The week that was 12-16 October
Istanbul, weekend 17-18th October 2015
Monday 12th October, Singapore – United front and team work One of the key factors of successful project work is team work. It seems a logical statement but in designers world we generally deal with lots of (big) ego’s and cooperative teamwork where cooperative teamwork is not necessarily on the menu. This means these designers just do their own high horse approach thing and expect others to take and deal with it. That may result in something good at the end but in my experience there are always casualties along the way. In my practice I make it a point that any design concept for instance is coordinated with the principal team members before we present anything to a client. This serves many purposes; first of all it shows the client that you are united in your approach as nothing is worse in my opinion then presenting your concept and getting questioned by your own project team members in front of your client! But also towards your fellow designers and operator if involved, it shows respect and cooperation to value their design intents as well. Today I had initiated such meeting in Singapore and I felt it helped very much create a bonding between us, but most of all I left the meeting knowing that I had their full support for our proposed lighting design concept.
Tuesday 13th October, Singapore – Catching up A large part of developing a successful practice revolves around relationships; you never know where your next project may come from, so maintaining your relationships on all levels and cross borders is crucial. In the same spirit I hardly ever close my door on manufacturers who want to visit me or catch up with my team. They are not just “suppliers” they are the providers of the lifeline of our work; the products we specify! Keeping up with the latest innovations is elementary and good relationships make good friends and with that potentially new contacts and business opportunities. In between project preparation work for my upcoming trips to Vietnam and Turkey later in the week I made time to catch up with an unscheduled visitor today, a supplier from another country who happened to be in Singapore. We have and are working on some projects. Not planned, not scheduled this spontaneous catch up turned out nice not only for catching up with each other but also for the potential new projects that came out of our discussions!
Wednesday 14th October, Singapore – HCMC, Vietnam – Reviewing your competitor It does not happen often but when it does it is always an opportunity to be taken with both hands. The operator from one of my projects was handed lighting design specifications from one of my overseas competitors on another project and felt highly uncomfortable with what he saw. Concerned about how his hotel was going to look like he asked me to review and give me his opinion. This is not uncommon and for all I know mine may have been given to others to review, who knows. To me it shows my operators confidence in my services and our professional approach to lighting and in return offers me the opportunity to see how some of my competitors go about their job. After reviewing I could understand the operators concern…the specification looked like it had been put together by a local supplier and in all eventuality it probably was. Generic descriptions without specific performance or quality data with by the looks of it a non-descript picture of a fitting that could be from anywhere. In short the specification left the door wide open for any type of interpretation. I was shocked to see it and don’t understand how a lighting design practice can get away with that! It strengthened my belief that we are doing a professional job, but it left me wondering how these kind of “lighting design” practices get appointed in the first place!
Thursday 15th October, HCMC, Vietnam – Staying out of the blame game? After arriving in HCMC late last night, we are in meetings all day today with a full consultant’s team in attendance. We were first of the hook with our presentation (thank god!) and presented to a fresh and expecting crowd. We had the chance that the actual big boss himself was present, a rare occasion as he generally leaves it to his team. As he only speaks Vietnamese my presentation had to be translated along the way, but from his approving nods I could see he liked what he saw. At the end his translator confirmed that but impressed that he wanted to make sure my lighting design was conform the high end Starwood standards, but that I had to achieve that at the lowest possible budget! Where have I heard that before. The reason I was happy to kick off the meeting is because the “real” meeting was going to be a multiple cat fight between client, project manager, lead consultant and hotel operator. It had appeared that the PM had only recently properly looked at the drawing and discovered that the minimum facilities area as required by the operator in terms of GFA where way less then the designed GFA by the lead consultant. Of course the facilities program form the operator are net areas and do not include connecting corridors and outdoor balconies and the like. But the cost of the project ultimately is determined by the actual built up areas. It now seemed that the client had based its financing on the net areas only and now confronted by the reality of nearly double the costs was looking to blame the lead consultant. Of course they had the area figures all along and where updated time again about design changes, but for some reason never had properly looked at it. “Discovering” this at this stage (we are about to move in construction phase) is a bit late in the piece and we can only suspect that the PM never really looked at it or even shared it with the owner. Now to save face we found ourselves in a battle royal most of the day where each was trying to blame the other. This time I was happy to be a bystander and most of all that I had been able to present and get my concept approved before moods soured.
Friday 16th October, Istanbul – Jet-setting After a 3 hour transit in Singapore last night I have landed in Istanbul for a 4 day design workshop for another project here. On arrival we transited to the Kabetas pier were we hopped on the owners motor yacht to make the 1 hour journey by boat to the island site. Life a s a designer is certainly varied and multi-facetted, where you can be in one place one day and half way around the globe the next. This is one of the projects I am really enjoying as the team is professional and respectful and a delight to work with. Not only that they take care of you to the smallest detail and in the process make you feel comfortable and motivated to do a good job. On arrival we dived straight into our meetings, the first of 4 days of intensive design workshops which will take us all the way to Monday. We did our presentations, created many lighting design sketches and overall had a very creative day.
More next week…I got work to do, not sure when I will have time to upload the blog 🙂
Have a great weekend ahead.
The week that was
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