The week that was 30th May – 3rd June 2016

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The week that was 30th May – 3rd June 2016

Singapore – Mumbai –– Singapore, Weekend 4-5 June 2016

Monday and Tuesday were spent in the Singapore office with the usual project meetings, then the rest of the week in Mumbai for the kick of meeting of new project. My new director of projects was meanwhile in Anji to assist in the testing and commissioning of our hotel project there. A tough but well executed task as nothing is really to specifications leaving little room and joy for success at this stage. I reported on this project in one of my previous blog. A longer term plan has been proposed to bring the lighting and dimming installation up to standards. An interesting point to note is that the light fittings procured by the client without our involvement more than 2 years ago have now run out of warranty, basically on the day of opening…something to ponder on for future designs as warranty often starts from the day of procurement and generally not on the day of the start of actual operation!

In one of our Singapore projects we are doing our due diligence by doing visual mock ups to ascertain the lighting effect is as desired and most of all to support our client in the decision making. The lighting effect was as predicted and the client agreed and committed to go ahead. More tests will be carried out next week on some of the other lighting effects as the overall procurement cost for the lighting will be close to a million dollars and we want to make sure it is money well spent.

I also managed to complete my presentation for my guest speaking appearance at the Guangzhou Light Fair next week and sent the related abstract and speaker info to the organisers (Frankfurt Messe Hong Kong) for which they were chasing me for some time. My excuse being my late inclusion to the program and my heavy travel schedule :). More about this event next week. For those who will be in Guangzhou next week please do come and visit our CLDA activities. I am not sure of the venue(s) but I am sure it can be found without too much difficulty.

Mumbai
There is a long history and even a bit of a conspiracy theory in the project that we kicked off in Mumbai this week. The client is one that I worked for on several projects a couple of years ago. Only one (Goa) got completed to great acclaim, but the others got aborted prematurely when my client had an unexpected and unwanted run in with the law which led him to keep his head down for a few years. The story made headlines at the time but as always with the passing of time the story disappeared from the front pages and people got consumed with other news. He is now back with a vengeance reanimating the feature projects that he had had to abort at the time. He has re-assembled most of the “old” team including ourselves.

The conspiracy part is that he took the fall for the bigger boys at the time and they now repay the “debt” by injecting their support in the reanimation of these projects. Of course that is just hearsay and I have no means nor interest to confirm this. For me I am happy to see him back in full swing with a team that feels a bit like family and with whom I have some great memories. The “reunion” was joyous and I think everyone was happy that the unfortunate episode was behind us with full focus on creating a great project ahead. Our meetings were held at one of the clients head offices with the usual Mumbai traffic jams providing for more familiar ingredients. Two days of presentations and workshops with all key consultants were very fruitful and bode well for the success of the project. It is going to be a fast track project so we expect to be back within the next couple of weeks already.

Light Talk
To my knowledge I was the first to coin the “Light Talk” heading and over time I have found many others (trying to) using it. Some lighting magazines started to use similar headings for regular features but on my intervention and requests changed it in “Talking Light” or “Lighting Talk” in acknowledgement. This week to my surprise, I found a lighting manufacturer (Ligman) naming one of their new product ranges “Light Talk”. Of course I don’t think that I was the stimulator to their name choice, but in a way it is a nice confirmation that there is something in the name that resonates in people. That (my) “Light Talk” can be inspirational was pleasantly brought to my attention by one of our friendly Chinese suppliers, who on site in Yangshuo last week, confided in me that they religiously followed my blog with the aim to better understand the lighting designer’s mind and improve their products and services accordingly. Thanks for sharing Hidden, these are the kind of feedbacks that motivates me to keep going with the blog.

Have a great weekend.