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PLDC Day 3

Madrid 22nd October 2011

It is approaching 3am in the morning and I have just returned to my hotel to pack and go to the airport for my 6am flight back to Amsterdam and on to Singapore. Not much sleep between now and then! The gala dinner and awards night that concluded the PLDC event was held in the Matadero Madrid, a former slaughterhouse converted in a great night spot. I was told over 600 people
attended the evening. See pics in Light Watch below!

The 3rd day started with a key note from Professor Brian Cody whose talk centred around maximising energy efficiency in buildings. While the subject is on everybody’s mind I felt his presentation could have been simplified for better interest. The next speaker I listened to was Douglas Leonard from Chile who had a passionate presentation of his experience dealing with clients and contractors sharing his “out of the box” -thinking to achieve the desired end result. Nothing really new (am I getting old, seen it all, done it all sort of thing?) but he managed to bring the message in an excellent presentation. I stayed in the same room to follow Charles Thomson on the tactile quality of lighting (the seeing is believing approach) and Emrah Baki’s lighting-designer’s-against-the-evil-forces-of-consumerism talk, a great and entertaining presentation in which he drew parallels between consumer behaviour levels of daily life and the lighting design process. He later won an award at night but I missed what it was for…cudos anyway!

The afternoon keynote was from Professor Alan Dilani from the International Academy of Design and Health who shared his research work pointing out how lighting plays an important role in this. The subsequent speaker, Peter Denhof had much
of the same. Interesting subjects both, but again I felt the subject presentation was too general with little depth, with some lsides having unreadable over-information . I think as designers we have a lot of base knowledge and what we really want is more in depth knowledge. Some of the presenters treat us like first grade students. I think next PLDC the organisers need to set a higher standard, or create a student section of sorts for basics. The final presentation of the day for me was from James Benya and Deborah Burnett, they definitely saved the best for last. To me their presentation was probably the highlight of the event. Deborah had already earned my appreciation at PLDC Berlin and she did not disappoint. Their presentation (the Perfect Circadian
Day) was the sort of stuff we are dying to hear. How the quality of lighting is directly linked to human health, disease and well- being. We are aware of this, but their research has made big progress and the presentation was clear, informational and emotional. I caught myself sitting on the edge of my seat not wanting to miss a word! I am eagerly awaiting her 30 page report that she will
sent to the requesting participants.

My few little comments on the event: Many subjects looked great on paper but drowned in fairly average presentations.  Presentations are as good as the quality and skills of the presenter. I felt the quality in Berlin was of higher standards then this year, but that could very well be due to the presentations I attended. I can’t comment on those I did not see. On the Architects Forum, it was a shame so little people attended. Next time it should be organised like the key note addresses, without simultaneous competing talks, to maximise the impact and attendance.

Finally the big news of the night: PLDC 2013, themed “A point of no return”, will be held in Copenhagen, Denmark. Vamos Madrid! Thanks for a great event!

In Light Watch some street views of the venue and more pictures from the 3rd day and the gala dinner

Light Watch 188: PLDC Day 3

23. October 2011 by Martin Klaasen
Categories: Education, light watch, lighting design, lighting of the future | Leave a comment

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