The week that was 23-28th February

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The week that was 23-28th February

Perth, weekend 28^th February 2015

Monday 23; Perth – Size does not matter
Back in beautiful Perth for the week, I have a couple of project meetings lined up as well as meetings for new potential projects. Despite the general sentiment that the Western Australia economy is on the way down after the booming mining years we seem to have hit some niche areas with new project opportunities…You never know where your next project opportunity is going to come from but we keep doing fee proposals so that’s good; signed off a few new ones too. In our line of work we never know what’s coming next. In the space of one week we could be quoting for a relatively small car showroom as we did today, tomorrow we will be quoting for huge mega mall, hotel and casino. Size does not matter as they say and interestingly my visually most pleasing lighting projects are small little projects. While you may spent relatively more time on these projects they somehow turn out to be hugely satisfying. Perhaps because in small projects you can really focus your attention, whilst in mega big projects like the mixed casino, mall and hotel development the lighting sort of drowns out in the multitude of so many things happening…

Tuesday 24 Perth – Royal progress
One of the projects I am really enjoying is the Palace hotel and it is making royal progress. The contractor has been awarded and a new tenant has been given the green light to start fitting out their allocated areas. The interesting thing for us now is that we are retained as the overall lighting consultant for the client and building owner to make sure everything is being implemented as per design specifications. At the same time the tenant’s fit out designer has approached us to become their lighting consultant as they know that whatever they will design it will have to be submitted to the building owner for approval, which for the lighting will then come back to me. So it makes sense for them to hire me as I will have to review my own design! I checked this with the owner and there was no objection nor conflict of interest, on the contrary…what more do I want! Design the lighting for the fit out space and then review my design to approve it…hmmmm…I wonder what my recommendation will be 🙂

Wednesday 25, Perth – pre warm up to PLDC warm up event
Prior to the PLDC warm up event in Sydney this Friday, which is held in conjunction with the opening of the brand-new IGuzzini showroom, Max IGuzzini and Alesaandro Montenari the Asia Pacific Business Development Manager visited Perth today. IGuzzini’s local agent, Mondoluce, organised a diner event to which some of the leading Perth lighting designers where invited. In fact a pre warm up to the Sydney PLDC warm up event and not surprisingly it was held in an Italian restaurant! J Afterwards we took the occasion to show Max and Alex some of the projects around Perth that were done with IGuzzini products. Our Fremantle cliff project and the Murdoch Artwall being one of them. Seeing pictures of projects is one thing but seeing the real thing in real life with your own eyes is a totally different experience! It makes us proud as the designers and but having the original equipment manufacturer present to see what their “babies” are achieving is a great moment for all!

Thursday 26 Perth – R&R
Max and myself have been good friends for many years so when I knew he was coming to Perth I made sure to be there so I could take him out to taste some of Perth’s way of life. That includes an early swim and breakfast at the one of Perth’s famous and beautiful beaches. Early in the morning (7am in this case) it is not yet too hot, the temperature is great, the water super inviting…when you follow that up with a breakfast at the local beach café you feel reborn and energised by the time you get back to office for the days work!. We had a 9.30am meeting to go and arrived there spirited and ready to roar! Nothing works better to fight jetlag!

Friday 26, Perth – Holy moly…
And now for something completely different…(as it happens I just finished reading John Cleese;s auto-biography “Anyhow”, a must read for any Monty Python fan…). Today I met up with a new client for the kick of meeting of a new project or projects I should say. We are on board to renovate the lighting of 3 major historical churches in Perth. All of them will be subject to Heritage Council approval when we prepare our lighting design and the funding will have to be approved by the church committee. For now we have a small budget to develop the design brief and work out the necessary methodology to upgrade the lighting to today’s technology and lighting standards including the necessary budgets required to implement it. Integrating the new lighting into the intricate fabric of the heritage interiors will be a challenge I look forward to, cant wait to get started on this one! Have a great weekend!