Architectural Lighting
Shanghai, 1st February 2010
February already…..New Year seems like yesterday! …
Today was “doctor-consultation-day” for me, with a continuous stream of my project designers coming in and out my office to discuss little or bigger lighting issues that need the “doctor’s” eyes. This is generally a greatly satisfying day as at the same time of finding solutions I can share my expertise and educate at the same time. When otherwise do we have time to train our staff! We are always busy!
When I started out one of the big questions was: “what actually is architectural lighting?” Simple question, but not necessarily so simple to answer! What springs to mind are beautiful images of beautiful architectural spaces, but what characteristic does lighting need to have, to achieve that “beautiful” status?
My answer is “harmony!” Be in harmony with the architecture. People sometimes ask me what is the best compliment that you can get in regards to lighting? I generally answer that the best compliment is no compliment! Because to me it means that the lighting is so well integrated and in harmony with its architecture that the whole space stands out as one. If the lighting does it is either too much or too little!
To achieve that balance and harmony there are many little things that come into play, like the architectural rhythm of the light, interception of light by vertical surfaces, issues related to colour and, most of all, how we perceive light which is dictated by the laws of perception (these date back from Germany’s Bauhaus time :)). I may dedicate another blog to these perception laws alone as they are really interesting. My point is that unless we want to make a statement with light and lighting as a feature, architectural lighting to me is the seamless integration of light and architecture.
PS I must credit my former mentor, friend and colleague in Philips, Eric Caminada, for teaching me all these beautiful architectural principles!
Becoming a lighting designer
Shanghai, 31st January 2010
Sometimes we hang out with our fellow consultants after our project site meetings to get to know each other a bit better socially and invariably I get the question asked how I got into lighting design.
For me it started 30 years ago now. My dream as a teenager was actually to become an astronaut. I passionately followed the US space program to land a man on the moon, so initially I set out to study aeronautics but when I came across the study of Industrial Design I decided that would be a better spring board for me in life. So after completing my master’s degree in Delft, Holland, I went looking for a job and one of the first interviews was with Philips Lighting in Eindhoven. One of the positions on offer was that of a lighting designer. I had never heard of it and had no idea what it involved. My first thought was that it involved making light bulbs :). Curious, I went to the department and found an exciting team of designers working on the most varied type of projects all over the world from hotels to Olympic Games. I immediately liked it and the rest as they say is history. I learned a lot from my time with Philips.
Nowadays we have actual lighting design studies, but in the past people that got into (architectural) lighting design used to come typically from backgrounds in architecture, interior design, electrical engineering, manufacturing or the theatre and stage lighting world. While we would have the basic design understanding, our actual lighting expertise gradually build up through on the job experiences.
I find it therefore always fascinating to know someone’s journey that led him or her to becoming a lighting designer (or any other profession for tha matter). Each of our stories is different but contributes greatly to the (lighting design) personality we eventually become. Interestingly we rarely become what we orginally set out to become!
lighting for the young and elderly
Mumbai – Singapore, 30th January 2010
Weekends are good times to reflect on the week past…I rapped up my meetings in India and am now returning back to China to finish up on outstanding project matters before Chinese New Year.
One of the subjects I came across over the past week is lighting for the older generation. We know we are getting “older” when we start getting forgetful or our body does not respond with the same flexibility as it use to do! We judge life situations from our own perspective, but how good are we in understanding the young or in this case “elderly” people. I am using this term objectively without any particular intend to discriminate. I remember my dad peeping into my room at night telling me I was reading in bed with insufficient light. The truth was, it was ok for me, but not for him!
Earlier this week I was commenting to my colleague about the extremely reflective floor tiling at the railway station in Shanghai. I was looking at it from a reflective glare point of view. Expecting his agreement to my statement, he actually surprised me totally. He asked me whether I realized how dangerous this is to elderly people? He cited his mum, in her eighties, who would be totally paralyzed and hardly able to move forward or even step onto these kind of surfaces. Why? Because to her it looks like a hole in the floor! She saw depth and not reflections! Quite an eye-opener. The point is that lighting standards are general average ones. There is little or no consideration for the elderly (or the young for that matter). Not only in regards to lighting but also in architectural design. While there are more and more standards towards the handicapped we may need to start looking to the young and elderly with the same urgency!
Pegging lights on site
Goa, 28th January 2010
Away from the hustle and bustle of Mumbai, I am today in Goa, touted as one of the beautiful holiday locations in India. Our hotel resort project is right on the waterfront and has a very large landscaped area with many existing indigenous trees some well over 50 years old. As such they have been preserved and give the resort already a very mature feel. Site progress has reached a critical stage were the electrical cabling is going into the landscape and confirming the landscape lighting points is key to avoid having to open up any hard or soft scape later on.
