Forever Lamp

A customizable lamp, designed for attachment and sustainable behaviour. This project was done as a part of the course Sustainable development. The task was to choose a cheap lamp that existed on the market, disassemble it, analyze its parts, and its environmental impact. It turned out that the materials did not age very well and it was not designed for sustainability at all. Its parts were not replacable. A flaw in one single component would end the lifetime for the whole lamp, forcing the user to buy a new one. It was a no-brand lamp, which made it impossible to find out who actually manufactured the lamp. Its lifecycle was completely linear going from manufacturing to waste.

With these problem in mind, we designed Forever Lamp to aim for sustainable consumption behaviour. We came up with suggestions about how to make the lifecycle more circular. Forever Lamp has timeless appeal, is easy to assemble and its parts are replaceable. The materials were chosen for graceful ageing. By making the lamp customizable, its appearance can come in a variety of shapes and colours. An individual’s personal style changes over time, so does Forever Lamp.

Type of project
Course project

When

Sep 2020 – Nov 2020

Teammates

Jonathan Boström, Ebba Lindberg, Linda Silberberg

My Role

Analysis, design, CAD, renderings

Methods

LCA, EVR, Ecodesign Checklist

Tools

CATIA V5, Autodesk Alias, Granta EduPack

The Task

The task was to choose a cheap lamp that existed on the market, disassemble it, analyze its parts, and the environmental impact. With the findings in mind we were supposed to design a new lamp to make it more sustainable. For the new lamp we analyzed it again to compare its environmental impact to the first lamp. We began with disassembling the parts and creating a Bill of materials-list. We weighed every part and took notes of it. We did LCA (Life Cycle Analysis) by using Ecolizer 2.0. We did EVR (Eco-cost Value Ratio) by using Idemat 2021. We also analyzed the product with The EcoDesign Checklist to find potential areas for improvements. We did research about different materials with Granta Edupack. The design of the new lamp began with ideation by using methods such as brainstorming and braindrawing. A final concept was chosen and refined. The new lamp was created in CATIA V5 and Autodesk Alias. The new lamp was never created in real life, therefore the new BOM and analyzes were based on reasonable assumptions.

The lamp that we analyzed

The lamp that we analyzed was a standard desk lamp, mostly made of plastic, most likely PC or ABS. It is not very good for graceful ageing since it becomes yellow with time. It had a flexible metal pipe inside of it, which made it possible to twist it in almost every direction. This required the lamp to have a heavy base consisting of crumb-like metal pieces. The metal pipe was covered in silicone to make it soft and easy to grab. But the downside of the silicone is that dirt stick to it very easily and its white colour changes over time. The LED-lights were not replacable. The lamp overall consisted of many small parts of different materials that were glued together and hard to separate. It was nearly impossible to sort the waste after disassembly.

We analyzed materials, shipping and usage during a lamp’s lifetime. According to LCA and EVR the material had the most environmental impact because of the plastic. We thought about what could be improved, not only for the materials, but for the whole lifecycle. Some of the suggested improvements are:

Materials for graceful aging
Materials with low environmental impact
Few components
Standardized components
Replacable components
Easy to assemble/disassemble
Minimize unnecessary brightness
Easy to reuse/recycle

The New Lamp - Forever Lamp

Forever Lamp is designed for sustainable consumption behaviour. It has a classic appearance that makes it suitable for every home. It is equipped E14 lamp holder and is sold with a 3W LED-light. It has a groove on the back of the neck that hides the cord and holds it in place. The light direction can be rotated at the top. As the name implies the goal for it is to last forever. It has few components that make it easy to assemble. Every part is also replacable.

The base of the lamp and its neck is made of pine plywood that makes it durable and better for graceful aging compared to plastic. Wood is an environment-friendly material since the trees reduce air pollution during their lifetime. The lampshade is made from recycled steel. It is a strong material that does not easily get scratched and look the same for a long period of time. The cord is made of fabric because it is less likely to tangle and get cracks compared to a plastic cord.

There are multiple lampshades that have different shapes so every user can choose the one that suits them the most. When buying the lamp, customers also get paint that they can bring to their home. We believe that when users paint on their own, they are more likely to get attached to the product, since they have chosen a personal colour, spent time and effort on it. An individual’ personal style changes over time, and so does Forever Lamp. If users are tired of the looks of their lamp, repainting it and changing lampshade will make it look like a new lamp.

The company is easy to reach and offers spare parts. They offer a service where customers can change exchange parts with each other. They can also take care of customers’ old lamps and recycle them in the right way. In the end of Forever Lamp’s lifecycle the wood can be reused as woodchips, mulch or fuel. The steel can be endlessly be recycled without its material qualities being compromised.

Reflection

This was a very fun but challening task. It was interesting to think about what actions should be done to solve this complex problem. By breaking down the problem to smaller pieces, such as material, usage, waste disposal etc, the problem was concretized, but it was difficult to make it realistic. It would probably be very difficult to implement these ideas in real life since it would be difficult for companies to make profit. The materials are more expensive, and providing space and logistics solutions for all the spare parts would also cost a lot. This lamp would probably be extremely pricey and I am not sure people are willing to pay the price even though it would be good for our planet.