Folding light: an afternoon with Studio Pell
How a single sheet of washi becomes the Lantern floor lamp.
Studio Pell work at long tables under a skylight, folding paper the way others cut wood. A Lantern shade begins as one sheet of mulberry-fibre washi, scored by hand along a template.
The pleats are folded in a single session, so the paper keeps an even tension. Then the shade is stretched over a steel ring and left to settle overnight.
Switched on, the folds catch the light unevenly. The lamp doesn’t shine so much as glow.
