Richard Clarkson's Cloud brings the appearance of a thunderstorm indoors without bringing the weather. A soft suspended form lights from within, turning a familiar room into a small theatrical setting. The design combines a recognisable cloud silhouette with changes in brightness and sound, so its character comes as much from what it does as from how it looks when switched off.
Light and sound give the cloud its character
The designer’s project video shows the archive work associated with interactive lighting and audio. A cloud outline provides recognition; changing brightness and sound give it a sense of activity.
The historical description distinguished several versions, including a fully featured Smart Cloud, a lamp-only option and satellite additions. The interactive version was described with motion sensing, speakers, colour-changing light and music-responsive modes. These details belong to the design as presented at the time. They should not be combined into a specification for every Cloud product, or treated as a promise about a model available to buy today.
Weather as an indoor design idea
This is an artistic simulation, not a real storm forming indoors. Compare the architectural imagination of the Krystall floating-hotel concept. For an indoor ice scene with a very different origin, explore Chicago’s former cold-storage warehouse, where refrigeration rather than artistic lighting transformed the space.
Inside the original Cloud concept
The original construction account described fibre filling felted onto a supporting casing, with the speaker and electronics hidden inside. That relationship between exterior and interior explains much of the effect. A soft, irregular outline suggests something naturally formed, while concealed components create a controlled sequence of light and audio. The approximate dimensions given for the featured unit were 28 by 14 by 13 inches, with variation in the handmade shape; they describe that archived version rather than a universal size.
As a design idea, Cloud sits between a lamp, a speaker and a small performance. A quiet glow changes the atmosphere of a room differently from a flash paired with thunder-like sound, even though the hanging object remains the same. Watch the designer's video for those changes in mood rather than expecting a real storm simulation in a scientific sense. If considering a related product, compare the actual model's functions, installation needs and supplied controls, since the photographs alone cannot show which version is being demonstrated.
Sources, photography and further reading
Original feature and image attributions:
- The Cloud
- Richard Clarkson
- Cloud
- Richard Clarkson’s shop
- Colossal
- TwistedSifter
- Beautiful Strange And Rare Cloud Formations
- 20 Amazing Cloud Formations
- Lenticular Clouds: The Rare Cloud Formations Look Like Objects From Another World
- designer’s project video
- the Krystall floating-hotel concept
- Chicago’s former cold-storage warehouse
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