It can’t be done?
Singapore 30th August 2010
How often don’t we hear: “It can’t be done?” I certainly come across it all the time, mostly from contractors, sometimes from other product manufacturers. It happens generally when we need to add lighting to an existing structure or product and our proposed lighting will mean changes to the original design of the structure or product. I am facing two of those situations right now and it will take our initiative to make it work otherwise the answer will remain no. Most of the time these negative answers are driven by the lack of willingness to look for a solution because of the extra work and potential extra costs involved.
In a hotel project we have a situation where the contractor advised the client that the dome structure over the lobby cannot take the extra load (weight) of our lighting. Now the lighting design and details have been known to the project team, including the structural engineers, for more than a year, so I suspect that someone in the structural engineering department has stuffed up. Can’t prove it of course but really we are only talking about some integrated linear LED and Cold Cathode lighting systems. Surely the additional load will not be cause to a dome collapse. Specifically the weight of the transformers and drivers seem an issue. No one seem willing to look for a solution (as the lighting effect is a major part of the overall lobby concept). I am not sure if there will be an answer but locating the gear away from the dome seems to be one direction to follow. But then I will probably hear that we have a problem with the cabling…anything to avoid the extra work.
In another (residential) project we are looking at adding external lighting to an elevator. It is not a normal elevator, but a car elevator in a high rise building, allowing you to park your car at your front (penthouse) door all the way up, 100m in the sky. The car elevator is a highly technical structure, from my understanding a world first. But adding the lighting to the structure initially found only resistance. Today after a highly creative exchange of ideas it looks like we have swung their minds and we are all looking at “doing” it. All it took was just a positive mind and a willingness to find a solution…
Expansion and diversity
Singapore 29th August 2010
Having a lighting design practice is relatively simple when it’s you, maybe with a few staff operating from one office location. But as you grow and become more in demand you start expanding as a logical consequence in order to support the demands of the projects you have in hand. But our business is very much tied in with and sensitive to the world economy so we have to be mindful when expanding and diversifying knowing that there are ups and downs. I lived through the Asian economy crash of 97 and more recently the one from 2008. What is wisdom? What lessons did we learn? What is the best set up for a lighting design practice to weather all economic situations?
In 97 I was relatively inexperienced, with plenty of projects, but in a very narrow market, mostly hospitality and commercial developments all located in and around Singapore with only one project in China. As a result the economy crash hit me very hard and pushed me to the edge of bankruptcy. I got back up on my feet and today China is my biggest market with India second and further projects from Australia all the way to Eastern Europe. Because of the diversity in our project markets, I can say now that our China and India projects pulled us through the recent economy crisis. We were able to maintain our staff capacity though had to tighten our belts.
Right now we are facing the dilemma on whether to expand or not. Expand in terms of staff, expand in terms of office locations and diversify in terms of project applications. Right now we operate from Australia, Singapore and China, but do we need more offices (clients always push for a local office)? The longer I am in this business, the more I start believing that less is more. A good lighting designer need to be involved in the project from start to finish. I know I can’t run 30 projects as a lighting designer, something has to give. So expansion means finding equally qualified lighting designers who can fully manage a project for me from start to finish while delivering the quality expected.
Those qualified lighting designers I know run their own business, those who potentially could still have a long way to go. So maybe expansion is not the way…?
When money is everything
Singapore 28th August 2010
I guess we all know the saying that money does not make you happy, but it is damn easier to be unhappy with a lot of money then without…and it is damn easier to do things when you have money…Where am I going with this?…In most of our projects the bottom line is really the money or the budget. On Friday I attended a design coordination meeting with the client in which so far we only had spoken the design concept language. But with everyone happy and enthusiastic about the concept it was time to get down to business…the bottom line. We had invited the client’s contractor to quote for the supply and installation works. That is when we all came crashing down from the euphoria of the concept. The cost would be more than 4 times the budget! (It would have been nice to have known the budget on forehand but as always the client tells you they don’t have one until you tell them what it will cost!)
