philippe malouin: daylight at designmiami/ basel

‘daylight’ by philippe malouin
image © designboom

canada-born philippe malouin is one of this year’s W hotels designers of the future, a title which acknowledges three young emerging creatives
working in different mediums. being provided designmiami / basel 2012 as a venue to present newly commissioned work to the greater public,
malouin responded to the idea of finding a solution to the shortage of daylight in london. his project ‘daylight’,
seeks an answer to living in a town with such gloomy weather. the series of tangram-shaped wall lamps he has developed act as artificial windows,
lined with LEDs replicating the color temperature of sunlight. they give the impression that a real window lies behind the slats.
users can rearrange the beech wood designs to create different shapes and configurations according to their desires.

installation view of ‘daylight’ at designmiami/ basel 2012
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the slatted structures give the impression of real windows
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philippe malouin
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jigs and sketches, including artifacts of documentation of initial manufacturing and prototyping, are displayed to help illustrate the design process
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the designer uses a number of jigs in order to construct each light
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malouin uses a selection of jigs to create each of the lamp. a frame drilling jig (indicated as 14 in above image) is used to drill holes at a
45 degrees in the side of the frame lengths of the beech, while a parallelogram gluing jig (foreground 15) allows the designer to make repetitive,
precise actions such as cuts or holes. in turn it reduces the risk of human error and inaccuracies throughout the manufacturing process.
a routing jig is used to route a 12mm wide channel in the rear of each louvre for the LED strips and acrylic filter.

prototyping

clockwise: tangram puzzle frames, shutter form refinement, final color selection, prototyping the proportions of the louvre profiles

the form of the frames are derived from a tangram, the ancient chinese puzzle which consists of seven flat shapes.
the objective is to compose specific forms, where the pattern creates an outline or silhouette of a familar object.

square prototype – with LEDs on an individual louvre
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the process book expresses malouin’s original direction in which giant panels of light with abstract geometric patterns were going to be used
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4500- 5000 K(kelvin) output LED roll strips
this specific LED model is chosen as it renders a pleasant light color, where its 5000K output accurately replicates daylight
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