FROM  A  Lamp  To  A  City                          


‘AKARI’ Lamp Foldism Applciation Academic work: furniture design

Video: The making of Akari at Ozeki & Co. Courtesy of Vitra.
In 1951 Isamu Noguchi visited the town of Gifu, Japan, known for its manufacture of lanterns and umbrellas from mulberry bark paper and bamboo. Noguchi designed the first of his lamps that would be produced by the traditional Gifu methods of construction. He called these works Akari, a term meaning light as illumination, but also implying the idea of weightlessness.

The fabrication of Akari in Japan at Ozeki & Co. since 1951 follows the traditional methods for Japanese Gifu lanterns. Each Akari is handcrafted beginning with the making of washi paper from the inner bark of the mulberry tree. Bamboo ribbing is stretched across sculptural molded wood forms. The washi paper is cut into strips and glued onto both sides of the framework. Once the glue has dried and the shape is set, the internal wooden form is disassembled and removed. The outcome is a resilient paper form, which can be collapsed and packed flat for shipping.

With the warm glow of light cast through handmade paper on a bamboo frame, Isamu Noguchi utilized traditional Japanese materials to bring modern design to the home. Like the beauty of falling leaves and the cherry blossom, Noguchi wrote, Akari are “poetic, ephemeral, and tentative.” And he was fond of saying, “All that you require to start a home are a room, a tatami, and Akari.”

resource from：https://shop.noguchi.org/collections/akari-light-sculptures



dDesign Concept
The design background of this project is from The Tale of Genji. It describes the love story of Genji in the Heian Period. In this period, female social status is at a low level. Although each female has a natural personality, women need to be reshaped in a male-dominated society to fit this environment.

In this project, our group used two curves to compare the Heian Period Society and Female World. One is a winding line, and another is a flexural line. We design this project to show the process of the switch of these two types of lines to show how females live in this period.








We study how the simple units influence the whole project and research the unit's shape of the boundary and each size. These primary factors will influence the final shape of the project. In this way, we develop new types by folding the different series of units.





We consider the ideal material for 1:1 scale pavilion construction. We use three common materials to make fundamental units and test their quality from the transmission of light, the weight of the material, the strength of the material and the toughness of material aspects.


Attachment

Folding Instruction

Project Book: https://issuu.com/wangsijie-9-3-3-1/docs/akari_issuu


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