the final design process. . . .

For the 2nd interim critique, I made sure I had the full scale structure in it's finished state.  I used pieces of pine for the sides for two reasons:  1) I had them at my house 2) The pine that I had was actually leftover from the stairs that were recently installed, and the place the light would be in was directly across the hall from the stairs. 

The sides were made from black mat board that I lined with an emerald green paper.  One thing I hadn't considered when determining the size and shape of the luminaire was the difficulty in finding paper that was textured, like rice paper and handmade paper, in a large enough size to cover it completely.

I was still unsure about the top.  Because I used a very smooth satin finished black mat board on the sides, I thought that the shape of the cutouts should compliment that.  Instead of going with an organic, swirly shape I decided to use rectangles with varied widths.  The top was made from the same mat board as the sides were.

I made the top to fit within the framed sides, so that it was flat on top. 

I had several issues with the top piece:

1) The interior corners of the rectangle shapes were quite difficult to cut perfectly.

2) I didn't like the fact the the jointery at the top was visible (not to say that it was done poorly, it was the only place on the object that it was visable).

3)  Because of the size of the rectangles, the inside of the luminaire was completely visable if you were to walk by it.

4)  More light came out through the sides, diminishing the effect made by the top.

5)  I felt the mat board on top made the piece look "unfinished".

In remaking the top to resolve these problems, I experiemented with different shapes. 

In the one below, I drilled holes in Luon that followed the contour of a tree blowing in the wind. 

I liked the way the luminaire looked with the light off more than the light effect it created.  The effect was stacked circles of light, but it needed to be placed under a low, very flat ceiling in order to appear properly.  I also felt that the shapes on the top didn't correspond to the rest of the luminaire.

Finally, I made the top out of wood, using the original rectangle cutout shapes.    I then used thin mat board rectangles to divide the rectangles into equal parts.  The whole piece was larger, enough to cover the entire top of the luminaire.