“Shine – The Dark Side of the Moon”

By Stephan James Clambaneva, IDSA WDO

🇺🇸 UNITED STATES

CategoryLighting Product Design

Date of Completion15/08/2026

Location of ProjectAthens Greece

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Lighting Performance & Usage Context

Wall mounted - to mimic the moon shining back to us in the sky, bedside, hallway or stair nightlight. 3–25 lm at 2800K, 0.34W. The 2mm unglazed porcelain shell is the diffuser — the LED is never seen directly. Infrared presence wake, an ambient photocell that refuses daylight operation, over a year on three AA cells. Designed to barely be on.

Project Description

This is a smart light. It simply is not a connected one.

Infrared presence detection and an ambient photocell hold it dark all day, then wake it
at 3 lumens and 2800K only when someone moves through the night. Every decision is local
— no app, no account, no radio, no standby draw. 0.34W; over a year on three replaceable
AA cells. Tilt it on its magnetic seat and you set a phase, not a scene.

Its shade is a 2mm shell of unglazed kaolin porcelain, slip-cast from NASA Lunar
Reconnaissance Orbiter far-side topography and fired at 1260°C. It seats flush at 80mm
exactly where the module’s molded plastic diffuser used to be: one part removed, one
natural material introduced, nothing added. Left unglazed because the moon has no polish
— a rough mineral surface scatters light where a glaze would mirror the room, so the
craters read as ceramic relief rather than reflection.

It began as a nightlight for the designer’s son: the side we never see, shining back.

Project Leader

Stephan James Clambaneva, IDSA WDO

Design Team

Stephan James Clambaneva — concept, industrial design, digital sculpting, prototyping

Image Credits

Photography: Stephan James Clambaneva. Technical drawings: Stephan James Clambaneva. Lunar surface geometry derived from NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) public topographic data.

Collaborators or Teams

3D Printing: Evangelakos Dimitrios - Ph.D. Candidate, NTUA Athens, Porcelain Production Consultation: Welle Contemporary Art & Ceramic Studios Lazaros Filippos Papadopoulos, Sculptor

Studio / Company Name

Stephan James Design

Profile

Stephan James Design is the personal studio of Stephan James Clambaneva, a product designer and regenerative-design strategist working across physical product, service and experience. Also Managing Director & Partner at PARK, and a former IDSA Board member, he designs objects that make sustainability legible rather than declared.

Company Website

stephanjames.design