2026 | Student

French Design Awards Silver Winner

Zephyr

Entrant

MACAU UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Category

Conceptual Design - 3D Printed

Client's Name

Country / Region

Macau SAR

Zephyr is a luminaire conceived around the co-evolution of sustainable materials and digital fabrication. It employs a seaweed-based biopolymer / PETG composite, reducing environmental burden while maintaining structural integrity and optical translucency.
Its form is driven by manufacturing logic: the morphology is reconstructed from the principles of robotic additive manufacturing and toolpath planning, making “how it is made” an explicit component of the design language. Zephyr innovatively applies non-planar printing to generate continuous, curved stratification. The surface texture is inspired by the flowing cadence of wind-lifted hair in Botticelli’s paintings. This “wind-shaped” trajectory is translated into a continuous non-planar deposition pattern—like the traces left on a surface as the west wind (Zephyr) passes across it.
The overall silhouette fuses the classical connotation of a flared, horn-like profile with the future-oriented order of a rectilinear geometry; through a restrained volumetric convergence and clearly articulated interfaces, it articulates a disciplined yet tensile visual language. As light passes through the layered texture, refraction and diffuse scattering produce a soft, halo-like glow with nuanced gradients. The rear surface incorporates an approximately 30° inclined, cantilevered print, achieving a delicate balance between process controllability and the material’s self-consistent gravitational settling. This yields a surface with a near hand-crafted warmth and “breath,” while the semi-translucent sustainable material subtly modulates in appearance with changing ambient illumination.

Credits

MACAU UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Wenchao Min
Zhongkai University of Agriculture and Engineering
Bin Guo
Zhongkai University of Agriculture and Engineering
Zhenjie Zhao
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