So what to do now? Everyone loves the concept (we are working on one of the corporate lounges for the upcoming F1 night race in Singapore) but how to meet the budget. It is back to the drawing board obviously with the time clock ticking. And that is where creativity and problem solving experience is crucial together with a healthy dose of compromise. We like our concept to be perfect and of the highest quality, but at times we have to realize that there are other priorities and that perfectionism comes at a price.
I am confident that we will be able to create something memorable for the event within the budget, maybe slightly over, but it will mean looking at each and every component of the lighting design and weigh its importance within the overall concept, look at the numbers and fine tune the end result.
In our world money is everything. Somebody needs to pay for the design and most of the time people are always in the business of wanting more for less…
Send simplicity
Singapore 27th August 2010
I think it is a slogan from one of the big manufacturers, but today I was brought back to earth during a key presentation to one of my clients with sense and simplicity. Though it came unexpectedly and totally out of left field, the client made total sense when he questioned the use of LED down lights in my design. Without going too much into details we had designed the lighting for a public train station mostly on LED lighting with what we thought was the full backing of the client for this approach. The usual “green” requirements such as energy saving, watts per square meter, acceptable return on investment, etc.
We had done our comparison of the LED down lights with compact fluorescent down lights, a logical thought isn’t it, and the results of our study showed that LED was the best solution with return on the extra investment within the 3 years. The latest modern technology, excellent performance and overall financial sense with as bonus environmentally friendly lighting systems.
Until the client asked me during my presentation why we had not considered T5 fluorescent lighting. He admitted that he was interested in using LED where appropriate but that did not mean that the whole station had to be designed on LED. His reasoning was that T5 fluorescent was still one of the most efficient and economical systems available to create general lighting and since the station was basically a functional application, why not use T5? If we were so adamant that LED was the solution how did it stack up to T5? My first thought was to justify and defend my choice of LED that it was not really a comparable lighting system that it had a totally different lighting feel, etc, but then I realized that he had a point, that T5 had worked well for decades and still was the choice lighting system for many general lighting solutions.
I promised him to go back to my drawing board and look at a technical comparison between LED down lights and T5 linear systems and report back to him. Even though the lighting effects are fairly different there may certainly be some areas in which the conventional T5 still delivers better result than T5! I still have lots of arguments for LED but at least I owe him the comparison.
Sense and simplicity.
The Lighting Brand Store
Singapore 26th August 2010
Lighting is moving main stream big time. With LED products becoming also more consumer oriented we see a shift happening where architectural lighting and related lighting products are moving to a more public domain and made more user friendly for the general consumer. LED’s are becoming the trendy thing to have, specifically the color changing types which are sold as mood makers and ambiance creators.
I am mentioning this as Philips is opening its first brand store in Singapore (the Philips Lighting Brand Store) much in line with the Apple I-stores and others. I have yet to visit it so I am just going by my own thoughts at this point of time. And if the Brand Store alone is not enough, the launch has been given added “impact” by having Twitter feeds (www.twitter.com/PLstore) as well as being on Facebook (www.facebook.com/PLstore) to communicate about its promotions in today’s world. It works for Apple, it works for Ferrari, it works for Gucci, why not for lighting? The combination with modern internet technology for communication such as Twitter and Facebook only adds to the trendy image. I have tried Twitter, but it’s not for me, my daughters have been urging me to join Facebook, but again it is too much on top of my daily email communications. But it works for many others! I am managing this blog, that is already something trendy, isn’t it? It is part of this new world…
The thing with lighting nowadays is that it has a lot of new features to offer which starts to make it interesting for the general public. I mentioned the color dynamics for mood and ambiance, but there is also lighting for health which is going to be a big thing of the future. With the new generation miniature LED technology it is now also possible to integrate lighting in furniture, appliances and even clothing. Easy to see that lighting manufacturers like Philips move into the multi-billion consumer market. The newly created “lighting products” are so becoming unique must have items. Combine this with the multimedia features that LED can offer and it is easy to see how lighting products can become a main stream must have branded product…only available in the Brand Store!
