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Creation…purpose or evolution

Goa, India 25th November 2009

It must be some sort of mini record… 4 airports in 3 days…I flew from Paris back to Singapore on Monday, then from Singapore to Mumbai on Tuesday and from Mumbai to Goa this morning. (Our Goa hotel resort project is really taking shape and site presence is crucial to make sure that all is going to plan and specifications!) Though I try to minimise travel and optimise my stays to the max, at times the travel can’t be helped.

Now that I write this blog it forces me to look around even more then we as lighting designers already do. I now look around with much more intend, assessing lighting situations, noticing specific aspects of lighting, etc. So for the airports…Paris Charles de Gaulle is old (at least 30 years if I am not wrong) and still has most of its original lighting based on exposed low pressure sodium flood lights and fluorescent tubes. This contrasts enormously with Singapore’s Changi which continously upgrades its terminals and has made it a point to integrate lighting as part of a total interior concept, highly commercial in all its aspects. The latest technologies are being used including LED and daylighting. Mumbai International airport is being upgraded as we speak, but the newly opened areas still predominantly use basic old technology (fluorescent) lighting systems. Goa airport, which officially isn’t even a commercial airport, is a countryside event. Somehow the lighting seem a non event here, as local ambiance and culture seem to reign over any commercial aspect. Very different indeed! I feel that culture and way of life (like I wrote in a previous blog) permiates strongly in a country’s airport (lighting) design and quality. In Singapore no stone is left unturned to have the latest and the best…in Goa there is no intent in any design.. it just happened over the years according to needs… at least that is how it feels. In other words purposedly created for use versus created as a result of use. Cold versus warm? Clean versus character?  Purpose versus evolution… 

PS: I want to acknowledge Heinrich Kramer to be the first to post a comment on the blog!  I am sure more will follow which will make this blog project an interesting and exciting adventure. Thanks Heinrich!

25. November 2009 by Martin Klaasen
Categories: lighting design | Leave a comment

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