Su Yang Choi Made a Glowing Lamp From Seaweed, Paprika, and Gardenia - Yanko Design

"Sustainable design has spent years negotiating an awkward identity crisis. The moment a material gets labeled biodegradable or plant-based, it tends to be filed under "eco-alternative," which is shorthand for "almost as good as the real thing, but greener." That framing puts the worth of the material almost entirely on what it replaces, rather than what it can become as something genuinely new."

"Slow2, the series' second work, was presented at Salone Satellite 2026 in Milan as a pair of glowing tubular light installations that don't quite look like anything industrial design or nature has produced before. The structural idea comes from baramgil, a spatial principle in traditional Korean hanok architecture where doors and windows line up along a single axis, letting the gaze pass through layered planes and create the impression of depth."

"The tubes are built around a steel armature wrapped in layers of seaweed-derived agar, a biodegradable biopolymer Choi formulated independently without any synthetic additives. LED strips run through the core alongside insulating tubing, and the light passes outward through the semi-translucent material. The agar's own surface texture, tight ridges spiraling along each curved section, reads as integral to the form rather than incidental."

"Color comes entirely from natural pigments, specifically gardenia and paprika, which produce a gradient from warm amber and gold at the lower sections to a deeper red toward the top. The shift isn't applied in flat bands but moves gradually across the form, and the LED light amplifies thos"

Seaweed-derived agar is treated as a material with its own aesthetic identity rather than as an eco substitute. Slow2 presents two vertically interlocking circular tubular light installations that create perceived depth through repetition and overlap. The structures use a steel armature wrapped in layers of agar, a biodegradable biopolymer formulated without synthetic additives. LED strips run through the core with insulating tubing, and light passes outward through semi-translucent agar. The agar’s surface texture, with tight ridges spiraling along each curved section, is integrated into the form. Natural pigments from gardenia and paprika generate a warm amber and gold gradient at the bottom that deepens to red at the top, shifting gradually across the installation.

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