age in his first mind mapping. When he searched himself as to the reason for this, it was not very clear. However, after having heard and understood that Luis Guillermo Osorio really wanted to reclaim the idea of a bond from the book, he was invited to “delve into” it to find out what was essential to him. He came to the conclusion that he wanted to recapture the strong bond he had established with his grandfather since he was very young in the lamp. When the concept was clear, he quickly came to a design for his lamp, one of the most beautiful and well-designed of the five groups. It was made up of a vertical wooden structure that opened into a vertical rectangle. The rectangle contained the figures of the little prince and the fox, made of brass in the jewelry workshop. Both figures are sitting together, symbolizing the friendship that the student had built with his grandfather, who for him is his ultimate teacher.

Luminaire Details: Santiago Montoya - Ana Sofía Victoria

Once the students found inspiration to design the luminaire, they had to develop fifteen proposals of their ideas. These proposals had to take into account that a base, a transition, and a finial had to be scalable to a standing luminaire. Of these, three were selected that complied with the brief. Then they had to define the techniques and materials for the best proposal, while still in a conceptual stage.

Luminaire Details: Luis Guillermo Osorio

Week 3. Development of Ideas: Relying on Techniques and Materials

Sketches correction session with the students

Based on the sketches presented in the log, the students had to select the ones that lined up best with the brief. Then, they had to share them with the group on a letter size paper, in order to verify whether they had used an analogy, a metaphor or had transferred a literal element of the mind mapping. The group also confirmed that the proposals had the three parts of a luminaire and the possibility of being manufactured in the university’s workshops. There was group feedback and then one of the presented concepts was chosen.

The jewelry and origami instructors went to the classroom, and with their expertise, evaluated the possibility of manufacturing some parts of the designs that had been presented.

At the same time, during that week the students participated in jewelry, origami, and wood workshops outside of the classroom. This was of vital importance to arrive at concrete ideas because it opened up scenarios of possibilities from a material perspective. By doing this, the students had the opportunity to learn about working in brass, paper folding and wood assembly. These three materials helped eliminate obstacles in the design process because they simplified the final construction and supported the materialization of the concepts. This way, the students had the tools and techniques that allowed them to define their initial ideas and get closer to being able to express the concept they wanted to work with.

Below, how each of the techniques contributes to the development of the exercise is explored:

Origami session with Fabián Correa

Origami workshop: The Folding and Translucency of Paper

“A simple sheet of paper can hold an immense number of possibilities and can be the support of many works of art” says designer Jum Nakao, in Papers Works (Shaoqiang, 2012). He considers that its lightness, its fragility and translucency allow the designer to reveal another dimension of the universe in the products. Designers and artists like Isamu Noguchi made iconic pieces in the 20th century, such as the Akari lamps, which are still sold today.

Origami is the folding of paper to obtain different shapes and figures. Its name comes from the Japanese words “ori” which means double, and “kami” which means paper. No scissors, glue or staples are used to make the figures. The only elements that can be used are paper, hands and a whole lot of expertise, patience, and imagination. It is a technique that uses mathematics and geometry and is open to improvisation (Crochetingclub, 2012).

In the case of the Project 2 luminaire design, paper management represents a great resource for the students. The origami instructor from Medellín, Fabián Correa,⁵ was invited to work with the students in a four-hour basic workshop in Universidad EAFIT’s Department of Artistic Development. This was done with the aim of introducing them to the world of paper folding. In the workshop they worked with recycled paper, to later be replaced with heavyweight paper for the final pieces.

It is not the first time that paper folding, and product design have met. Issey Miyake, the master of folding in fashion, collaborated with the Iittala brand to create home pieces such as napkins, placemats and handbags, which were exhibited at the Ambiente fair in Frankfurt in 2017. He also proposed table and ceiling lamps as a part of his IN-EI brand, which is the Issey Miyake Collection in collaboration with the Italian firm Artemide.

Some of the advantages of using origami for this exercise are: the folding of paper permits the artist to create volumes with complex geometries that would be very difficult to make in other materials; paper is cheap; folding it generates resistance; it diffuses light and allows the students to quickly learn how to solve the third part of the luminaire – the screen –; and it can easily be replaced if the they make a mistake.

The students can also explore other techniques by themselves, helped by web resources and specialized books on the subject. It is a great opportunity to invite the students to enter an infinite and highly creative world. If examined carefully, origami is found to be a more complex art than the uninitiated might at first think: artists like Akira Yoshizawa, considered the father of origami, Robert J. Lang, Beth Johnson or Michael Lafosse, show how far you can go with Mathematics and a square sheet of paper.

