Owen Rohm

Student
Georgia Institute of Technology School of Industrial Design
Atlanta, Georgia, USA

I am, at my core, just a kid trying to figure out the world. Granted, I'm only 19, but I've been in school for my entire living memory, and the more I experience the outside world, the more I realize I will not have it figured out by the time I graduate. I don't think anyone really has any of it figured out, and so my design philosophy is that the things I make should help people remember we’re all going through it together. Whether that be by inspiring curiosity, making inaccessible things tangible, or bringing us closer together, I hope to make life just a little easier and a little more full of wonder for everyone.

Platonic Dual Lamp
Platonic Dual Lamp
183 x 110 x 37 cm
Plywood, Steel tubing, Colored Vinyl, Paper
2020

When I was in eighth grade, my geometry teacher had the class imagine a cube. Then he had us draw points in the center of every face in our head and connect them. He explained to us that we had just constructed an octahedron, and that these two shapes were Platonic duals of each other.

I had only just learned about Platonic solids, so I spent the next day mentally drawing this cube and connecting the points before it really clicked. I remember the aha moment being so incredibly satisfying.

I wanted my lamp to facilitate the same aha feeling for kids learning about Platonic solids, with a light bulb literally turning on to show the dual shape within the original.