Introducing... Paul Cocksedge

Positioning himself halfway between an artist and an inventor, the 30-year-old designer launched four new lights with Italian manufacturer Flos and Japanese Yamagiwa at the Milan Furniture Fair this year.

Last year he caused a stir with his 4m-high curtain of Swarovski crystals, but he is best known for his Styrene lamps, made from oven-roasted polystyrene cups. 'At any one time my studio by Hackney Town Hall is filled with five people, a row of domestic ovens and a big box of cups. We've had offers to commercialise it but it's a handmade piece. I'm involved in making every one.'

He shares a 'beautiful' house off Broadway Market in Hackney with a ballet dancer and an actress.

What's going on in your studio?
I'm taking on the weather for a new project called Rain It In for the Design Museum. There's a flow of water dripping from the ceiling and, using a static generator, we can attract the water, bending it out of a vertical path. I like to dream about the impossible and challenge the engineers I work with.

What do your pieces have in common?
A surprise factor. They all beg the question: 'How does that actually work?' It's an emotional connection, not a visual one. One of my latest lights, Skin, for Flos, uses miniature LED technology. The bulbs are very small, low energy and they last forever. Conventional lampshades are big and voluminous, with a bulb in the middle. Skin is based on a very thin piece of metal that opens at the bottom to release light, and I want people to ask: 'How can light escape from a flat piece of material?' You could never do that with a lightbulb.

What's your creative secret?
Don't socialise with designers. I'm much more interested in talking to people disconnected from this world. Also, going abroad. When you're walking around as a stranger and you don't feel anything like a designer, the innocence comes back.

What is your dream project?
To create a rain-free corridor over the Millennium Bridge, with the water magically parting overhead and falling away into the Thames. It needs a lot of engineering and money behind it but it could be truly magical. It already works on a small scale, so why not?

Rain It In will be at Super Contemporary at the Design Museum from 3 June to 4 October 2009 (designmuseum.org)