In Project 2’s case, this introductory workshop on basic folding achieved results that allowed the students to materialize their ideas and concepts. Spheres, flowers, stars, caterpillars and other shapes were some of the forms that emerged from the concepts explored by the students and based on The Little Prince.

Examples of forms, the results of exploring origami techniques

Another valuable technique is folding the paper to change the appearance of the luminaire. This can be seen in the work of Maria Fernanda Pérez. She uses magnets to raise or lower the screen of the lamp creating a blind effect, and thus controlling the amount of light shown.

Maria Fernanda Pérez’s luminaire. Paper screen detail with magnets

Several students endeavored to cut the paper into strips, or into a defined silhouette, creating a different aesthetic look from the fold (this technique is known as kirigami). Some examples are Sarah Rodriguez’s screen, which invokes the sense a nest from chaos, which depicts the lamb out of the box at the beginning of The Little Prince. Nicolás Caycedo cut hexagons and wove them to form a sphere, thus covering the light source. Ricardo Camargo cut out the silhouette of the little prince and the fox to insert it in a glass container and reflect its shadow when the lamp is on. These were unexpected results for such a short workshop where a subject as broad as origami was addressed and kirigami was merely mentioned.

In the jewelry workshop, some of the origami influences were seen when working with brass. These techniques were explored by a few students, whose work highlighted the advantages of folding using metal as a substrate.

New explorations with the kirigami technique

Jewelry Workshop: Exploration of the Properties of Metal

Nowadays, in a design luminaire store or on a web page, it is easy to find the use of metal sheets in materials such as stainless steel, aluminum and brass in most projects. Metals are consolidated resistant materials useful for making screens, profiles and bases. They are versatile to house light sources, highlight their external or internal brightness and generate different shapes due to their ductility during the manufacturing process.

In the case of copper alloy finishes, one of the most interesting innovations in the design field has been the work of British designer Tom Dixon, who began using this material a few years ago. Once the silver finish had been applied, he dynamized the coldmetallic gray with the golden and reddish tones of copper alloys, making an indelible impact on the palette of contemporary interior design. Currently, cones, spheres, hemispheres, and brass polyhedrons, are the shades of the luminaries that inhabit homes, hotels, stores and restaurants around the world.

Local companies in Medellín, such as Vida Útil or Diamantina and La Perla, have a wide range of floor, sky or tabletop lamps that take advantage of the possibilities of sheet metal work: a brass disk can be stamped, engraved, embossed to make a cone, sphere or plate, and then be assembled with electrical components. You can also work with rods, weld and combine with glass or other materials.

In the case of this Project 2 exercise, students were invited to participate in a basic jewelry workshop led by instructor of jewelry at Universidad EAFIT, Tatiana Burgos. The brass sheets were worked on with processes such as: cutting with hacksaws or a jigsaw, filing, sanding, engraving with a punchcutter and using polished or matt finishes. In the four-hour workshop, they explored these techniques to be able to shape the initial concepts, developed in week 2.

The following pictures illustrate the metalwork in the project’s luminaires. The characters in The Little Prince were recaptured by the students in a figurative way, and this allowed them to create a bond with the book. These figures also complemented the detailed design of a part of the product and made each luminaire a unique product.

Some students endeavored to work with metal outside the jewelry shop and adjusted their concept to a larger scale of materiality. Valentina Patiño’s work with a brass ribbon,⁶ which reflects infinity with the Moebius strip, or Maria Valentina Salas’ luminaire working with a sheet of steel bent and cut with plasma to reflect the shadow of a fox, are projects that fall into more of a sculptural category. These projects coincide with the concept initially chosen by the students and were born from their audacious and innovative initiatives.

Large-scale luminaires with copper and steel sheet work, by Maria Valentina Salas and Valentina Patiño

Jewelry workshop in stage three of the exercise

Wood Workshop: Unions, Aesthetics and Resistance

In this workshop, coordinated by Juan Camilo Gómez at Universidad EAFIT, students were able to understand the nature of wood and how they could work it into the design of a luminaire by highlighting its properties.

The Project 2 course includes explanations that introduce the most common assemblages in wood that have emerged in the industry, and that are currently used in most contemporary furniture.⁷ The most commonly used assemblages in the project to join the body of the luminaire, make angles, or join the body to the base of the lamp were: angled joints with tabs, boxes, and spikes; and the use of dowels. Despite the beauty of other joints in woodwork such as toothed and dovetail joints, they are not as common because they are more complex for an apprentice to manufacture.

Other resources that the students can utilize are mechanical fastening assemblies such as screws, hexagonal nuts, butterfly nuts, washers and pins. Some less common elements are strings, 3M high-strength adhesive tapes, Velcro and fasteners. Welded metal profiles are used for some luminaire bodies.

