This piece wins the first place of “The 2022 Immersive Arts for Health Student Design Competition” held by Thomas Jefferson University.

Dune is a lamp designed for massage waiting rooms, inspired by the tranquil aesthetics of a Japanese dry garden (zen garden). We aimed to create an experience of peace, meditation, and emptiness by highlighting the circular movements of shadows cast by the miniature landscape, illuminated by dynamic LED lighting. This design helps patients breathe and relax while waiting. Co-created by Jason Gao and myself.

Our lighting design was specifically crafted for the Massage Therapy Clinic. Massage therapy achieves various balances of bodily functions by activating acupoints in different body parts to unblock the meridians, following the principles of natural yin and yang balance. Given that massage therapy helps reduce stress and alleviate pain, our design focuses more on enhancing the clinic's ambiance. We believe that patients visiting massage therapy clinics seek a relaxing and comfortable experience, unlike those visiting hospitals for treatment. Therefore, our goal was to create a cozy and satisfying addition to the waiting room.

We used two rows of LED strips: one static to provide a neutral base brightness, and the other animated at a specific speed to warmly illuminate the central structure—the dune. The dune was generated using Blender’s geometry node with Voronoi texture and 3D printed using transparent PET-G. The layer-by-layer 3D printing method beautifully captures the flowing curves and textures of the dune. The shadows created by the animated LED subtly change over time, enhancing the meditative atmosphere. The choice of wood material was informed by studies suggesting that visual contact with wood positively impacts brain and autonomic nerve activity.

We found in several studies that natural elements can positively impact patients' mental health. For example, the article “Preferences for Photographic Art Among Hospitalized Patients with Cancer” found that patients most frequently preferred images of a lake sunset (76%), a rocky river (66%), and an autumn waterfall (66%). Another study, “Physiological Benefits of Viewing Nature: A Systematic Review of Indoor Experiments,” revealed that visual contact with real nature stimuli, such as flowers, green plants, and wooden materials, had positive effects on cerebral and autonomic nervous activities compared to control settings.

These findings highlight a key insight: visual images of natural elements can significantly enhance patients' mood and reactions. Both of us were intrigued by the idea of incorporating natural elements into the space. Additionally, to encourage patients to focus on the lighting fixture, we wanted to introduce motion to capture their attention as a distraction strategy in the waiting room. This led us to explore the combination of natural elements with kinetic movements.

 The notion of the Japanese dry garden / zen garden (かれさんすい 枯山水) drew our interest. “枯山水 is a style of the Japanese garden. It creates a miniature stylized landscape through carefully composed arrangements of rocks, water features, moss, pruned trees, and bushes and uses gravel or sand that is raked to represent ripples in water. They were intended to imitate the essence of nature, not its actual appearance, and to serve as an aid for meditating about the true meaning of existence”. 

“The meaning behind the Japanese zen garden”
articulate how it works and why important. We are not creating a zen garden in the hospital waiting room but hopefully, we can decorate the room with some elements that could unclutter spaces to unclutter the mind for contemplation and meditation in the chaos of our life.

Diving down the concept of the zen garden, we were fascinated by the mental peace brought by zen and the sand with beautiful patterns. White sand and gravel had long been a feature of Japanese gardens and were seen as representing purity according to the Shinto religion. Thus we chose the sand as the natural element in this piece. In terms of motion, considering that the waiting roommight need a quiet environment, we chose to animate the LED strip instead of any mechanical structure like motors that make noise.