Paperless lighting design
Perth 19th September 2010
Weekends are always good times to reflect back, relax and dream away to the future, sipping a drink on a sunny terrace…I blogged about our dependency to the internet some days ago but really the way we are going is most probably towards a paperless world. Can lighting design be done without paper? I am an old school designer and like my pen and paper to sketch and draw but kids growing up in this modern world probably don’t even know anymore how to free hand sketch? They are so used to software programs that help them create the wildest images and ideas. For me, I still depend heavily on people who know how to operate computer programs such as Photoshop, AutoCAD or Dialux, to name a few.
We have to go with the times, don’t we? So the printed drawing copies are gradually making way for the lectronic versions, we hardly send “hard” copies anymore, but can we do with a paperless office? Let’see…
Conceptual design; we can do it all by computer, design, renderings, images, all put together into a powerpoint presentation for the client and the rest of the team. Distribution by email or by CD rom. Any one who wants a hard copy takes care of it themselves. Design development and technical documentation the same thing. We can draw up all the plans, lighting details and specifications by computer and distribute them to the project team. Where it gets a bit more difficult is the implementation on site. Contractors like to use drawings, which they paste on the walls for reference. But I can see that change in the near future with IPAD like devices making hard copy drawings soon a thing of the past. They will have their portable drawing “portals” , wireless of course, that will have the latest updates. At the commissioning stage the same devices will serve as references for compliance and in some cases be able to program the lighting straight from files.
So it is very likely the lighting design future will be paperless. With all project consultants possibly working with project dedicated laptops or IPAD systems all linked in through cyberspace. Whenever someone changes, updates or revises the design is instantly updated and everyone has the latest versions. There will be no excuses that we haven’t received the latest update! .
Accounts!
Perth, 18th September 2010
This is one side of the business that needs to be done but which not necessarily is something we excel at or enjoy doing… 🙂 Though I am relatively good with numbers (I am known to spot mistakes in accountants tabulations) I am always dreading the accounting side of the business. However it is an absolute necessity and today was one of those days that I spent time with my accountant to go through all the books and make sure that our figures are properly consolidated in the accounts. As a tax registered company we have to submit our tax returns like any other business for each financial year. The thing is that as a small practice we do not employ a full time accountant, so it comes down to discipline in recording and regularly updating the “books”. Each of our offices has a dedicated project administrator who keeps track of all invoicing and payments, but it still needs to be properly converted and reconciled in the official company accounts.
In Australia our financial year runs from July to June, but in China for instance it runs from January to December. That complicates matters at times when we consider our intercompany dealings, but in general each office (country) runs as an independent financial entity. Our professional lighting design business is an international business with projects all over the world and so are the accounts for our project income and expenses! We for instance have project fees in four different currencies (Australian, Singapore and US Dollars as well as Chinese Reminbi) which attract exchange rate issues, international bank transfer charges and withholding taxes and GST when applicable. Add to that project and payments received can be in one country (China for instance), while the design work is done in another country (Singapore or Australia) having to add intercompany reconciliation into the mix.
As I was going through all the figures today, I realize how important it is to keep things simple for our own sanity! Unfortunately due to the nature of our business and sensitivity to the economy (read: clients cash flow), our income is very inconsistent. Hence the importance to keep abreast of our own cash flow position and estimated financial outlook as much as we can.
One of my friends, an experienced company director himself, once told me, income may vary, but overheads are guaranteed!
Cyber attack!
Perth 17th September 2010
It is one of those things that has become part of our daily life, whether we like it or not and one that can really frustrate us enormously considering how much we depend on cyber space for our work. This morning when I switched on my laptop I noticed our company email network was not working so I contacted our admin to see what was going on. We got a reply from the IT guys that our service provider was under cyber-attack (!) which was taking up the full band width and as such was incapacitating our network. But not to worry they would have it under control within half an hour. It was apparently a regular thing to happen…what? Pretty scary I thought. Of course the cyber bullies were attacking our service provider, not our company (at least I like to think so) but the idea by itself was quite disturbing. Who in his right frame of mind enjoys these kinds of things??
