Cardboard Hive Light

[Tim_Ung]

Hi everyone!

I’ve been working on a series that deconstructs design elements of architecture, which comes from my background as an architect. This project was inspired by the architecture of typical grain elevators that were built along the rustbelt cities of America. I won’t get into the architectural significance of these buildings, but instead, I’ll just say that this project started with the overall form of the grain elevators. From there, I combined it with the way that some natural beehives in trees start to twist as they grow in size.

Ultimately, I ended up with this dynamic cardboard light that I named “Hive Light”. I really need to get more creative with names… Anyhow, here are some photographs of the light fixture and for anyone interested in learning more about how it was designed, 3D modeled, laser cut, and assembled, here’s a link to my YouTube video.

Hope it inspires your projects!
Tim

Here’s what a typical grain elevator in Buffalo, NY looks like:

[evansd2]

How’d you handle the alignment layer to layer? Eyeball? Registration marks? Pins? Something else?

[Tim_Ung]

That’s a great question. For this project, all the pieces are the same exact piece and the only difference is the rotation from one piece to the next. The rotations are exactly the same amount, so I engraved the perimeter of the layer above. Then, I align the perimeter of every piece with those outlines . Here’s a photo where you could sort of see one area with the engraving.

[evansd2]

Simple and effective, my favorite kind of solution.

[beerfaced]

I really like that design.

[jeanneleigh]

That’s really cool!

[geek2nurse]

Beautiful!

[wenning08]

I like layered designs like this. Just takes a lot of patience

[arh2]

Very impressive!

[ElsieH]

Wow, that is amazing. To think ordinary cardboard can look that cool, just wow!

[ptodd]

Very cool look. I love cardboard!