LIGHT TALK

The week that was June 1-5

Perth, weekend 6-7 June 2015 –

Monday 1^st June Perth – Photo op
One of the things that you need to do as a practice is to catalogue your projects for reference, so when your project is completed you have a good set of pictures to show off your hard work. Today is actually a public holiday both in Perth as well as in Singapore so I will keep this one short and jus share some of the pictures of our Subiaco project. Just some residential street art, but with high visual impact; another great cooperation with artist Rick Vermey.

Tuesday 2^nd June Perth – Prototyping continued
In a blog sometime ago I spoke about the importance of prototyping. Today we had the chance to inspect the first prototype of a pendant being developed for one of our heritage projects. It is one thing to work out everything on paper and do renderings to get a feel of the design, its integration in space, but a totally different one to see the actual thing in real life environment. In this particular case it is not so much the lighting effect as well as the spatial proportions that are critical. As it turned out the lighting effects were pretty close to expectations and with some minor adjustments that will be fine. The main thing that we discovered with the prototype is that the proportions need some serious adjustments. Originally designed around dimensions thought the best suitable to house the lighting components, the guts so to speak, the prototype showed that suspended in its intended environment is felt too “bulky”. We all agreed on how to render the pendant sleeker in appearance, more elegant and with some structural changes we will get a real nice end product. The art glass that we specified in the centre comes out really well and adds a great touch to the look and feel. It was a great exercise totally justifying the importance of prototyping these kind of applications…can’t wait to see the finished product…

Wednesday 3^rd June Perth – Safety protocols
One of the things that shows you in which part of the world you bare active are the site safety protocols. In general in Asia there are little to no safety protocols on site. Some developers may disagree but if I compare the safety protocols that apply on Australian worksites with those in Asia, moots recently when I was on site in Kuala Lumpur and Vietnam, it is clear that Australia applies strict safety protocols. Where in Asia I can virtually walk up the site without any safety prevention gear, perhaps a safety helmet here and there, most work sites in Australia don’t even let you on site without a proper safety guidelines induction. Big mining sites for instance have induction “seminars” that you have to attend before you can even get close to the site. These induction programs may take one hour to half a day depending what your scope of work is. Accessing the site further requires safety shoes, helmets, sometimes glasses and special clothing. Our prototype review yesterday involved getting on site as the pendant was there. Anyone accessing the site for the first time had to follow a 5-10 mins induction “course” in which general protocol, safety procedures and emergency evacuation was explained. Subsequently everyone was issued a safety helmet and a safety luminescent bright yellow jacket which was labelled “visitor”, to make sure everyone could see you a “foreign intruder” like a new comer not really belonging there J. Though it may seem over the top for a simple prototype review, the fact is that there a strict safety laws in force and non-compliance may put the site contractor in trouble.

 

Thursday 4^th June Perth – Another photo op Our Raffles Hotel project in Jakarta, bar a few areas still to be completed in phase 2, starts to look very marketable with some great professional photographs taken. This time we share the photographs taken by HBA, the lead interior designer on this project who took the time to send their photographer to catalogue the completed areas of the hotel for their own marketing purpose. We thankfully reproduce the some of the pictures with thanks and credits to HBA for a great job.

 

Friday 5^th June Perth – Back door politics There are days that you want to eat your hat in frustration…today was such day. Without naming names or project I do wish to share this because it is something that many of you may recognise as something that has happened to you as well. This in regards to a very prestigious project in a country that prides itself for the fact that there is little to no corruption. For a couple of month we have been liaising with the interior designer of this project, who has been working on this project already since a while. The client, a government organisation with big financial means, has been a very poor paymaster and eventhough the project is a public landmark project, refuses to pay the dollars that you would professionally expect for a project of this stature. We, keen to get our name on the board for this, even offered our services for free (I don’t really do that in general, but the nature and type of application is one we keenly wish to get involved with). The architect who was asked to take care of the lighting as part of his scope, however, struggling to get payments out of the client, decided to ask a supplier to help him with the lighting design, not in the least so he could get a commission no doubt to cover him due to the lack of payment from the client. The supplier then turned to a young lighting designer upstart company for the design work. And that is what enraged/ frustrated me. In the end eventhough I offered my services for free, the architect was worried he would not be able to get a commission from the lighting supplier as I would have certainly blocked that and now a young upstart company will see its name attached to this project and I am just left by the roadside. No hard feelings to the young designers, they gladly took this opportunity (and will no doubt be paid by the supplier later), but the irony is that most likely the client in its stinginess will end up paying more as the product cost will have to include the cover for architect and lighting designer! Bummer!

Have a great weekend

The week that was…

07. June 2015 by Martin Klaasen
Categories: city beautification, light and art, light watch, lighting and culture, lighting design, lighting design practice | Leave a comment