SOLARIUM

Minor | Major

solar lanterns

A pair of artificial suns for the home setting. Taking inspiration from Junichiro Tanazaki’s essay “In Praise of Shadows”, the solarium minor and major counterparts seek to reinvigorate the circadian rhythm with solar lanterns sensitive to light and dark environments. Utilizing highly processed industrial materials that can be completely recycled in a near infinite cycle, these lanterns are a study of the intersection between western industrialism and asian sensibility. The lanterns charge with sunlight during the day and illuminate automatically at night, eliminating the need for batteries and charging cables.

Portable Lanterns: The Bad

A majority of the modern portable lighting found on the market today are dependent on single-use batteries and the need for constant charging. These options are often manufactured from virgin plastics and metals, ultimately ending up in landfills at their end-of-life cycles.

I wanted to design a lantern that was almost entirely comprised of recycled materials and required little to no maintenance for daily use.

Realized during my time at Circular Economy Manufacturing, I sourced the central diffuser element from the HexPot Planter we released in the summer of 2023.

Rotationally molded in-house using proprietary technology, each HexPot was fabricated from 75 single-use HDPE (High Density Polyethylene) film canisters sourced from NYC film schools and photo labs.