Problem solving
Guangzhou 25th August 2010
I am writing this while in transit in Guangzhou, China, as far as I am concerned one of the lousiest big city airports in China. It is so big and has such bad signage that you lose kilo’s walking around in frustration trying to find your way. No wonder my ticketing agent told me the airport requires a minimum 3 hours transit time! I am in for at least 4 hours if there is no major delay, something you can count on will happen… while I am at it.. the lighting is lousy as well. Though I spotted some (what looked like real) Targetti fixtures, in general the lighting levels are insufficient, inconsistent, glary and with a lot of reflective glare and in my opinion badly laid out. I know it is easy to criticize also I don’t know the history, so who ever lighting designer did this, it is not personal! I know how these projects can go totally out of hand! I have plenty such experiences.
Which brings me to the subject of problem solving…life is not so much determined by the problems that are happening to us, but by the way we react to it. As lighting designer we are continuously confronted with challenges, deadlines just being one of them. Key is how we confront those challenges (note I am calling it a challenge rather than a problem!) and the steps we take to resolving a situation.
The first step is the emotional reaction. People sometimes say nasty things, sometimes they mean it, most of the time it is just an emotional reaction on the spur of the moment. A tit for tat reaction generally does not work, as it results most of the time in an aggravated situation. In this process we need to bear in mind the hierarchical position of the person you are dealing with. Thought the person maybe an @#$%hole, he maybe the project manager or the client’s big boss. He may be a contractor who needs telling of. You may think you deserve respect, but you need to see the situation from a total perspective not just yours. So listen first, acknowledge the complaint or criticism, certainly in countries where loss of face plays an important role.
So your second step, the actual physical reaction, will basically determine your future time and again. Where there is the need you can build your case and justify your actions, but very often acknowledging the situation goes a long way in resolving it, rather than bulldozing your way through. A commonly agreed solution brings peace. It is much nicer to work with interior designers, architects and clients that feel acknowledged and supported…life is much more pleasant in the end even though we go through rough patches first…..
PS: Just passed the mark of 300 blogs!
It’s not me!
Sanya, Hainan 24th August 2010
Design and site coordination meetings can be quite interesting and revealing. I have just completed another such day where the foreign consultants meet the local team (client, local design institute, local architect, electrical and structural engineers) and cross swords about the design and its implementation on site. This is about a 5 star hotel resort, one of the many going up in Sanya.
The first issue is generally the mock up room. Like in any hotel project a model room (or mock up room) is build to make sure the whole concept (interiors, lighting, etc) works as generally hundreds of rooms will be built as part of the hotel, so getting it right is crucial. The “confrontation” if I may call it that way, is always about what we have specified and what actually is being installed. For several reasons (local availability, cost savings and not to forget kickbacks from local suppliers) it generally ends up quite different from your design let alone your expectation, giving rise to a lot of frustration. That is where suddenly no-one is responsible…I didn’t do it…its not me! But someone must have made the decision to replace it.
Then there is the issue of old drawings or no follow up. We sent drawings to the client and site team, but when we come for a meeting it is like they just started looking at them. That is the good scenario. Most of the time you find out that they are working on previous issues or that you have been working on old drawings as they did not update you…either way an interesting discussion as again there seems to be no one to blame.
A real beauty is when you find out that your drawings do not match with the actual site situation or that certain site conditions were not communicated to you as it means that all your design work was in vain forcing you to rework that design. Again no one is home when it comes to taking ownership as nobody really likes to admit making mistakes in this business…
There were not many lighting design issues today but it was an interesting meeting to watch nevertheless… 🙂
Moon lighting
Sanya, Hainan 23rd August 2010
On the way to Hainan a tropical island in the South of China, I read a report about the Youth Olympic Games in Singapore where they claim to have held the first ever open air night time diving event. Under the heading “diving under moonlight” it gave some accounts from the sportsmen and their experience. Now obviously it was not really held under moonlight only (it s nearly full moon by the way as I write this) as the event is broadcast worldwide, so certain lighting levels had to be achieved but what came out specifically was that most participants felt the contrast between the sky and the water was much better at night. Some of them struggle to see the difference between the blue sky and the blue water when making their dives making it also difficult to judge distances. Apparently the night sky provides a clear contrast helping them with executing their dives…I am not a diver but I believe them 🙂
It got me thinking of things associated with moon light. Moonlight is obviously reflected sunlight and on a full moon clear night the moon provides enough light for us to see our way around. The moon lighting levels are only about 0.25 lux, but somehow our vision adapts allowing us to see. Unfortunately a full moon only happens about once a month if you are lucky and not have cloudy weather or polluted city skies obscure the light. But a full moon on a clear night is always beautiful wherever you are.
