When Shaun Kasperbauer submitted his project "Bubble Chandelier" earlier this week, the bulbous yet unmistakably upcycled form, "originally inspired by the cell-like shape of soap bubbles," caught my eye. We've seen several variations of bottle lamps in the past—from Matteo de Colle's charming shades to Degross's refined "Utrem Lux" series, the lush lumens of the "Lightin" to the lo-fi marvel of "Liter of Light"—but Kasperbauer's version merited a closer look.
Upon a little digging, I was surprised to find that the project dated back to April 2011. Noting that his current company Souda, which he co-founded with Isaac Friedman-Heiman, was founded this year, I inquired about the 20-month gap. Kasperbauer responded at length:
The Chandelier was originally made as a school project of mine a few years ago. Isaac and I, along with our third studio-mate Luft Tanaka, just graduated in May from Parsons School of Design for product design. I had been shopping around for commercial spaces during the last month of school and we signed a lease on our studio space on June first. We are just in the process of launching our first line, which includes a few revamped pieces that we had designed in the past along with a few new objects (and a number of items still in development). While the Bubble Chandelier was originally prototyped a few years ago, it has just now finished its first production run. The relationship with SURE WE CAN is something that came about once we started looking to produce the fixture.