Eventually they got it back under control but it reminded me how much we nowadays depend on the internet in our lighting design business. All communication really use email, skype or other forms like teleconferencing. Our business has nearly moved to being paperless when it comes to documentation and communication. Who still uses a fax, let alone a telex machine? Do those actually still exist?
All our “machines” nowadays have to have virus protection, individually on our computer or laptop as well as firewalls in our office network systems. Still we can be “attacked” apparently so this raises the need to make sure we have all our company info backed-up just in case it all coms crashing down. Bigger companies do that on a daily basis I understand, in our case I believe it only happens weekly, but still! Because of this paperless world and the ease of creating and sending data around we are actually dealing with much more data than in the old days.
Just last week I was queuing up for immigration at an Indian airport when their computer system went down. It took half an hour before the system was somehow rebooted and working again. We used to do it without computers before…but this generation is so “logged-in” with computers that when they break down the world comes to a halt!
Heritage lighting
Perth 16th September 2010
I always find lighting for heritage building projects very exciting and challenging. Interestingly this type of lighting applications seem to happen more in ‘developped” countries rather than in emerging economies, at least that is my experience. I have done quite some heritage projects over the years of which several here in Australia but also iconic hotels like the Raffles Hotel in Singapore and the Majapahit Hotel in Surabaya, Indonesia. But in Asia it is otherwise not such frequent project happening.
Currently I am working on a façade lighting of an old heritage building in Perth and there is a lot more creative thinking required then for a new building. The reasons being manifold. First there is the integrity of the building architecture. Adding floodlights and the like inconsiderately would affect the period look of the building so the first and foremost challenge is to find ways to integrate lighting without the actual light fitting becoming a physical and visible part of the building. Unfortunately this is not always being applied, as one of the heritage churches here in the city where someone clearly added light fittings fixed on to the façade without any consideration. Though admittedly the night time effect is nice, the day time appearance is horrendous… a real shame and clear demonstration of a lighting design mal practice as far as I am concerned. I cannot understand how that was approved.
The limitations that we often face in heritage buildings is that we are not always allowed to touch or break the building fabric, it being of heritage value. With fabric I mean wall finishes for instances. This means that we need to find ulterior ways to fix the lights to the building and get the power to these lights, leaving the original materials in tact! But that is the exciting part I guess where it challenges our creative thinking.
Then there is the use of modern technology that may not be commensurate with the history of the building. We have to conceal modern technology LED or Compact Fluorescent lamps out of sight or into period type fixtures making it really about the lighting effects and validating the building and its history.
The budget dilemma
Perth 15th September 2010
I want to talk a bit more about budgets as it is a recurring major issue in practically all our projects. Clients always want to spent less and get more, who doesn’t? My specific issue today is that we tend to always design in a “grand” way as we generally don’t get to know the clients budget until we actually come up with the costs of the design. Most of them don’t really have one and when it comes to the stage of financial decisions they look at the bottom line and not necessarily at the value for money aspect. From my experience this is mostly the result of ignorance by quantity surveyors and electrical engineers who have no clue how to cost lighting.
Today again I was confronted with a project in which the budget came out way over the figure that we had anticipated as a realistic amount the client would accept. So it is back to the drawing board to see how we can manage the costs. I want to state that managing the costs does not mean sacrificing the quality, but more at resizing and redesigning the lighting effects. It is often a fine line to balance. Quality in my opinion can be divided in class A, B and C, where A is the luxury top quality brand, B is the basic durable quality brand and C is the dodgy (not acceptable) type of quality brand. So one of our options is “downsizing” where we may have to decide to switch some light fittings from type A to B or from a Rolls Royce to a Toyota to use a metaphor. This can be done in relation to the importance of areas. Though we would love to have a Rolls Royce we may not need it everywhere…
Then there is a good relook at the lighting effects. Do we have the right balance of light, have we overdone it? Lighting design is as much about what to light as about what NOT to light. Containing our urge to put lights everywhere is generally our biggest challenge! I had a big hard look again at some of the big ticket cost items and decided that there were some alternative and more cost effective ways. Sometimes you need to go all the way before going back to find the best solution!
