Bow Shock Pendant
Tom Purdy and Linda O’Gwynn
Concept Statement:
bow shock
noun \bau̇-shock
1. The parabolic shock wave formed by the collision of a stellar wind with another medium (as the magnetosphere of a planet or the heliosphere of a star).
Since the beginning of time, depictions of our prevailing cosmology in everyday things have imparted meaning to our lives on earth. This pendant, born in a furnace and cooled to represent the movement of matter through time and space, continues that tradition.
During the day, the mirrored surfaces are convex to the light source, expanding and capturing the room like a van Eyck painting.
At night, the mirrors are concave to the source, focusing, reflecting, and converging the light in ways that change with the point of view – much like the bent universe we observe through telescopes.
As matter sails through the cosmos, the bow shocks merge, converge, and land on unimaginably distant shores.
Project Specs:
This is a low voltage pendant with an LED or halogen light source (halogen pictured). The fixture is comprised of two mirrored shades. The inner shade is spherical clear blown glass with white flecks and the outer shade is clear parabolic blown glass. Both shades are mirrored on the inside surface. The outer shade attaches to the low voltage cable with an adjustable stainless steel bushing. The inner shade is supported by a spring clip.
Bio:
Tom Purdy and Linda O’Gwynn have practiced architectural design for 30 years as a way of finding home-on-earth. Tom loves the materiality of architecture and finding conceptual relationships between the whole and the detail. Linda is drawn to the spatial aspect of architecture and focuses on the fit between use and the character of space. They’ve launched Purdy O’Gwynn Product Design (POPD) as an exploration of the same themes on a smaller, more personal scale.
Place of Origin:
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania