Lamp, printed

The best object I own is one I drew at midnight and switched on before work.

It started as a complaint about a lamp shade I couldn’t buy anywhere — the exact shape in my head didn’t exist. So I opened the CAD software instead of another shopping tab.

The design is a single continuous surface that twists as it rises, so the light leaks out in a spiral rather than a flat ring. Getting the wall thickness right took a dozen test prints: too thin and it warped under the bulb’s heat, too thick and the glow died. Draw, slice, print, look, adjust — the loop that 3D printing is actually about.

By morning there was a real object on the desk throwing real light on the wall. That gap — from a shape in your head to a thing you can switch on — closing in a single night is the whole reason I make things.