Whenever there is energy cost for size of a natural system there is usually some form of graph bundling - we see this in roads between cities, slime molds, circulatory systems, and other networks.

The most efficient path between any two points would be a straight line, but laying a straight road from every house to every other house would be costly to build and maintain. The other extreme would be to only build one very long road that connects to every house, which would make it take ages to get anywhere. There is a trade-off between the number of edges and the network efficiency, graph bundling characterizes the equilibrium between these two pressures.

Natural systems often form from organizational pressures - we tend to see nature as isolated and separated organisms, but these systems evolve to solve similar problems using similar strategies. Once you learn about these strategies, you see them exhibited everywhere in life. This design explores abstracting and representing these natural forces.

These lights are generative, which means that every one is a unique computer-generated shape which is 3D printed and hand-finished in my workshop in Bellingham, Washington. The material is PLA, a biopolymer made from fermented plant starches.

Dimensions:

8x8x1.5" (20x20x4.5cm)