There's a moment, before you notice the light at all, when a LightMass^ piece simply hangs there — graphic lines made with bio-based PLA and biopolymer blend systematically arrange itself in the air. Weightless, closer to sculpture than fixture and defies the conventions of light, physics and art.
Created by Raw-Edges Design Studio, LightMass^ answers a simple question: with today's LED strips, we no longer need a shade to soften a bulb. So what is a light shade now free to become?
The answer is form for its own sake. Each piece begins as a single, uninterrupted digital weave — a mesh drawn in one continuous movement, inspired by the looping ironwork of Victorian greenhouses and precisely engineered bridges.
Filaments are fused flat, then coaxed into voluminous, feather-light volumes and stitched together like tailoring.
Switched off, the pieces hover like airborne line drawings. Switched on, the translucent mesh catches the LED beam and hands it back as structure.
Big on impact, light on footprint— the filament is 100% renewable. The additive process wastes nothing, the openwork form asks for less material, and a single material means recycling is simple.
The piece on view takes a different route. Off, the mesh reads as line. On, the light isn't caught by the sculpture — it's thrown past it. A beam from above finds the woven form and spills its shape across the floor, shadow standing in for structure.
For Singapore, the appeal is in the range. In a compact apartment, LightMass^ fills a room without crowding it. In a double-volume space, atrium or gallery wall, the same forms scale up to anchor the room like a suspended sculpture. And because each piece can be adjusted in size, pattern and colour, it bends easily to a specific space.
Most of all, this is lighting for people who don't necessarily love the look of lighting. Off or on, a LightMass^ piece reads first as art — an airy gesture in the ceiling — and only second as a source of light.
LightMass^ is on view now at 397 Guillemard Road Showroom.
