Tuesday, October 17, 2006 Enlightening Design By Ritchie Landis Doner Quijano
They always look crisp and fresh since the designs have not been put in the mass production line. At the University of San Carlos, interior design students are challenged and required to come up with concepts as a culminating project for the second year level.
Groups of students collaborated and focused to develop and improve on a familiar household and office lighting fixture, the lamp. Under the course of Furniture Design, the students are tasked to make an in-depth study of furniture production requirements such as full sizing and detailing, prototype or scaled model production, finishes, preparation and bill of materials to fully equip them once they’re out in the competitive world of the design industry.
The Bachelor of Science in Interior Design is currently on it’s third year, although the Interior Design major (under the Bachelor of Fine Arts curriculum) has been in existence since 1982. Among the more notable designer lamps we’ve seen are the eccentric and eclectic in the use of indigenous materials.
With our rich natural resource, the native materials that are fused in design have earned Cebu the moniker as the “Milan of Asia”.
The Leazyt Lamp by students Ronnel Barbon, Zyra Leigh Lampang and Art Melvin Jabaan, for example, stands tall as a post-modern floor lamp taking inspiration from a spiral staircase. Made of fiberglass inlaid with coconut twigs, its look exudes a very native character with its cracked coco shell finish in crazy cut form. The multi-layered Lang Aou Bowa, a lamp designed by Shiela Pogoy, Daryl Cuevas and Jan Eda Perez brings to mind a Chinese pagoda. Its pyramidal arrangement of capiz shell crowns a carved head lamp base.
Filipino design is always distinguished for its use of local imagery. In the Hornica Lamp by Ma. Cleofe Descaller and Daisy Orlanda, the duo made an interesting masculine design by their use of the carabao’s horn as their guiding spirit. Each horn that forms branches for this lamp can be rotated 360 degrees.
These are all great designs that must see the light of day in the international scene.
Keep us all amazed with your inventiveness, as we are always eager to see bright new ideas.