Flexi lighting panels
Perth, 14th September 2010
Technology is progressing so fast and most of all is becoming so small and compact that it can be integrated in the smallest and thinnest objects and materials. We have already seen LED lights being embedded into glass panels, etc, but this morning I saw solar panels made of flexible materials, so called roll up solar panels, an obvious advantage for people on the move as it can be rolled up, packed and easy transported. It has probably been around for a while but is now reaching a greater public in a more affordable way.
This is also the future for lighting, surely. LED’s can be embedded in razor thin, paper like sheets, possibly combined with solar and we have a totally self-supportive, renewable energy/ lighting system, that can be portable too. A bit like the little solar pocket calculators, you can use it nearly anywhere there is a bit of light. If they can manage the size of the battery storage units I would think that solar LED lights can be usable day and night anywhere. Put that into a flexible panel form and you have a very versatile system. It can be configured as a light source but also as multi-media screen (electronic newspaper) and with additional wireless technology the news can be updated as you read! Surely the researchers and innovators have already worked this one out. It is just a matter of it being commercially viable as with all new technologies.
But interesting for us as lighting designers would be how we can use its flexibility in applying lighting effects. For one it could be wrapped around a column used as wall paper and if it works on transparent materials be applied on windows. That is a part that really intrigues me. Windows that let natural daylight in during the day but turn into artificial light sources at night. Add in the mix the control of colour and intensity and potentially we will have surface finishes that can be changed in brightness and color instantly (or gradually) accordong to need.
I would not be surprised that in the future the down light as we know it will have been gradually replaced by paper thin light sheets…time will tell.
Success and failure
Perth 13th September 2010
Back in Australia to follow up on some of our project activities. Every time I am back, I really appreciate the climate and lifestyle, such a contrast with busy Shanghai and hot/humid Singapore….
In our business we deal with success and failure. We feel good when things go well, have appreciative clients and receive nice feedback about our work or our company. We feel bad when things don’t go as planned, we have unhappy clients and hear negative talk about it. While we generally have no problems dealing with the happy side of work (though not everyone knows how to deal with success) it is dealing with failure and rejection that is the tougher part.
Today one of my projects got cancelled due to lack of funds. A real shame as I had really poured in all my energy in it as I really liked this project. I know it has nothing to do with me, but somehow we tend to associate these things with a failure by ourselves. My consolation is that the client was really happy with my efforts, and despite the cancelation will pay me for all work done. Some goodwill planted for the future hopefully 🙂
The same happens when we tender for projects and then get rejected or not selected. When we felt good about our submission our first thought often is whether there was something wrong with our bid or proposal? If it is a price issue at least we can accept, but if it is about quality and merits it becomes much harder. I generally enquire about the reasons so we can learn for future submissions… was it perceived lack of experience, no local office, quality of the submission, etc. But often we don’t get even that feedback, we don’t hear anything at all and hear via others that the project was awarded to someone else.
How to deal with it? First of all be confident about yourself. A rejection does not mean that you are not good enough. It just means the client has decided to use someone else. Someone who’s profile and proposal suits the client better. Somebody once said the more rejections the closer you get to being selected for the next job… There is always another bus around the corner…
Green initiatives
Singapore 12th September 2010
Some subjects become repetitive, but then so is our life! I am not talking about ground hog day, but about issues regarding lighting and more specifically those “green” ones to safeguard our environment. I have blogged about it before, but as it is a subject close to everyone’s mind nowadays it is not surprising it keeps popping up. The South Australian government recently reported back on the progress and success of their green initiatives. The “green” movement is definitely breaking through in all layers of the society and fast becoming an accepted must have attitude for any developer or government authority.
