��ݮ��Ƶ

Fourth-year student Grace Luong has won third prize in the 2025 FORM Competition.

Her project 'Solarium' is a lamp with a design rich in meaning, rooted at the intersection of Grace’s three passions: furniture design, woodworking, and music. The use of 36 black ebony wood accents—chosen for both its aesthetic and symbolic qualities— is a reference to the 36 black keys of a piano.��

At the core of her creative process is a clear ‘why’: an intention that goes beyond mere function. For this project, she set out to create something meaningful that challenges minimalist, standardized design by reintroducing ornamentation and reflection. The FORM competition’s well-being theme provided an ideal starting point.��

By planning ahead, Grace was able to give herself the time and space to fully explore ideas during the ideation phase. This period of reflection allowed concepts to mature organically until a clear direction emerged. Once that intuitive spark took shape, the sketches, iterations, and construction followed quickly, culminating in the design of Solarium.��

The lamp’s vanes cast rays of light that create a warm, enveloping glow on the floor, and earn it its name. The lamp is a tribute to natural light, which this young architect sees as inseparable from well-being.��

“I love that the piece can first be appreciated for its craftsmanship and then, with a little context, resonate on a deeper level. Perhaps this multi-layered richness is what sets it apart,” says Grace Luong.��

Taking part in the competition was also a chance for Grace to broaden her creative vision. Initially focused on working with wood, she was challenged to incorporate Formica® brand and FENIXTM surfaces into her design, prompting her to think more deliberately about colour and finishes, and ultimately evolving her creative process.��

For Grace, architecture is a deeply human discipline, an art where the creative process gives rise to objects and spaces that respond to people's needs. She especially enjoys working with raw materials to create something expressive and meaningful, which fuels her strong interest in woodworking and furniture design. She believes in the narrative power of design and its ability to tell stories while serving practical purposes.��

Guided by values of sustainability and human-centred design, Grace plans to pursue a master’s degree after completing her bachelor’s, with the goal of joining an architecture firm that shares these principles. She envisions working in a setting that values the social impact of design as highly as its aesthetic quality.��

The is a modern take on the original “FORM: Contemporary Architects at Play” challenge, held by Formica Corporation in 2008. Ten world-renowned architects, including Zaha Hadid, Michael Graves, Bernard Tschumi and Massimo Vignelli, constructed new works of art from Formica® Brand products.