For a few years we have been talking about night. Sometimes our discussions veer towards safety, sometimes towards seasons, and often towards sociability. We wonder at the Maker Space if we had a cookout or a street party at night if people would come and hang out.
Alongside the wooden lamps we designed at Ishinomaki Lab in May 2019 we designed an elegant simple lantern. Based on dimensional lumber as well as traditional Japanese lanterns, these lanterns were used to illuminate CommonShip, a public space with small food businesses fashioned out of a variety of trailers and small structures. (We built a suite of tables based on yatai, a traditional Japanese food cart and accompanying stools in 2018 that are well used) in downtown Ishinomaki, Japan
As the night wore to a close, we were able to give lanterns to some of the friends we had made both on this visit and over the last few years.
Watch for our next night festival featuring the wooden lanterns–designed in Japan and built now in Detroit–in Brightmoor this fall.