RGB

rgb lamp

Bringing colored light into the home.

Thanks to the widespread acceptance of LEDs in homes, controlling one’s lighting environment has never been easier. However, though the temperature of the light is now actively controlled, colored light still has yet to make its way into the home on a grand scale, due to the huge impact it can have on the interpretation of a space. Instead, paints, artwork, and furniture are relied on to control one’s interior color pallet. This project seeks to make light a viable option for providing color in an interior environment, through a subtle, playful, and highly controllable fixture.

benchmark: market

The most prolific use of lighting in the home, but is usually used as regular white light, and the color is only used during specific occasions.

Color of light can be controlled remotely, and do not provide primary light source. This is usually used as an accent color in a room.

Phillips living colors

ABSINTHE LED STRIPS

benchmark: light artists

James Turrell

Uses large-scale installation

artist creates environments that use color to alter the viewer’s perception of the space.

Uses found materials to create art installations that use light as a medium, so that the combination of the lit object and the colorful shadows cast combine to make a final piece.

Uses natural light sources and crystal prisms to cast rainbows into museum environments, altering the natural light filtering through the window to affect the space.

Dan Flavin

Tokujin Yoshioka

areas of improvement

Colored lights in the home are often only used during specific, temporary times, such as during a particular event, or at night, because of their tendency to alter one’s perception of a space.

Colored lights, when used too boldly, often overpower a space, and can make performing certain tasks difficult.

Colored lights are often used as mere decoration, and cannot successfully function as task-lights.

Temporary use

Overpowering

Decorative

inspiration

sketch page

prototyping

how it works

A light dotting along the movable joint indicates where the light should be controlled.

Subtle texture

Because the object will block the individual colored sources of the light differently, the resulting shadow will be colored around the edges, without an overpowering impact on the environment.

Shadow provides color

The three lights combine to cast a white light onto flat surfaces.

Casts white light

The light can be controlled along two axes, allowing the user to easily dictate where the beam is casting and how it interacts with surrounding objects.

two axes of control