The Fern

A finalist in Tulane School of Architecture's Summer Design Competition.

A lot of things found in nature are almost perfect, but not quite. That little variation tends to be what we love the most.

I studied the leaf of a fern, where its stems showed two similar, slightly different patterns that caused the leaf to spiral at its tip. I abstracted that form and put it on a piece of paper. I did that again, on arches paper, with a lightbulb in the middle, and hand-stitched the whole thing together to create The Fern Lamp. The natural spiral defines the lamp’s form.