A branch supplies the parts
Stripped begins with a branch and makes a lamp through selective changes. In Floris Wubben's submitted account, the lower part is split to create three legs, while bark is peeled and wound into the shade. The material supplies both an upright support and a covering for the light.1
The sequence is easy to follow because the branch remains recognisable. Splitting, peeling and winding change its form while keeping the origin of the parts close to view.
Each action also changes a part's job. The split end spreads into supports. The bark, once covering the branch, becomes a shade. A familiar natural material moves through several roles within one object.
From bark to shade
The shade is the most surprising turn. Bark begins as the outside of a piece of wood; once separated and wound, it can describe another enclosing form.
That gives the lamp a visual relationship between top and bottom. The upright piece and its shade can be understood as related material, even though they now occupy different places.
This is a useful way into Wubben's material interests. His studio account describes a practice concerned with the relationship between natural materials, making processes and shaped objects. Stripped offers an especially direct version of that question because the original branch remains so legible.3
A published idea with a clear outline
A Designboom article about the lamp was published on 26 September 2012. The designer-submitted account appears in a 2013 competition context. Those publications establish two occasions on which the idea was presented, rather than an exact date when it was first designed.21
At the bottom, splitting lets one piece reach towards three points on the floor. At the top, peeled bark finds a new circumference. The branch gives the lamp a beginning, and the transformations give it its form.