End of the recession?
Singapore, 12th January 2010
The newspapers seem to be full with positive news about the economy. The end of the recession is near! We should be out of the dark soon. China seems to be the engine driving the revival. I can’t really say for Europe or the US, but in Asia including Australia it definitely seems to be that way.
From my company perspective we have seen a number of projects recently dusted off the shelf, where they had landed in the last 12 months or so due to the bad economic worldwide situation. I have some new kick off meetings scheduled for projects that had been halted or delayed as a result of the recession. But it may be too early to celebrate as we still encounter many projects with very slow payments. What used to be paid in 30-60 days has been gradually extended to 90-120 days in some situations…some we are still waiting!
This morning’s newspaper ran an article called “Plenty of rooms at the Inns” referring to the enormous number of hotels currently being build or planned for building soon. It states that though there is still a global slump it certainly does not seem to affect the hotel industry worldwide. I tempt to agree looking at our current porte-folio which counts many hotels. Good for us lighting designers I guess…
Interestingly the article mentions that there are many high end exclusive themed hotels in the planning like the new Giorgo Armani Hotel in the recently opened Burj Kalifa Tower in Dubai. A Philips Starck Hotel is planned in Venice, Italy and so on. Some people must have made lots of money during the recession you would think if this is all to be successful…..
Architainment Lighting
Australia-Singapore, 11th January 2010
As I am on my way from Australia to Singapore I am reflecting on the differences and similarities between countries in the world. What seem to be common in most developed nations is that the summer is the time for outdoor activities, outdoor events. The Australian summer, like the European summer is the time for festivals and outdoor community events. Outdoor open air cinema’s, outdoor music and theatre performances are enjoying enthusiastic public attendances. But also you will find lighting, as in sound and light shows, organized for people to enjoy the coolness of the night.
This brings me to my subject which I call “Architainment Lighting”. I have written about this before in my column in Lighting Today magazine. It is about the gradual merger of architectural lighting and lighting for entertainment. There used to be a distinctive difference between architectural lighting and lighting for show and events specifically in the lighting technology used. Also architectural lighting is about lighting the space while show and event lighting is mostly about lighting the performers…read people.
But with the lighting technology becoming similar for both applications (think LED, color changing, multi media, DMX, etc) one can see that the applications are gradually blurring into each other.
Architectural lighting is no longer simply about lighting buildings, creating lighting levels. Stage lighting is no longer simply about lighting performers on a stage. Performances and architecture are merging. More and more we are creating a stage to enjoy life! Lighting to entertain people in an architectural environment…
Open
Australia, 10th January 2010
Today is Sunday and I am relaxing reading Andre Agassi’s autobiography called “Open”. I like reading these kinds of books as I take inspiration from people who have achieved in this world. The book was given to me as a Xmas present and I must say that I am really enjoying it. As a former tennis player (I played competition tennis in my early days) I can even more appreciate what he went through.
What inspired me for today’s blog entry is where Agassi’s new coach (Brad Gilbert) tells him that he should stop trying to be perfect. You can’t always be perfect and when you do fail you feel even more miserable. So it is about consistency and winning. It is the end result that counts, not being perfect.
We can draw the parallel with design in general and lighting design in particular. We all want to be perfect, but striving to be perfect may end up in big disappointments. So we need to compromise, we need to find the design that works, that will provide a satisfying end result.
Like in tennis not every shot needs to be perfect, but your game needs to be winning. In our lighting designs not every lighting point will be perfect, but the overall end result should be winning your client over.
Harmony
Australia, 9th January 2010
When the sun shines, nature seems to be in total harmony. But interestingly as we move through different landscapes the overall feel changes. Today I enjoyed some great outdoors in the Australian summer and it struck me that the impressions were so different even though we had the same sun and blue skies. Driving through forests, there was a great interplay with light and shadow under a dominant green color. Then driving through open fields it was mainly bright with the occasional hint of color from a building or another structure. Then at the beach it was a combination of white sand with a constantly changing reflective blue sea. In experiencing the world around us lighting allows us to see, but its interaction with and reflection of the surroundings, is what creates our experience.
