Lighting box development

My initial concept was to replicate the grid structure on the box. I explored the different lighting effects in SketchUp, and was able to separate the light from the dark, and use this to further develop my ideas. 

Taking light elements from the installation piece and applying the shadow patterns to the lighting box. I exported a scene from my SketchUp model and placed it into Photoshop where I adjusted the levels to heighten the contrast. I then moved this .dwg file into Illustrator to select the outlines of the pattern only. 

I will laser cut these lines onto the material provided. I generated a series of prototypes to get an idea of materiality. I wanted to explore - what materials I will cut into, how many sides of the box I will cut, what shadows and lighting effects will be seen on each material.

     4 x plywood / strand board with 2 x laser cut corflute

    2 x plywood / strand board with 4 x laser cut corflute

    1 x laser cut plywood / strand board with 5 x corflute

I decided to build the first prototype. I chose to use corflute for two walls only because they are opaque. I wanted to limit the light entering through the walls to get the full effect of the light entering through the holes. As the light moves around the outside, they will enter through the laser cut patterns. This will be more effective as the light patterns will be more prominent in a darker space. Thereby it is important to use the plywood and strand board as much as possible because a solid material and will block out light.