I originally had NO idea where I was going to go with this project. I knew I needed to recreate a shadow, but I didn't know how I was going to construct a luminaire to successfully, and abstractly do that.
After looking at a light presentation, I got inspired by a tiered chandelier. I then went and sketched out a geometrical, triangular prism basically. I constructed a small model from my sketch. I thoroughly enjoyed the overall shape and look of the model, but knew it wouldn't successfully reproduce the light phenomena.
I further proceeded to create a second model. This one was larger than the first, and I cut half inch slits at the top of some of the walls to allow the light to come through. The basic idea was solid, but when I tried it out with the light, the light simply came through the cut slits. There was no shadow created, and that's what I need.
My third model has been the most successful in many aspects: shape, size, and use. I had to create overhanging tiers so that the light had something to reflect off of when it came through the slits. I painted the underside of each tier white so that the reflection was stronger and would hopefully create a successful shadow. And guess what? It did.
In the fourth model I plan to construct, I have many things I need to change. I will add more tiers (probably six in total), fix the proportions, and possibly make it a few inches taller and/or wider.
For my final luminaire, I plan to create the middle structure fully out of wood, and the tiers will be made out of white or frosted plexy-glass.
Update: December 7, 2010
I ended up constructing another model, fully out of cardboard, that did indeed have six tiers. The tiers were all 9X9 inch squares that were spaced equally apart on the 15 inch structure. I painted the top side of each tier white to help enhance the shadow effect I was going for. The half-inch slits under each tier would be the light source.
In critique, I found out this model wasn't going to work. There were no apparent shadows, and in my opinion, it just seemed bulky. I was also holding the light bulb in the structure because I had not come up with a way to secure it in yet; this may not have helped the issue.
I knew there were many things I had to change, so I went back and created my sixth model. (This bulky, unsuccessful model unfortunately fell apart before I could photograph it).
For my sixth model, I used black foam board for the middle structure, and white foam board for the tiers. My thought process with this was that the light would surely reflect off of the white tiers and the light would be less likely to leak out of the middle if it was all black.
This model was 15 inches tall, and had 6 tiers (like the previous model). The different design ideas that went into this one included cutting the tiers and placing them on the structure differently. This time, the tiers progressively decreased in size as they got closer to the bottom. I did this because I didn't like the bulkiness of the previous one, and this relieved that issue. I also placed the tiers BELOW the cut slits, rather than ABOVE them. These light slits, like the tiers, changed in size; however, the slits got larger as they went down.
I am happy to say that this model was very successful. The light came out of the slits perfectly and created a shadow on each tier. I also adored the contrast of the white and black because it emphasized the shadow effect that I was going for.
I originally wanted to make this structure out of wood, and the tiers our of plexi-glass. I ran into some problems with this though. I did not buy strong enough wood and couldn't easily find white plexi-glass. Trying to work around this problem, I made another model made out of the black foam board, and attempted to use clear, corrugated plastic for the tiers. Needless to say, this model was not visually appealing, and the light leaked through the corrugations, disabling any shadows from being made.After all these obstacles, I decided to stick with the sixth model. I created a seventh, and final model that was cleaner and more precise. I also added a white box to the top to hide the light bulb in a neatly done way.
I was thoroughly impressed with my final luminaire. My light effect was successful, and the overall structure was visually appealing. I will admit that there are some aspects that could have been cleaner, but overall, it was a great success.
This is the project board that went along with the final luminaire. I don't feel that the rendition drawing gives this structure justice because I didn't know how to represent the light. I didn't want to redraw what was going on, I wanted to represent what the light was doing; and that was that the light would get brighter as it escaped (especially in the original photograph).
