Designer unveils electricity-free light
A Tokyo-based product designer has unveiled a softly-glowing light which uses no electricity or battery.
Instead, a specially treated ‘light-collecting’ acrylic surface absorbs ultra-violet light and redirects light to its edges.
Nisshoku, meaning ‘eclipse’ in Japanese as its resembles a solar eclipse, is believed to be the first luminaire to use the technique.
Created by Yuichiro Morimoto, it gradually lights up to exude a warm glow around its edges.
‘When I first saw it, it seemed like a strange product that glows when you shine a black light on it,’ says Morimoto. ‘But in my mind it looked like a mass of possibilities.
‘I bought a sample immediately and went home and began various experiments. The light from the edges was particularly strong, so I thought about how to make it bigger.
‘Finally, I decided to leave the light-collecting surface wide open and sandwich the edges with milky white acrylic to diffuse the light.’
The chosen material uses a special acrylic called a condensing plate, and the final technique used to achieve the glowing result exposes the surface to maximise the amount of light collected, and conversely, covers the entire edge to hide the mechanism. A layer of milky white opalescent acrylic is positioned on top to diffuse the light.
Yuichiro is a graduate of both Chiba University and Musashino Art University. He has worked on designs such as graphic, product, web and space applications.
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