Students showcase sustainable designs in York lifestyle store

York St John University students have designed a series of sustainable lamp shades which are currently on display in the Snowhome store in York.

The six students, all in the first year of their Product Design BA (Hons) degree, designed and built light shades that could be flatpack, self-assembled without tools, and focused on sustainability – for instance, using lightweight materials which have a minimal carbon footprint.

Student Athena Melvin, who created the PomPon dining room light, worked with polypropylene (a recyclable plastic) because of the way that it diffuses light.

“It's so exciting to see our work up in a public place and to have the opportunity to get feedback from consumers and to see if there's any interest,” said Athena.

“I haven't ever worked with designing lighting before now and I really enjoyed it. I see myself continuing to work on both lighting design and furthering to perfect this design.”

Student Sama Habib created the Helix Shade, designed to “introduce warmth into your living room and to diffuse light elegantly and evenly.”

“Lighting can influence our moods, energy levels, and health and I created this shade with the intention of positively impacting its users, allowing the shade to create an optimistic home environment,” said Sama.

“Light shades typically take up a lot of space and resources during manufacture, storage, and transport. It is important to rethink these products in ways that reduce resource usage and environmental impact."

Simon Pattison, Course Lead of Product Design at York St John University, said that most light shades were made from a combination of materials which made them less sustainable.

“Sustainability is at the core of all the product design that we do here at York St John, and for this project we wanted the students to really think ‘outside of the box’, to become more creative in their design process, and to explore product design though a truly ‘hands on’ process,” said Simon.

“While paper was the initial starting point considered for this brief, because paper is not always valued as a sustainable material, all the students then specified a sustainable material of their choice to use on their lamp design. For instance, one of the designs is made from aluminium, which has excellent sustainable properties.

“We also wanted all of the products to be flatpack so that they could be posted – this too is a key sustainable principle, partly due to the environmental benefits this has on transport.”

Helen Harris, owner of Snowhome, said the students’ sustainable designs fitted in well with the store’s focus on contemporary living.

“We are really honoured to be hosting these wonderful designs from the next generation of talent here at York St John’s,” said Helen.

“We curate the store with a strong set of values around sustainability and fairness - so the students' focus on creating locally designed, flatpack lighting that supports sustainable manufacture really appealed.

“We are hugely impressed with the beauty and quality of the students' work and the ability to engage with such locally grown, new designs has really resonated with our customers, and we are growing a list of people interested in order options for these designs.”

The students’ designs are on display until Sunday 30 June at Snowhome, 42 Gillygate, York, YO31 7EQ.

Learn more about studying Product Design at York St John University.

From greener buildings to biodiversity and recycling, York St John University is committed to a sustainable future for everyone. Read more about sustainability at the University. 

Image credit: Athena Melvin