Test 1,2,3…
Perth, 1st May 2014
Critical for every off the shelf lighting solution is the testing or visual mock up. It has been the subject of many of my blogs and as it is a recurring part of our job I obviously come back on it time and again. Sharing the issues we face may help others (and my-self included) avoid future mistakes. In this particular case we are attempting to create a 50m2 free form illuminated light box made of stretched translucent material. Through colour changing we will create the different moods in the space. While this has been done many times and some companies (like Barissol) have been the leaders in this field, there are many others in the market attempting to create and make money with similar solutions. The point is that 90% of these companies have no experience in integrating lighting in the stretched ceiling and as a result their experience is very crude and on top of that their structural frames are not designed with lighting in mind and as a result once lighting is inserted the structural frames become very visible, unlike the more experienced companies who have clever ways to make the internal structure nearly invisible.
We unfortunately are dealing with a company with practically zero experience in creating internally illuminated, self-supporting stretched ceilings with all the head-aches that comes with it. First to the architect who had to physically tell the company how to build it and secondly ourselves having to advise on how to light it and most of all that it needed access to the lights within for servicing! How did it come this way? Simply because the client went for the cheapest bid and with that basically pushing the responsibility on to its consultants. There also seems to be no pride in delivering a good product from this manufacturer’s side, possibly because they too have been squeezed to their bare bones in regards to the cost. Their only incentive being that we are teaching them how to do it creating a reference project in the process…
Light Watch 5-72: Regardless of all this we did some testing again today as can be seen from below photo’s (note photo’s have a much stronger contrast impact then we see with the naked eye) and we have a reasonable confidence it will all turn out well. The thing is right now the space has nothing and anything we put in there will be an improvement and while we see every fault and defect, the general public later will probably enjoy it without being aware of all the little things that could have been done so much better…
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