ALIT Lamp: Ceramic and Wood Design by Byunggwon Na

Seoul-based designer Byunggwon Na explores the relationship between ceramic, wood, and illumination with ALIT, a lamp reduced to two contrasting materials and a deceptively simple geometry. Beginning with the translucent qualities of ceramic, Na studied how light could pass through, bounce against, and diffuse across its surface before introducing a square wooden column as the project’s only additional material.

The result sets the softly curved ceramic shade directly on top of the timber base, allowing light to fall across both surfaces at once. Rather than hiding the meeting point between structure and diffuser, ALIT makes it the focus, creating a small material conversation between something solid below and something lighter and less obedient above.

Stock photo for illustration only, not from the actual event

Produced through slip casting, the ceramic shade begins conceptually as a circular plane folded into four quadrants, generating four gently curved surfaces around its perimeter. Its shape sits somewhere between strict geometry and an organic form, with Na likening its silhouette to a maple seed or petal drifting down before coming to rest on the wooden column.

The shade is not permanently attached to the base and can instead be lifted off, replaced, or exchanged with another version. Removed from the column, it can work independently as an object or tray, while the wooden lamp continues functioning without it, requiring no complicated assembly.

Stock photo for illustration only, not from the actual event

Na also experiments with color by mixing pigments directly into the liquid slip before casting, producing ceramic shades whose tone runs consistently through the material rather than being applied as a colored glaze. While lighter versions allow illumination to travel through the shade, the pigmented pieces become opaque, directing a softer pool of light from underneath to interact with the wood grain.

Source: designboom