The lighting related measures that have proven to be very successful in South Australia are the so called solar panel feed in scheme and the tax rebates on renewable energy projects. The newspaper reports that home owners who have installed solar panels on their homes get paid according to how much power they feedback to the states grid (I blogged before about the more equal payments being received for power feedbacks). According to the latest statistics the report says about 250 new solar installations are starting up every week! But the government does its part as well. The solar panels that were installed on the Adelaide Event and Exhibition Centre are now an official “power station” apparently producing 1 megawatt of electricity at any time! They target to have about 1/3 of the state’s electricity come from renewable resources within the next 10 years.
There are some more measures that relate to lighting such as solar passive design (daylight) and the use of sunlight reflecting materials as needed. Obviously low wattage light sources will also positively contribute to the air-conditioning systems. But I think that specifically tax rebates are a great way to attract not only developers but also the private sector to install renewable energy systems, such as solar and wind energy. We always feel we pay too much tax.
All these initiatives, some better working and more creative then others are gradually shaping our new world. It will be interesting to see how we look back on all these initiatives 20 years down the road…
9/11
Singapore 11th September 2010
We can safely say that the events of 9/11, now 9 years ago, have left a lasting impact on the world. The numbers 9/11 have become associated with terrorism and practically everyone who lived the moment the tragedy happened will forever remember the images. The impact is felt everywhere, not only for those who travel (airport security) but even on the ground when entering hotels, office towers and big shopping malls. You can’t really just walk into those spaces anymore without having to go through some form of security check. Such a shame that the world has come to this…
In our daily work we feel it too! I am not talking about the travel (where are the good old times you could spend some time with the captain in the cockpit?) but about our actual lighting design work. Nowadays most of our projects have bomb shelters, security check points at hotel entrances, shopping mall, etc. All this is now an integral part of new commercial developments. The other day I visited a residential property and was shown how one room was actually a bomb shelter, with a huge metal door as in a bank safe…how horrible is that?
So on one hand we find ourselves designing lighting for a greener and more sustainable world, while on the other hand we have to design lighting to comply with higher safety and security standards. Somehow that seems at odds with each other, isn’t it? What’s next? We may get lighting control systems that need facial recognition before it can be activated, motion/camera sensors that not only activate lighting according to peoples presence but at the same time report back your presence in that space to some central security office. Your mobile phone already acts like a GPS system so tracking of people is easy. There have been several Hollywood movies where intelligence agencies are able to follow your every move, know your every detail, trace your every communication, whether phone, email, etc. For sure it is happening in the real world, we just don’t know at what scale.
Don’t be surprised if you see down lights with integrated camera’s coming up and lighting control systems that report back your every move…it feels like we are gradually becoming part of a big surreal movie…unfortunately it is the reality…
Advertising (2)
Singapore 10th September 2010
A while ago I blogged about advertising and how it works (or not) for us lighting designers. Today I was drawn back to this aspect through a different angle, real estate project advertisement. Don’t they know how to make it look tantalizing and inviting? Specifically the artist renderings on how the project is going to look like seem to take a lot of liberty in projecting the best angle of view, conveniently leaving out other buildings and ugly looking structures. There is one project just around the corner from our office that shows the project in the middle of greenery, with hardly any building around, while the truth is of course the other way around. Another is shown as virtually on the beach with fantastic sea views, while the reality is that the location is nearly 1km away from the beach. Both advertise their location as being “minutes away from the CBD”…on a bad traffic day it takes about 45 minutes…they didn’t really lie, it’s just the way they word it.
Lighting manufacturers have similar ways to tempt us in buying/ specifying their products. Typical issues with LED for instance, are the proclaimed lifespan with still some out there claiming 100,000 hrs! Energy saving is another one that vendors like to trumpet about. The general public may buy it but we have quickly learned to punch a hole in these stories as most of the time they are not comparing apples with apples, making their sales story look much more attractive then the reality. Conveniently leaving out the effect of colour temperature on the lumen output performance is an issue that most of the time only comes up if we ask about it!
The positive side of all this is that it allows us to separate the good (experienced/ knowledgeable) guys from the rest of the pack. Those who know their stuff and do not try to bullshit us with lame product info are the ones we appreciate as they are in it to help us first. They have the long term approach as they know we will remember them when we next need professional help with the specification of our lighting products.
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