My grandfather made bent acrylic pieces for around the house --a napkin holder, placemats, barware--that my parents use today. Inspired by this, I wanted to explore acrylic as a medium. I love its ability to bend and form while also being very precise, as well as its ability to be side lit. In this project, I played with the contrasting ideas of rigidity and fluidity.
I first practiced forming acrylic with various forms of heat. I then iterated on the grid size and placement of bends. I wanted the bottom holder of the light to be simple and sleek.
The final form came after a lot of iteration through sketching and modeling. I designed the base as two almost symmetric parts that sandwich the piece of aluminum between. The light strip runs along the bottom of the two parts to light the acrylic from the bottom. I milled the bottom parts out of aluminum on a manual mill.
If I were to do this project again, I would increase the height of the acrylic to 3-5ft to allow for more bends and to elongate the sense of play and structure.
