Holger Strøm designed the famous IQlight system in 1973. After more than 50 years, it is still a popular, innovative, and smart design. The IQlight is a self-assembly lamp composed of interlocking quadrilaterals. By utilizing polyhedral geometry, you can generate various shapes and sizes. I created a model of one of the most common IQlight designs, fitting it onto the Catalan solid known as the rhombic triacontahedron. This solid is a convex polyhedron with 30 rhombic faces, making it an ideal structure for an IQlight. I developed a parametric IQlight model in Grasshopper that generates a 3D NURBS model. A Graph Mapper component controls the amount of folding, allowing the algorithm to produce flat pieces ready for cutting and assembly (if you cut 30 copies). However, I plan to further develop this algorithm to include other polyhedral lamp designs.

This Grasshopper definition generates variations of IQlight designs. I created the parametric model in Grasshopper using only native components. The inputs are the size and bending profile of the lamp pieces. Thus, the output is a set of surfaces in Rhino, along with the unfolded lamp pieces. This makes the output ready for laser cutting from PP or any other sheet material. You can also use this model to explore other solids, though you need some additional work to refine the details.

I used only native Grasshopper components while developing this design, so you don’t need add-ons to run it. However, you will need the internalized curve data, so it’s impossible to recreate it by simply looking at the diagram above. If you enjoy my content and would like to support me, please consider becoming one of my Patrons. On my Patreon page, you’ll find my working Grasshopper files for the Parametric IQlight and more.