The aim of making these joining possibilities known, is for the apprentices to integrate these elements into the design of their lamp and achieve firmness and resistance from a functional point of view. From the aesthetic point of view, these techniques highlight the beauty of the joint, which in the end can become a focal point of the design.

For this exercise, we decided to work with wooden pine battens, because it is a material that comes from reforested woodlands. Additionally, this wood is cheap and easy to fashion with manual tools or conventional machinery, such as radial arm saws and drills. The color and appearance of pine adjusts to the aesthetics of the exercise. Pine’s fiber is continuous, which helps increase consistency because it does not tear nor burst. It also has grains/knots that can be highlighted in the final finish with natural oils or matt lacquers, and thus save resources and time when highlighting its natural beauty.

Other woods such as oak, walnut, cedar, and teak are avoided because they are more expensive, harder, more difficult to work with, and because the students are just learning how to design in their second semester of study. Furthermore, an error in working with these materials has environmental consequences because a valuable material must be discarded and reprocessed. The following figures show some assemblies made in the exercise.

Three forms of joints in lamps made in the exercise: wooden hinges and wooden (page 72) and rope dowels.

Week 4. Embodiment: Light as a Design Tool

Light is one of the most important aspects of interior design. The Danes claim that it influences the thermometer of their happiness. In his book, Hygge, Happiness in the Little Things (2018), the director of the Danish Happiness Institute, Meik Wiking, explains how the warm, faint and punctual light produced by candles generates an atmosphere in a space that influences well-being. This is why the Danes are the biggest consumers of candles in the world.

Light plays a decisive role in the design of each luminaire as it forms the essence of the project and addresses one of the most important aspects of the exercise. The source, the type of light generated, the orientation and reflection are factors that make each luminaire unique and generate different atmospheres in a space.

The world of illumination is a world unknown to the student. Therefore, during this week we introduce them to the basic concepts: types of light sources, types of lighting, the elaboration of a simple circuit, among other concepts.

At this point, the students had already developed a 1:2 scale model and had some formal aspects defined for each of their luminaries. In the classroom, lighting expert Juan Martín Hoyos introduced the basic concepts of lighting, taught them how to assemble a circuit for a standing luminaire, and answered questions about the variations they had to make in the project to integrate the circuit.

Additionally, the students received more personalized advice from the professor, to help define what requirements were necessary to implement the circuit design within the luminaire in each specific project.

Next, the types of light sources and the types and effects of light were described, according Juan Martín Hoyos’ interpretation, who is also a design engineer.

Class session with 1:2 scale models to define the circuit

Types of Luminous Sources

Three light sources are available for the project’s construction:

· Unprotected LED strip:⁸ LEDs are assembled on a base strip with laminated copper circuit boards. The surface of the tapes is covered with a white acrylic film that improves and increases the reflection of the light, and the strip includes double-sided tape for installation. This adhesive is owned by 3M. It is made of a polyester film with great chemical and thermal stability that allows it to adhere to a number of surfaces.

· The LEDs are uncovered, but for this specific project they must be covered with a plastic diffuser (acrylic opal, polystyrene or paper), which prevents a glare factor for the user and contributes to the aesthetics of the proposed luminaire.

· Protected LED strip: the LEDs are covered by a silicone polymer that protects it from the elements.

· Neon or flexible LED strip: is covered with an opalized silicone, which diffuses the rays of light that come out the end.

Types of light sources: neon strip vs. strip with uncovered LEDs

The LED strip light has the following advantages:

· Its length and color temperature allow the students to determine the effects that the strip will have on their design. The strips, both protected and unprotected, can be cut into shorter lengths (from 6 to 15 cm) and used in several lengths on different points of the luminaire. The neon LED strip can be used in sections with a minimum length of 50 cm.

· The design of the luminaire moved from a traditional to a more futuristic language. A spherical bulb limits or conditions the outer shape of the screen to a volume that must cover it. For this reason, designers develop forms based on this spherical geometry and the way it distributes light. With the strip – which is long – the design of the luminaire can evolve. The form of the luminaire is freed up, because with the strip you can highlight details in the luminaire, use different lengths, direct the light in multiple ways, and create a path through its geometry.

· The use of the strip entails an important change in the form of what constitutes a decorative foot lamp: the strip can be the body, the base, the screen, or it can cover the entire product.

· Its flexibility allows us to play with different geometries to develop a concept: it can be knotted, create a path through a geometric figure such as a circle, a square, a spiral, a trapeze, and even a Moebius strip.