Press Release
Sebastian Morales and Tiri Kananuruk Is Honored with the Bronze A' Design Award for Nopales Lamp in Product Engineering and Technical Design
Sebastian Morales and Tiri Kananuruk honored for product engineering and technical design by the international grand jury of the 2023 - 2024 A' Design Award & Competition
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COMO, Italy, April 15, 2024 /DesignNewswire/ Nopales Lamp by Sebastian Morales and Tiri Kananuruk, designed for Morakana, has been granted the Bronze A' Design Award in the Product Engineering and Technical Design category, A' Design Award & Competition has announced. The award was conferred within the 2023 - 2024 A' Design Award & Competition and was determined through blind peer review by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members, who assessed anonymized entries against predetermined criteria.
What the Bronze A' Design Award Means
The Bronze A' Design Award is given to outstanding designs that showcase a high degree of creativity and practicality. It recognizes the dedication and skill of designers who produce work that stands out for its thoughtful development and innovative use of materials and technology. These designs are acknowledged for their professional execution and potential to influence industry standards positively. Winning this award highlights the designer's ability to blend form and function effectively, offering solutions that enhance people's lives and wellbeing.
More About Nopales Lamp
Nopales is a modular lamp that ships flat as a Printed Circuit Board (PCB) and can easily be broken into pieces by hand. The interlocking pieces then click together to transform into a beautiful 3D cactus. Inspired by the Mexican landscapes, the playful design can be assembled in dozens of different ways and can even grow by combining multiple cards. This Nopal not only lights up spaces with a gentle glow, but also fosters a personal connection, inviting users to become co-creators in their own luminous garden.
About Sebastian Morales and Tiri Kananuruk
MORAKANA is a New York City-based studio founded by Tiri Kananuruk (Thailand) and Sebastián Morales Prado (Mexico). Our work is characterized by experimentation, development of custom tools, and scientific and artistic inquiry. By leveraging scientific principles and challenging the role of technology in our lives, MORAKANA invites us to think critically about plausible means for Nature to reclaim the physical and digital ecosystems we are part of. We teach at the School for Poetic Computation (SFPC) and Collaborative Arts (NYU). Our work has been supported by CultureHub, Autodesk Pier 9, Mana Contemporary, Tropical Futures Institute and NEWINC among others.
Award Record
Sebastian Morales and Tiri Kananuruk is a winner of 1 A' Design Award, including this recognition.
About the A' Product Engineering and Technical Design Award
The A' Engineering Design Award is an international competition recognizing outstanding engineering projects by top engineers and consulting firms worldwide. The competition is organized within the A' Design Award & Competition and is open to product engineers, technical designers, industrial designers and industrial design studios from all countries. Entries typically include blueprints, prototypes, schematics, CAD models, technical drawings and machine designs. Awarded engineering designs are published at https://designers.org/design-category/engineering
About A' Design Award & Competition
A' Design Award & Competition is an international, juried design accolade organized annually since 2008. The competition is open to entries from all countries. The A' Design Award has a philanthropic mission to advance society through good design by recognizing and promoting superior products, projects and services that benefit society, and by creating a global awareness and appreciation for good design practices and principles. Entries are peer reviewed and anonymously evaluated by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members against predetermined criteria such as functionality, ergonomics, engineering, presentation, innovation, usability, sustainability and technology, with score normalization applied to remove biases. Awards are conferred at Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron levels. The A' Design Prize granted to eligible laureates includes the award trophy, the certificate of design excellence, the hardcover yearbook, a lifetime license to use the A' Design Award winner logo, exhibition of awarded works, an invitation to the gala night and award ceremony in Italy, inclusion in the World Design Rankings and Designer Rankings, and public relations and publicity services. Registration, the upload of a work and the preliminary score are free of charge, and Professional and Digital Edition laureates are not contractually obliged to pay further fees to claim the A' Design Prize. Further information is available at https://competition.adesignaward.com
Press Resources
- Winner Page: https://designers.org/156665
- A' Design Award Page: https://competition.adesignaward.com/156665
- Media Showcase: https://www.designnewsroom.com/!156665
- Laureate Profile: https://designers.org/d/351137
- Further Information from the Laureate: https://morakana.com
Media Contact
Giulia Ferrari, Press Office
Designers.Org
Via Leone Leoni 32, 22100 Como, Italy
press@designers.org
+39 031 4491953
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Fact Sheet
The Work
- Project
- Nopales Lamp
- Function
- Lamp
- Category
- Product Engineering and Technical Design
- Discipline
- Industrial Design
- Industry
- Manufacturing
- Colors
- Dark Slate Gray, Sea Green, Dark Green, Light Slate Gray and Silver
- Images
- 5
- Client
- Morakana
The Recognition
- Laureate
- Sebastian Morales and Tiri Kananuruk
- Country
- United States of America
- Recognition
- Bronze A' Design Award
- Edition
- 2023 - 2024
- Design ID
- #156665
Credits
- Team
- Sebastian Morales and Tiri Kananuruk
- Image Credits
- MORAKANA LLC
Design Details
- Unique Properties
- Nopales is a modular lamp designed to be playfully assembled from a single Printed Circuit Board. Unlike typical PCBs that are flat and hidden inside enclosures, Nopales subverts this industrial nature to create a delightful object that is meant to be touched, bring joy, and evoke life into our spaces. It can ship flat as a postcard and can be hand assembled into your own nopal. Grow you cactus by combining cards.
- Inspiration
- Nopales was inspired by the landscapes of my Mexican upbringing and our passion for developing creative hardware. We wanted to reframe Printed Circuit Boards (PCB)s beyond their technical existence, to expose the material's beauty and transform it into something tactile, delightful and captivating. We spent months working with manufacturers to create a simple and efficient way to interlock the PCBs both mechanically and electrically. Nopales circuit is designed to shine for months or even years.
- Challenge
- The project looks deceptively simple but a lot of research has gone into the interlocking connections. Even when PCB manufacturing is a mature industry, there is no way to connect two boards in the ways we were searching for. Current solutions require bulky mechanical components "connectors", or to be solder. We have tried multiple approaches and worked with the PCB manufacturer though iterations. Orienting components in different planes, plating surface edges, special routing, springs, and more.
- Realization and Technology
- Printed Circuit Board, LEDs, Microcontroller, CR2032 Battery
- Operation and Interaction
- Nopales starts as a flat PCB that breaks apart by hand and can be interlocked into your own Nopal (cactus), then you can press the button to cycle though multiple brightness levels. It has an auto sleep timer to prevent draining the battery in case you forget to turn it off.
- Project Duration and Location
- The project started early 2023 and exhibited at the HeadHi Lamp show in Brooklyn NY from March until July. A new updated version was shown at PioneerWorks Software For Artists Day in November.
- Specifications
- Variable dimensions Flat: 84mmx125mmx5mm Assembled: 50mm x50mm x100
- Keywords
- PCB, Lamp, Nopales, Cactus, Modular, Mexico, Art, Garden
