Dou Gong- Chinese-Brackets style Camping Light
Inspiration: Dated back to nine years ago, 2010 EXPO was hold in my home town Shanghai. It’s an impressive and unforgettable memory for me when I was teenager. The China pavilion, colloquially known as the Oriental Crown, was the largest national pavilion at the Shanghai Expo . The architectonic feature of the building was inspired by the Chinese roof bracket known as the dougong as well as the Chinese ding vessel. The dougong is a traditional wooden bracket used to support large overhanging eaves which dates back nearly 2,000 years. It symbolizes the unique charm of Chinese architecture and the unity and strength. I get inspiration from this construction and plan to reconstitute it in another way.
China pavilion at Expo 2010 （1.）
At beginning, I thought about to make a coat rack with a Dougong on the top of it. 3D print is the methodology of fabrication. I took a workshop in ITLL to figure out if it’s practical to use this cutting-edge technology in my project. Unfortunately, it turned out to be quite challenging. Neither the time nor the equipment is available to me. Thus, I decided to create a camping light instead. Controllable and delicate.
Sketup was implemented as the 3D design software. Beginning with small brackets, male and female parts are drawn along with supporting brackets. Then slide them into STL file. I tried two different procedure. One is printing out the top part as an integral and the other one is duplicating these small pairing brackets in the STL.Then assemble them manually just like what ancient architect did in China.
I bought PLA material for 3D print from ITLL at $15. Since it’s closing to the final week, prototype room was quite busy making it hard to find an empty 3D machine.Finally I catch a one but the extrude head of it had some annoying problem. It went pretty smoothly until it came to generate the higher part of the component. I failed for several times wasting almost three days on it. I told this tragedy to my colleague. ‘Why not try our office’s one? We have a robust machine here!’
3D printer in the office(Top two pic); 3D printer in ITLL( Lower two pic)
Here is the original parts I got from the printer. The black one is the supporting material created by the machine to make sure the rigid of the product. A special washing machine sitting besides the printer with a detergent did the landry work.
After one-hour fabrication work,Chinese-Brackets style Camping Light finally is here!
Cost: PLA material- $10
LED strips- $9
- http://www.xinhuiled.com/display.asp?id=762
11 Comments. Leave new
Wow this came out really nice! I really enjoyed the aesthetic you went for and I think it paid off with your usable project! It really brings me back to the architecture of China.
You obviously put a great deal of time and effort into the design and development of this project and I think it really paid off. It’s very creative to use something like a Chinese bracket aesthetic and incorporate it into something useful like a camping light. I also like that you took something that was familiar to you and completely transformed it into something new. Great job!
Peilin, I think this is an awesome camping light. I like how the red reflects light. As others mentioned, it makes it look like its glowing red with heat. It can almost keep you warm with the psychological affect of the aesthetic alone.
The way the lighting draws on it makes it look like it hot to the touch which is neat! These also personify the chinese aesthetic well! Great job!
Peilin, I like your simple red color of the model. The middle picture looks like it is glowing red hot! I’m excited to see it in action at the Aesthetics show.
I admire your project a lot, it is clear that you have to spend a lot of time making the tiny pieces fit together. I would encourage you to add more gold detailing using a sharpie to give it an extra dimension.
It is very cool that you 3D printed each single part so that it not only can be used as a camping light but also can be played as a toy in the office. Since it’s a camping light I think more powerful bulbs would be great!
The 3D print came out really well! I’ve had some trouble printing parts and having them fit together properly and it looks like you really got it down well! The LEDs also really add to the aesthetic looking like mini lanterns in the tower
This is a really cool project! I like that you used your parents as resources back in Shanghai. It’s also nice that you were inspired by another student’s upcycle project. Good job!
Really cool how similar your inspiration is to my own! Great job. I think you did really well hitting the Chinese aesthetic! It would be really cool if you make some more of these to have a set of 10 or so. Awesome work!
Peilin, I liked your aesthetic and where you modeled this off of. Dougong was something I am not terribly familiar with, and I liked learning it. Thank you for bringing in your items as well. These turned out really cool and I liked how simple the wiring was.