In nature we can’t really control the sun, though we do try to re-arrange nature at times. However in interiors we can pretty much control everything. As lighting designers we control the artificial lighting and to make sure it is in harmony with the interiors we coordinate it with the interior designer and architect as needed. When architects and interior designers have good understanding of lighting and its impact then the results generally come out well. When the reverse is the case it can easily end up in a disaster. I have some examples where the interior designer did not understand the lighting impact and worse, did not heed our call to resolve it.
In order to create that “natural” feeling, we need all disciplines to be in harmony. Lighting is just one of the components.
Visual adaptation
Australia, 8th January 2010
Haven’t we all experienced this slight moment of hesitation when stepping out of a building into bright daylight when we have to adapt our sight to be able to see properly? I am in the middle of the Australian summer and most of the time I am stepping out into thousands of lux, while inside I only have a few hundred. Therefore when I step out I often need a little moment of adaptation to the brightness levels.
We encounter this in many situations where there is interaction between bright daylight and artificial lighting. We all know the bright airplane window. It is for a reason that lights in the plane have been located in niches in and above the windows…yes to reduce the brightness contrast…and visual adaptation when looking around.
As lighting designers we need to constantly be alert for transition zones where people move from dark to bright or vice versa. Building entrances are examples of such areas and I am time and again surprised to see how badly this lighting design issue is resolved. Even interior areas have transition zones between spaces with high lighting levels and spaces with low lighting levels. In urban environments we encounter the same. Tunnel entrances and exits are a well known example. Or steps with little or no illumination. In addition there is the “dark alley” syndrome which can be a further cause to fear for one’s safety.
With the general public becoming more and more aware of their rights, public liability has become an increasingly important issue for governments, city councils and property owners. As lighting designers we can certainly contribute and educate about these potential dangers when the eye has to adapt suddenly to changed visual conditions.
Managing expectations
Australia, 7th January 2010
This is a continuation on yesterday’s blog entry where I mentioned that managing expectations is a very important part of our work as a lighting designer. Besides the creation of photo realistic imagery of our design concept and the related expectations that are created, time management is probably our next biggest challenge. How to keep clients expectations in relations to deliverables in the design process in control? Clients have a habit of wanting things “yesterday” without any consideration for your existing work load or other commitments. At the same time project deadlines have a tendency to pop up all at the same time, rather than being nicely spread throughout the year! I can tell you from experience that the more projects you have the more challenging it becomes to satisfy all your clients at the same time!
I guess there are times when we do not really wish to share our “short comings” with the client and may hide behind some other reasons, but I found that most of the time confronting the situation head on by communicating our dilemma with the client can create some understanding and even respect. What seems to be a good tool in managing those expectations is the use of what we call design schedules. In these schedules we lay down the expected time schedule for our design deliverables in a particular project. To have realistic deadlines the input from our design team is crucial as they will need to commit to it according to their overall workload. For the client it then becomes a reference to which they can schedule other related work or follow up. Changes or unforeseen circumstances (which are always bound to happen) then have to be accommodated by revising the schedules accordingly when it happens.
Obviously the schedules are as good as the input and experience used to put them together. Over time one learns to understand the inter-disciplinary relationship between the lighting designer, client and other project team members and how that impact on each others schedules.
Visualisations
Australia, 6th January 2010
Clients’ expectations are getting bigger and bigger when it comes to visualizing the lighting design for a project. With computer technology advancing fast, clients are getting spoiled and more and more demanding. In the early days the computer only assisted us in doing complex lighting level calculations (I still remember preparing hundreds of punch cards for the mainframe computer to do these complex calculations). But over the years computers have grown to virtually take over all aspects of our design work. In an interesting twist the original lux level calculations are gradually disappearing and making way for demands of “real time” visualisations. With Photoshop renderings now regarded as normal practice, dynamic flash presentations and ray tracing programs that use actual photo metric data are now fast becoming the request of the day. Not long ago one of our clients even requested for a fly through visualization. If this is not properly covered in your contract you may end up with a nasty extra workload. We are gradually getting to grips with this as it impacts heavily on our work load and fees.
