These beautiful semi-wrinkle washi lamps have been designed by the famed Nendo for Taniguchi Aoya Washi, a traditional Japanese paper company. It is known for creating seamless washi paper, that looks and feels like plastic or glass. For this particular project, however, the technique has been modified in order to create a wrinkle effect. The designers explain:

Adding devils tongue (konnyaku) to the mixture creates wrinkles that bring out the special characteristics of paper, but this process also conceals the fact that the forms are made with the traditional technique. After running into this problem, we decided to take the best of both worlds: to create lighting fixtures that are only half-formed with the wrinkle process. The wrinkles can be applied gradually so that the two different effects come together seamlessly. 

I love the delicate, almost fragile feel of these designs. The wrinkles look unintentional, as if they have happened by chance. A visual simplicity that took a lot of calculating and craftsmanship to achieve.