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Paper Lamp
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Product Design
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A handmade Akari lamp reimagined around a constraint Noguchi never designed for: portability. Built from reeds and Japanese rice paper over a laser-cut frame, it houses a magnetic, battery-powered light — so the lamp can lift off its base and travel with you.
About the Lamp
Given two weeks to make a lamp of our choice, I instantly knew I wanted to make one inspired by Isamu Noguchi. My family loves his work and it's rubbed off on me, but one thing I've noticed from his Akari lamps is the lack of mobility. I've alway been fascinated by like oil lamps, modern led replicas, or powerful flashlights, and wondered what a Akari lamp with mobility in mind would look like.
I started with finding the few resources out there showing the construction of the Akari lamp on video and noted the use of reeds for the frame and almost paper mache applied Japanese rice paper. Unlike the Noguchi studio, I do not have the heat chamber required to make the frame without glue so after learning how messy hot glue was a opted to use super glue on my final model. I laser cut my frame with notches for the reeds and room to glue in the wireless light I purchased that had its own 3 hour battery life. A lucky break for me was that this light had a magnetic base so I could use that as the anchor for people to hold it and it has usb-c which I found a magsafe charge cord to charge it with.
Given the time constraints I was proud to have found authentic reeds and Japanese rice paper from stores in LA (Reeds store owner was USC alum coincidentally) and faithfully recreated the Akari lamp with a modern twist.
