The week that was 27-3rd March 2017

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The week that was 27-3rd March 2017

Singapore, Week 27-3 March 2017

After the senior’s blogs it is time to get some insight in how our juniors experience their work as part of the team. Aishah has been a delightful part of our team, eager to learn and gradually cementing her place within the team. The blog below are Aishah’s words and experience…have a great weekend!

Assisting the seniors
If you have been reading the previous posts, what you will be reading below is the point of view from a junior lighting designer, my point of view :). I started working about 3 years ago. As a junior lighting designer, I was assigned to my assist seniors in their projects, from CAD drawings to Photoshop and documentation. With little knowledge of lighting prior to this, I managed well thanks to the guidance from my seniors, colleagues and Martin. It is very interesting to see how each project takes on different approach in solving issues that we face along the way.

Besides CAD drawing and documentations, I was given the opportunity to tag along with my seniors for site inspection and meetings, whenever necessary. Most of the time I will be taking down the minutes of the meeting and observing my seniors handle the situation i.e. talking to clients, coordinating with other consultants. Being part of a lighting designer, a good communication, discussion and negotiation skills are part of the job while dealing with different groups of people (which I am still learning and admiring how the seniors are able to deal with such situations). It is not all just about the drawings and renderings – though it is still as important and provides good impressions to our client and project team – in reality it is about making things work. By being on site, I get to see drawings turning into reality and sometimes what may seem to work from behind my screen is not entirely the way it is on site. So we have to always be prepared for sudden changes.

Barclays trading office
‘Lighting design draws on technical knowledge but also on creativity’

Currently I am assisting my senior, Amanda, on a renovation project of a trading office in Singapore. We are tasked to provide an optimal lighting solution for a trading office environment. With the given constraints (minimum ceiling space, protruding beams to be avoided and minimum glare and reflections for the TV monitors and traders) we were to select a few options – suspended, recessed, surface mounted – for the light fixture which then needed to be discussed with the interior designer. Ultimately the light has to provide sufficient lighting without any disturbing effects such as glare and a uniformly lit office provides eye comfort when working with PC screens. Therefore, we have to calculate the uniformity and UGR (Unified Glare Rating) to select the best possible fitting all in good consultation with the interior designer.

With the help from Jordan, one of my colleagues, we were able to simulate the lighting effects with selected light fixtures within the desired space using Dialux Evo, the latest issue light calculation software. We had a tough time attaining a good result. When he uniformity was good, the UGR was bad, or vice versa. It took quite some trial and error optimal balance between both, not forgetting to achieve the recommended the lux levels for such office environment. The distance between each light fixture, the mounting height and the quantity determines the above. Within the same brand and product family, there were many options we could choose from. Some products are very similar, they meet our requirements but have different added qualities. To help narrow down our choices, we received some further input from the manufacturer’s sales representative as he some valuable added knowledge of the products from application is similar projects. After many calculations, we manage to eliminate a few products to settle for 4 complying lighting solutions and finalised the options for the ID to choose from. I am very curious to see how our calculations on Dialux will compare to real life.

There is still so much I have yet to grasp and learn in this lighting industry, I hope to gain as much knowledge as I can along the way.

Aishah.