I have yet to find a landscape plan that properly reflects actual tree locations (see also my earlier blog “lighting for a moving target”). On plan the tree shows as a symmetrical neat circle but in reality trees lean and spread their branches/ canopy in unpredictable directions. I want the lights to capture these (real) trees without light being lost in space. So my only “resort” is to actually peg the lighting locations on site, tree by tree. We use pegs from scrap building materials which are spray painted in bright red for easy identification. In this way it t is now clear where each light really needs to be and cabling/ installation works can safely proceed 🙂
There are many situations during installation on site that need some quick improvisation to communicate your lighting intend to the construction team. To visualize a lighting location in the actual site condition, I sometimes use a prop such as a coaster or an empty paper coffee cup to show the intended lighting location. I then take a picture which subsequently can be used as a reference for the contractor’s follow up. I find these little “tricks” very helpful and gratefully accepted by the site construction team. Moreover they provide me as the designer peace of mind…
Know your markets
Mumbai, 28th January 2010
Sitting in the back of the car driving me back to the hotel I prepare my entry for today. While the car wiggles its way through the busy streets of Mumbai for the probably 1 hour or so trip back during this peak hour traffic, I have plenty of time. As I type this, laptop on my knees, I am surrounded by small black and yellow top taxi’s, motor bikes, honking loudly to make sure they are noticed. But as everybody (my driver included) does the same the honking drowns in the overall cacophony of the city noise. The street vendors along the curb of the road selling their food and other stuff go on with their business undisturbed. Life goes on.
Just earlier I visited one of the major lighting suppliers in Mumbai. Though accessible through a back alley and a non descript buildong from the outside, the lighting facilities inside were impressive. A supplier who knows his business is very important to us!
As part of my job as a lighting designer it is my duty to seek out local manufacturers, vendors and suppliers to understand their capabilities for the demands of our project. While we are familiar with the international brands we need to understand what is available locally for several reasons. First of all for installation reasons; we need to deal with people with experience who are aware of the local regulations and are on call to assist in the lighting installation as and when needed. Having them fly in is not really practical :). Secondly, for maintenance and replacement purposes. While the owner may stock some spares for general lamp replacement , etc, it is nice to know there is a vendor around the corner that can help you out when you need it and not have to wait several weeks for overseas replacement goods to arrive (at probably astronomical costs).
While we rely on the quality of the products heavily to make sure we achieve the desired lighting effects, the people behind the products are even more important to me. Without their (local) expertise and service I may never achieve the lighting I want, regardless the quality of the products.
The “other” consultants
Mumbai, 27th January 2010
Ever seen a dynamic flash presentation from a structural consultant? I did today. To show the impact of wind forces on the building, the structural engineer showed a short movie on the sway of the building to illustrate the impact of wind. An otherwise “boring” subject suddenly became a more visual (and educational) experience!
I am attending a project design coordination workshop in Mumbai and as we are part of a team, understanding each other’s responsibilities is key to a successful end result. At first sight we have little to do with a structural engineer, but I give you to count the number of times a structural beam has been in the way of recessing a down light for instance! Let us not even talk about the mechanical and electrical services where we always seem to fight for the same locations in the ceiling. So creating the understanding and communicating each other’s needs are important right from the start of the project.
In a separate discussion I spoke with the helipad consultant as I was interested in the standards and regulations for helipad lighting. There is more to it then you think! It is not only about outlining the landing pad; there are approach flight path lights, passenger egress lights, etc! In this project we also have a specialist LEED consultant as this projects aims to achieve platinum LEED classification. We have further disciplines like traffic management, elevator consultants, kitchen equipment and signage consultants, the list goes on. We are generally aware of them, but do we (as lighting designers) know what services exactly they provide and how these may impact on our lighting design and vice versa?
With Foster & Partners being the lead architect in this high profile project, one can expect that coordination between all these services will be key. I look forward to tomorrow’s continuation of the design workshops with my fellow “other” consultants.
Incandescent
Shanghai – Mumbai, 26th January 2010
Today is National Day in Australia as well as in India. As per coincidence I am on my way to Mumbai for some project coordination meetings. Ah, well… 🙂
While I am trying to make myself useful working away some backlog correspondence, I am watching a documentary on eco solutions. One of the subjects is a report on the phasing out of the incandescent lamp. But the twist in this report is not so much the focus on the (compact fluorescent and LED) lighting technology that will eventually be replacing the incandescent bulb, but on a trend that sees people buying incandescent bulbs in big bulk purchases!
