
Light Flower
Inspired by traditional Chinese bamboo crafts, the flower unit are composed from cotton fabric and bamboo mesh carefully cut and sewn together to form a semi rigid surface in the shape of intricate hexagon geometry using array of Miura Origami Fold. The electronics contraption attached to the flower surface triggered by facial recognition camera with computer vision, allow the flowers to contract and expand in response to the audience who triggers the movement through a smile, encouraging a positive emotional response between the flower and the visitor. The initial Light Flower design (2015) was created as results of study into traditional bamboo and paper crafts under one of Hong Kong's remaining Shi-fu (craft master) in Sham Shui Po Mr. Au Yung Chi.
The design research subsequently focused on increasingly accessible recent IOT devices and digital fabrication tools that are becoming ubiquitous part of our everyday life. The second iteration, Light Flower 2.0 (2017), for this iteration, we chose cotton fabric instead of paper to make it more robust but still tried to achieve the material property similar to paper with rigid edges with lightweight quality. We experimented with various fabric and bamboo mesh used for making steam basked for the popular dim-sum dishes that we purchased from local market and tried various glue and sewing technique to achieve the desired finish.


Location: Design Society Museum, Shenzhen and Lane Crawford, Shanghai and Hong Kong SAR PRC / Scope: Design and fabrication of kinetic lighting sculpture using facial recognition sensor / Year: 2015 - 2019