The life of light – January 2019 /2

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The life of light – January 2019 /2

Singapore – Bangkok – Singapore, Weekend 2-3 February 2019
And so my blog seems to become a bi-weekly event…I mentioned my intention to slow down in my first blog of the year 2 weeks ago…I did sit behind my laptop working away some emails last weekend and feeling slightly guilty not writing my blog as I am a man of discipline, but then I let the events of the weekend unfold. I went to play my regular Saturday morning tennis with a group of friends as I do when I am in town and not traveling, then went on to other social activities over the weekend slowly pushing the urge to write my blog to the back of my mind…having written my blog for the last 10 years obviously get’s you into a routine and letting go is not as easy as you think!

Not to despair however, as the time freed up is making way for new things to come. I have meanwhile completed my 3rd Light Talk video interview with experts in their fields (with more to come!) which when editing is complete, will soon be available on our YouTube channel. Also in the making is Light Talk 2, the book with a compilation of my 15 years (!) of writing my column for Lighting Today Magazine…it is shaping up nicely and I hope to present it some times during this year.

ILight Marina Bay 2019 – launch event
One of the big events that kicked of last week was the launch of the ILight Marina Bay lighting festival in Singapore. The festival runs as part of the bi-centennial celebrations of the city state with many other events planned in celebration of the cities 200 year history. I was invited as a guest to attend the pre-opening launch that included a boat tour along the majority of the art works. The selection process has always been a mystery to me, with some selections definitely no-brainers with great visual impact and interest, others that leave you head scratching on why that was selected. Most installations have costs that are many times more then the allocated budgets (even if you include sponsor funds) which leaves you thinking haw that is properly allocated. I know for a fact that some artists were actually invited to participate (did not even submit something) but asked based on a previous installation done in another city. While I understand that there are political and commercial underlying reasons that define the final decision in regards to the selection of artworks, it does create a little uneasy feeling that it is not a totally open and fair playing field for budding artists that submit their artworks. Anyhow that is just a little site observation, as overall the end result of this year’s line up is pretty impressive with some great installations sure to woo the general public. It will run till the end of February.

City lighting festivals is the trend of modern day with many cities around the world now having some kind of light festival. It brings in the tourists and puts the city on the world map, through the many magical pictures it provides…

Bangkok
Last week also saw me going to Bangkok to engage the client on one of our projects about the implementation of smart lighting in their hotel. This is not as easy as it seems because most clients are still “wired” the old conventional way. So my presentations were tailored to gradually lead them by the hand towards smart thinking. I started with our “traditional” lighting design concepts with renderings showing the intended lighting effects through our layers of light presentation. Having put them at ease in regards to the lighting effects and various scenes they can expect I moved to the more “complicated” stuff, our LDoT approach. Explaining the process of data infra-structure design, I walked them through the many and various options that are available to understand space usage, opportunities for more efficient human deployment and most of all the ways to reduce energy consumption on a massive scale. For this it is important to understand that the bulk of the energy consumption in hotels is in the air-conditioning, more then double the lighting energy consumption. So integrating smart sensoring to allow adaptive controls of both lighting and air-conditioning makes a lot of sense and our ROI calculations showed that very clearly, with massive saving along the way.
With the client now on board we are working towards fitting out the current Mock Up Room with a scalable data infra-structure platform that will facilitate these cost saving functions. The infra-structure will have additional smart features linked to in-room mobile device applications. It will be our first pilot and proof of concept project so we are super excited. The client, enthusiastic about the potential, is now also looking at fitting out their new corporate head office in a similar way…

LDoT challenges: wired versus wireless
One of the key challenges that we encounter in our projects in relation to implementing our LDoT approach is the gap between concept and reality. While we discuss the opportunities for wireless solutions, saving kilometres of cabling and wiring in the process, we find that on site the contractor moves in the conventional way, installing cable infra-structures based on the assumption it will be wired. The disconnect between the project team and the contractor in regards to implementing wireless solutions has to be addressed in the early days of a project. While in itself a smart solution can still work with a wired solution, the savings could be so much bigger (including the future flexibility and scalability) if due consideration is given in the early stages to communicate with the installation contractors, most of whom have yet to make the switch to modern day smart solutions and infra-structure installations. We have encountered this in our projects the hard way and therefore early engagement is becoming more and more crucial in successfully negotiating cost saving implementations of smart data and lighting infra-structures. I guess we are all learning…

To all celebrating Chinese New Year I wish you Gong Xi Fa Cai!

ILIGHT MARINA BAY