Press Release
Blocks Lamps Lighting Fixture by Rio Jiunyu Chen Is Granted the A' Design Award in Lighting Products and Fixtures Design
Rio Jiunyu Chen acknowledged for lighting products and fixtures design by the international grand jury of the 2024 - 2025 A' Design Award & Competition
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COMO, Italy, April 18, 2025 /DesignNewswire/ A' Design Award & Competition has confirmed the A' Design Award in the Lighting Products and Fixtures Design category for Blocks Lamps Lighting Fixture by Rio Jiunyu Chen, designed for Rio Chen Studio. The award was conferred within the 2024 - 2025 A' Design Award & Competition and was reached 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.
About the A' Design Award
The Iron A' Design Award is awarded to good designs that meet the rigorous professional and industrial standards set by the A' Design Awards. This recognition is reserved for works that demonstrate a solid understanding of design principles and show creativity within their execution. Recipients of the Iron A' Design Award are acknowledged for their practical innovations and contributions to their respective fields, providing solutions that improve quality of life and foster positive change. These designs are a testament to the skill and dedication of their creators, showcasing their ability to address real-world challenges through thoughtful design.
About Blocks Lamps Lighting Fixture
Blocks Lamps is a collection of sculptural table lamps inspired by urban architecture. The five forms draw on libraries, towers, townhouses, inverted pyramids and arenas. Each lamp is made of white oak, steel and mulberry paper. Wood grain textures taken from printmaking are transferred onto the shades, recalling the passage of time. When the lamps are placed together, the group resembles a city block and creates an interplay of light and shadow. The collection treats lighting as both a personal and an architectural object.
About Rio Jiunyu Chen
Rio Chen is a Brooklyn-based Taiwanese designer working at the intersection of architecture, objects, and popular culture. His work explores spatial narratives through furniture, lighting, and material experimentation, often transforming everyday structures into sculptural forms. With a hands-on approach to craft, Chen integrates printmaking, woodworking, and metal fabrication into his designs. His work has been exhibited internationally, reflecting a continuous dialogue between urban landscapes and domestic spaces.
Award Record
Rio Jiunyu Chen is a winner of 1 A' Design Award, including this recognition.
About the A' Lighting Products and Fixtures Design Award
The A' Lighting Design Award is an international lighting design competition recognizing good lighting designs by best lighting designers and brands worldwide. The competition is organized within the A' Design Award & Competition and is open to lighting designers, lighting architects, industrial design studios and lighting product manufacturers from all countries. Entries typically include chandeliers, pendant lights, wall sconces, table lamps, floor lamps and outdoor lights. Awarded lighting designs are published at https://designers.org/design-category/lighting
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/168998
- A' Design Award Page: https://competition.adesignaward.com/168998
- Media Showcase: https://www.designnewsroom.com/!168998
- Laureate Profile: https://designers.org/d/339495
- Further Information from the Laureate: https://riochen.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
- Blocks Lamps Lighting Fixture
- Function
- Lighting Fixture
- Category
- Lighting Products and Fixtures Design
- Discipline
- Industrial Design
- Industry
- Furniture & Home and Electronics & Appliances
- Colors
- Dim Gray, Dark Olive Green, Rosy Brown, Gray and Silver
- Images
- 5
- Client
- Rio Chen Studio
The Recognition
- Laureate
- Rio Jiunyu Chen
- Country
- United States of America
- Recognition
- A' Design Award
- Edition
- 2024 - 2025
- Design ID
- #168998
Credits
- Team
- Rio Jiunyu Chen (Me)
- Image Credits
- Image 01 and 02: Studio 57; Rio Jiunyu Chen
Design Details
- Unique Properties
- Blocks features a series of sculptural table lamps that evoke the geometry of city blocks. Each lamp combines minimalist forms with textured surfaces, offering a modular aesthetic inspired by Chen’s experience of constant relocation—from Taiwan to Chicago and New York. The designs capture the tension between permanence and transience, symbolizing how objects and spaces accumulate meaning over time.
- Inspiration
- The sculptural table lamps take cues from libraries, towers, townhouses, inverted pyramids, and arenas, transforming familiar structures into modular lighting pieces. When assembled together, the lamps resemble a city block, creating a dynamic interplay of light and shadow that evokes the rhythms of urban environments. The wood grain textures from Chen’s printmaking technique are integrated into the lamp shades, transferring natural patterns onto a new medium and reinforcing the theme of time.
- Research
- Blocks is a design-driven research project exploring architecture, material memory, and movement in object design. Inspired by relocation, it examines how urban landscapes and modularity shape emotional connections to objects. Drawing from libraries, towers, and townhouses, the lamps resemble cityscapes with wood grain-imprinted shades that capture time’s passage. The project reimagines lighting as both personal and architectural, bridging design, space, and memory.
- Challenge
- Inspired by Chen’s personal journey relocating between Taiwan, Chicago, and New York, the collection examines the act of packing, shifting, and reassessing belongings—both physically and emotionally. Blocks reflects an object-oriented perspective, questioning how we define value, space, and memory in our lives. The work suggests that cubes—whether seen as obstacles, pixels, cities, or cherished objects—shape our perception of place and belonging.
- Realization and Technology
- The sculptural table lamps take cues from architectural forms, spanning libraries, towers, townhouses, inverted pyramids, and arenas. These shapes transform familiar structures into modular, intimate objects, blurring the line between furniture and urban design. The wood grain textures from Chen’s printmaking technique are integrated into the lamp shades, transferring the organic patterns of wood onto a new material surface. This approach reinforces themes of time, material memory, and transformation within the lighting design.
- Operation and Interaction
- When assembled together, the lamps resemble a city block, creating a dynamic interplay of light and shadow that evokes the rhythms of built environments.
- Project Duration and Location
- The project started at the end of 2024 and was exhibited in Stockholm Furniture Fair Greenhouse Exhibition 2025.
- Specifications
- Tower Lamp: 120mm x 120mm x 343mm, Library Lamp: 153mm x 280mm x 172mm, Pyramid Lamp: 228mm x 228mm x 178mm, Arena Lamp: 203mm x 203mm x 203mm, House Lamp: 120mm x 120mm x 203mm. Material: White Oak, steel, and mulberry paper.
- Keywords
- Architectural Design, Lighting, Lamps, Wood, Blocks