Moonlighting is also a lighting technique where we install a spot light high up in a tree and have the beam shine through its branches and leaves creating the illusion of the moon shining through the tree projecting a magic interplay of light and shadows on the ground. But we can use the moonlighting effect also in buildings that have sky lights for instance or open courtyards. On stage in the theatre moonlight is generally simulated by a bluish light hue coming from a theatre spot somewhere in a corner high above the stage.
Finally there is the expression of “moonlighting” in the sense of secretively doing some extra work on the side, sometimes even illegally. The expression coming from the thought that that work can’t really see the light of day…hence moon lighting….
Mixed events
Singapore 22nd August 2010
One of the interesting parts of the current inaugural Youth Olympic Games going on in Singapore is the introduction of the mixed team events. I happen to catch some sports summaries the other day and noticed that in some events like in swimming, archery, horse riding and probably others, they had created mixed male/female teams and mixed country teams. I thought that was very refreshing and also a very good way to foster respect and friendship between the competitors irrespective their cultural backgrounds, religion or sex! It does not seem to mean a reduced level of competition as each of the participants was as competitive and eager to perform as ever, on the contrary!
It got me thinking…this world is becoming so intolerant, with people showing no respect to the world around them, being so selfish and uncaring that it would be nice if we could work together in harmony rather then against each other. In our world of lighting design we compete with our fellow consultants to get a job and clients often play us out to get the best deal, but why not explore “mixed team” projects where several lighting designers team up together? I know that in very big projects this does happen, I have found myself with other consultants in the same project but these are normally very partitioned and we do not meet or deal with each other.
The world of professional lighting designers is relatively small and we mostly know each other. Through lighting events such as the Light Fair, the Professional Lighting Design Conventions we have an opportunity to meet and share our experiences, but somehow we are fiercely protective of our projects and clients eventhough we are friendly with each other. It seems that there is enough work to go around so supporting each other and working together rather than competing with each other could be a way for the future?
It is just some food for thought for this weekend…I am thinking that is a bit like 5 fingers make a fist or 1+1 =3. Together we could be stronger, not only in producing the end result but also as human individuals creating a better world in the process…
Eco Highways
Singapore 21st August 2010
While the Australians go to the polls today to choose whether to keep Julia Gillard as Australia’s first female prime minister or to opt for the opposition leader Tony Abbott, attempts to make our world a greener place just goes on. Whoever is elected will (have to) continue the efforts in implementing greener measures for the good and the future of our planet. They may do so in different ways and with different time schedules but it is a reality of life that can no longer be ignored by any government.
Just a few blogs ago I spoke about Eco Cities in China, now there is a new project in Finland dubbed the Eco Highway. The Finnish government has embarked on an ambitious project to make a 130km long green and eco friendly highway in the eastern part of the country. The highway will be built from environmentally friendly materials and will have green and bio-fuel petrol stations along the way. The aim is to create a carbon- neutral stretch of highway.
Most of all it will have smart and motion sensor lighting (about which I coincidentally also blogged just a few days ago…it’s all coming together! :)). Lights will be switched off when there are no cars and lighting levels adjusted to night time and weather conditions. As always the dreams are big and the potential for energy saving and reduction on the environmental impact enormous, but can it be sustained financially? The project has been unveiled subject to financial viability, a study which is expected to last about one year. At this stage the costs are estimated to be close to U$1 billion!! It is being suggested that such project will therefore only be possible with the financial support and investments of large multinational companies as well as monetary support from the European Union. It just shows how much investment is required to realize such ambitious green dreams.
But who will be really paying for it? You and me! In the end the big companies will charge more for their products and services, the government will make us pay more taxes! If these projects materialise they will take the honor, but in reality by passing the buck on to the us, we are the unsung heroes!
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