One store in Germany saw a client walk out with no less than 150 incandescent light bulbs and the store manager reported that the incandescent bulbs were nearly sold out continuously! I am sure this is a trend happening wherever the incandescent is about to be banned. So while on one hand there is a big increase in sales of the more carbon friendly lighting technologies (rightly pushed by government awareness campaigns), there seems to be a sudden surge in nostalgia with people stocking up incandescent lamps. That only less than 10% of its energy consumption is being converted into light seems to be accepted as a fact of life, people just like the pleasant soft and warm light it produces.
I think it is safe to say that the quality of the new technologies is still not matching up with the incandescent lighting qualities people have grown accustomed to. And as long as that remains I have a feeling that man will find ways to keep the incandescent lamp going. The human being can be very creative when in need! Recently, in a country where incandescent bulbs above 100W have been banned, the first 99W bulbs have already appeared! Watch out for other innovative ways people will find to keep the incandescent lamp alive despite all new regulations!
Light fittings…as specified?
Shanghai, 25th January 2010
Part of our job as lighting designers is to assess alternative light fittings during the procurement process. While we all like our as specified fittings to make it through, budget restrictions often gets us to assess alternative proposals. The danger however is that it opens the door to all kinds of vendors (local friends of contractors, etc) to propose light fittings. As can then be expected most of the time alternatives are not even close to our specification.
This morning we received a box full of such alternative proposals for one of our projects for our review and comments. The problem is that most of the time these so called “samples” are really samples and not working models. Model types are often very different, but the explanation we receive is that it just represents the “quality” of what we can expect. Then the “best” one (and where you really should start to worry) is when they say: “don’t worry, no problem, we will supply as specified”. While the client may like the sound of it, the reality is that they mean to say they will custom copy the fittings. In other words we will be the guinea pig for their manufacturing try-outs! How otherwise can they achieve those cut throat prices! No thank you!
A small anecdote on the side: One day I asked the supplier whether his fitting was IP65. And he replied yes it is. After probing further (as the fitting did not really look like it was) I found out that was just the name of the fitting… 🙂
Anyhow, my colleague’s assessment of the lot was pretty much spot on when he said: “this quality is only suitable for a one week exhibition”… It goes to tell we rejected the proposed alternatives.
LED economy 2
Shanghai, 24th January 2010
My blogs are inspired by daily events related to lighting, generally things that I experience on the day to make it as actual and real as possible. Sometimes there is more than one thing I want to talk about. Two blog entries ago (“LED economy”) I wrote about the geographical or should I say demographical use and application of LED. But the thought was actually triggered by a news article about the cost of LED. I did not read that in a professional magazine, no, in a main stream daily news paper! The Shanghai Daily to be exact. The article reported back in the business section on a recent international energy conservation seminar in which it was expected that the cost of LED would decrease 20% over the next 3-5 years and set to drop further to as much as 80% due to its growing world wide use. I would say that is much in line with our own professional expectation. Likewise we know that performance will steadily increase as well.
It shows that LED lighting has now really become main stream knowledge (certainly as part of the whole world discussion on energy conservation), though probably more as a buzz word rather than exactly knowing what it stands for.
My fear is that without proper public education and awareness LED may be viewed more and more as the “magic pill” to use for solve all you energy and carbon footprint problems in lighting. While LED certainly does provide many opportunities to do so, we should still be very careful in its application. Like fiber optics a decade or so ago we run the risk that inappropriate use and inadequate quality of the LED lighting systems create disappointment with a bad name and image as a result.
Design as build
Yunnan- Shanghai, 23rd January 2010
I am writing this blog as I am catching my flight back to Shanghai. It has been an interesting 2 days of meetings on site! To my big surprise (and other consultants, operator included) we found out that the hotel resort had already started construction! What? We have yet to start our lighting design, this was supposed to be our kick off meeting! But on site we could already see the beginning of what is to become the freeform pool with some villa’s already structurally completed! Interior designer and landscape consultant who had been on board for a while are still in conceptual design stage, yet site is already progressing on preliminary drawings that have yet to be approved!
Welcome to China! This is something that some of you may encounter as well in the design process in your part of the world. In our case the client had been pushing the local architect and the local design institute (LDI as commonly referred to in China) to move on with the works while in actual fact the design is still to be completed. My biggest worry now being that site works have progressed to a stage that any changes or modifications flowing from our lighting design may become practically impossible. On the positive side….our lighting concept was approved, so we can now quickly move on to DD (design development) and log in the lighting details that we need before it is really too late!
Otherwise, taking a pun on “design and build”, we may well end up doing build and design if the design process can not catch up with the progress on site. Hence my blog title “design as build” 🙂 ….
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