But the real issue with computer renderings is that they are only as good as the programmer or operator creating them and his or her understanding of how lighting works. With the imagery produced looking so realistic one needs to make sure that the final results can actually be achieved. Realistic imagery creates high expectations! Hence managing client expectations is one of the key factors to a successful project. Who still draws lighting concepts by hand? While to me it is still a very attractive proposition in the conceptual design process (I am grateful to have learned the art of sketching), I fear that it is quickly becoming a dying art…
Feel the vibe
Perth, 5th January 2010
You may wonder where I am going with this one today and how it is related to lighting..? Let me give it a try :).
This thought was triggered by the sight of so many people walking around with their Ipod on their heads. As I am doing my “daily-dose-of-daylight” walk, I often greet people but they seem so absorbed in their “Ipod world” that I wonder whether they actually notice the world around them. Most of the time they just rush past me! Don’t get me wrong I have my “Ipod” too, but seldom use it when outside. I do love my music (and Ipod) when focusing on my design work as that is the time when I want to shut out the rest of the world.
To me being outside besides getting my dose of daylight, is also about using my senses, smelling the air, hearing the noises (which can be anything from traffic to birds!), touching the earth, seeing the colors and life around me unfold, in short, “feeling the vibe”. The “vibes” are different everywhere, whether coming from the countryside of Australia or the busy street life of Shanghai. But all of them stimulate my senses in one way or another.
As a designer I feel the need to constantly recharge my senses with new experiences to stay at the top of my lighting design game. Somehow the “Ipod” does not do that for me…
How high can you go?
Perth, 4th January 2010
It’s back to work today! For those fortunate to have had a Xmas break, I hope you had a lovely and enjoyable time and have managed to recharge the batteries with fresh energy for the year to come…
Today I read about the world’s tallest building being completed and opened to the public, the Burj Dubai Tower, standing tall at an expected 800m high. Official figures yet to be released…how high can you go? I heard one building is planned at 1600m high or thereabouts!
Besides the obvious structural and safety issues it is interesting to think about the logistics of lighting for such a tall building. Having been involved as the lighting designer for the interiors of the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and now with the India Tower in Mumbai, I can say that there are several issues that will challenge the lighting designer.
I found that one of the biggest challenges was to contain the number of different light fittings, more specifically the lamp types. Because of the sheer size of the project one can imagine the gigantic quantities of lamps and fittings required. One of our key achievements in the Petronas Twin Towers lighting design is that we managed to standardize lamp and fittings to less than 50 types! Where we needed more light we used the principle of double lamps of the same wattage rather than using a higher wattage, which allowed us to contain the number of lamp types to a basic minimum for an easier maintenance.
I would say that the other big challenge today is energy management. Certainly if lighting is to be controlled by building management systems! With more and more clients opting for LEED qualifications, lighting design has become the key to managing and controlling energy usage which in buildings of this size can potentially be humongous…
“That” lighting concept
Perth, 3rd January 2010
It’s early Sunday morning and while others are still enjoying their sleep I am using the quiet of the morning to work on a lighting concept for one of our projects as a presentation to the client is due early next week. I think I blogged about the subject before but anyhow the idea of the blog is to talk about issues that relate to us as lighting designers, so the fact that it pops up again obviously means that the subject is a recurrent part of our (my) lighting design life.
From my experience many clients have no “concept” about what goes into creating a lighting concept. They send you a few plan drawings, elevations or if you are lucky an artist impression (what design brief?) and expect you to revert back to them a few days later with a “lighting concept”. Now we all now know that creation is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration, so a concept is often born after a lot of research and thinking. That “a-ha” moment can come suddenly or can remain elusive for quite a while.
But many clients don’t offer us the luxury of time, so the reality is that I find myself often becoming a “practical” lighting designer rather than a “creative” lighting designer. Because of experience I can quickly develop a lighting scheme that works and will satisfy the client…but does it really satisfy me? Is that really the best that can be done? I think we all have that creative “beast” in us and I feel that caging it may softly kill our conceptual skills.
Enough…better get back to creating my lighting concept…
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