Quietly Blooming

Media art and product design / mechanical designer and developer

Inspired by the subtle, silent blooming of a sunflower, Quietly Blooming is a shape-changing lamp that transforms both its light and its form in response to the user's "Qi": a self-defined rhythm reflecting sleep pattern and mood.

We moved away from joint-and-gear-driven movement because it often feels rigid. Drawing from shape-memory research, the lamp uses nitinol and folded paper to create petal-like motion through heat rather than mechanical actuation.

As mechanical engineer and developer, I designed the movement structure and coordinated it with the LED lighting. I wrote the Arduino control logic and designed a custom PCB to assemble multiple SMA actuators through centralized heat control.

Using origami-folded paper combined with nitinol, I programmed the flower's different shape states through pre-heating. The project was exhibited at Huawei and awarded the A' Design Award in Italy.