The Life of light E06 – April 2019
Singapore – Melbourne – Perth
Weekend 6-7 April 2019
Once you let go of discipline, its easy to lose track of what your goals are…Settling down to write my blog I realise that my last blog was 3 weeks ago, not my intended 2 weeks! It just shows that my mind is gradually moving away from blogging. Changes in the media environment I have been active in such as Lighting Magazine, the Via-Verlag PLD’s website and other media interests, have now given me clear direction on what I will be focussing on over the next year. So here is the deal…
Light Talk Blog
I intend to continue blogging till PLDC 2019 in Rotterdam, but as you have already noticed, the frequency maybe unreliable. The target is twice a month…I may miss a beat or two but I will endeavour to maintain that target. By the end of the year I hope others in my team will take over the blog as it is a really good tool to reflect on what was and what happened. You take a step back and take a helicopter view on what the events were and your or other peoples involvements in that. As always it is not about personal finger pointing or victory claiming, it is about the generic experience, the successes, the challenges and the failures, all from which we can learn to improve ourselves.
Light Talk Video
My next project is already well underway as reported in previous blogs. The Light Talk live chats have and are being edited for publication and if all goes well they will be online very soon (it always takes longer then you think with day to day priorities taking precedence…).
Light Talk Books
Light Talk 2, is also well under way and should see the day light in Q3 this year with the intention to have copies available at PLDC 2019 in Rotterdam. I am further working on Light Talk 3 (provisional working title) a book or subscription series that will be more educational in nature…still exploring the format that this will be made available in as with todays social media, there is strong shift towards Podcasts or YouTube materials…
Singapore
My week in Singapore saw the usual busy meetings, specifically as we are getting more and more projects in Singapore. We have always been fairly content having minimal project exposure in Singapore as local projects generally put a heavy strain on our man power because of the “over the top” demand for presence in regular coordination meetings. After the success of some of our local projects (e.g. Atlas Bar etc.) our local projects have no tripled and with it demand to attend coordination meetings and workshops. One of those was with Tony Chi for the renovation of the Ritz Carlton, a very detailed and very intense two-day workshop and coordination meeting. Further meetings for Atlas 2 and another high-end restaurant kept me fairly busy. And these are just those projects I am personally involved with, the team luckily flying the flag in other projects.
LDoT partner portal
LDoT meetings also keep producing a steady flow of activities, from face to face meetings with key real estate developers, project managers and IT facilities managers in Singapore to ongoing conference calls with some of our existing partners and explorative chats with potential new partners, resulting in a few more NDA’s signed. We intend to create a portal platform for our partners on our LDoT website soon.
Melbourne
Strangely enough in all those years I had never had the opportunity to visit Melbourne, so the inaugural Light Space Design Lighting Design Forum I attended as invited speaker on the 27th March provided me with the opportunity to visit this iconic city. Staying in a cosy little boutique hotel on Flinders Street I was uniquely located to explore the city in the evening hours. Federation Square, Flinders Train Station and Flinders Lane all with easy walking distance (see some mood pictures below).
Basing myself on the feedback received the event itself was by all accounts highly successful. High class speakers, great subjects and a very well contained and moderated program resulted in a full house from start to finish. It is rare to see attendees (certainly for those living and with offices in the city) stay from morning 9am till the closing networking event at 7pm. It just shows the strength and attraction of the program, I was duly impressed…Specifically the format where speakers were given a TED style directive to keep the presentations short and sweet between 15to 30 mins max. excellent moderating kept the program on the dot and highly attractive for all participants. Specifically the speed talks at the end where sponsors and requesting participants were given the floor for a max 3 min presentation was highly interesting. The event concluded with a networking session with drinks and canapes allowing everyone to find down and chat with whom ever you still wanted to catch up with or still had questions to clarify…great inaugural event.
I took the opportunity the next day to catch up with some that I had met during the event before flying off to
Perth.
Awards
We also received some further awards, this time from Lux Magazine, who awarded KLD Architectural Lighting Designer of the Year Award 2019 for Asia Pacific. Not sure about the value of the award and how they came to award the title as nowadays issuing awards has become a commercial activity…
Enjoy your time ahead…
The life of light – E05 March 2017
Singapore – Bangkok – Udaipur – Singapore
Weekend 16-17 March 2019
A busy 2 weeks with project travel to Thailand and India. This is the busy season that generally gathers steam after Chinese New Year and this year is not different. Ongoing projects getting back into action and new projects kicking off. Besides myself other are also travelling to attend to project meetings, review mock ups or simply attend site coordination meetings. The common theme for most of our projects seem to be the dollars and cents…budget, budget and budget! Quality is still at the top of the list however we are challenged to the max to reduce costs and come up with value-engineered solutions that allows to achieve more with less!
Bangkok
My trip to Thailand was typically one of those…meeting with the team for our Maldives resort at the operator’s Bangkok office with the sole purpose to try and match the clients (seemingly insufficient) budget with trying to achieve the operators brand standards. The interior designers original design looked stunning and was already a clever cost-efficient concept, so coming up with an even further reduced cost solution in the two-day workshop was challenging to say the least. But when you have all the decision makers in one room it is amazing what one can achieve.
It is of course give and take and at the end we achieved an in principle compromise solution that about bridged the requirements of the operator, the design concept of the specialists consultants and the owners. We are still expecting a few tweaks after final feedback from all, but we left with the confident feeling that we had a workable outcome to move the project further to achieve our end of the year target opening. I am certainly confident that we will manage to deliver our lighting concept without compromising on quality…
Singapore
In between the trips we had a big VE meeting for one of our Singapore projects, a new to open 5-star roof top restaurant/bar in Marina Bay. The interior design concept is absolutely stunning and the venue will be on the must go places once it opens later this year, just like our Atlas Bar. However stunning the design, there still needs to be financial sense in any design. Considering that bars and restaurants have a “shelf life” of only 5 to 8 years, any investment must have some realistic ROI for its owners.
So, when the main decorative (illuminated) feature of the venue initially came out to more than 1 Million dollars (and the whole project a multiple of that), it was clear that something needed to be done to make sure we would end up with a solution that made financial sense…with the clock ticking on the time line to deliver the project, frantic meetings were held throughout the last 2 weeks to find a solution, again putting the brains of the top consultants decision makers together.
As I write this blog we believe we have found a solution that will keep the original design intent intact while bringing down the costs to within a budget acceptable to the client. We are doing some a final visual mock ups early this week to confirm, but here also I am confident we will get there…
Udaipur, India
The trip to Udaipur sounds as exotic as it was in reality. After nearly two years of design work we finally went to site for a full-blown site coordination meeting and mock up site review. The trip to the site is a journey by itself. After a transit through Delhi and a 1hr+ flight to Udaipur it takes a car ride through the mountainous country side to finally arrive at one of the many reservoir lakes Udaipur is known for. The boat ride to the island where our “palace” resort is situated adds to the magic future guests will experience on arrival.
When completed the (only 150 or so suites) Raffles Hotel Udaipur will look like a palace that has been there for centuries even though it was just build…I have always had great admiration for architects and designers who can create building concepts out of nothing, just by the force of their imagination! This is one of those…
We reviewed the mock up suites, the general building and landscape progress and even though the budget seems to be matching the aspirations of both owners and designers, we are still all very much aware that the sky is not the limit and everyone is very much on his very best to make sure we think moneywise but not pound foolish…the client is very much aware that making sure the consultant team’s and operator’s key persons are together assures we can make cost efficient and design wise decisions…We are aiming for a soft opening end of this year…I can’t wait!
LDoT
I guess no blog without some update about our LDoT activities… Earlier in the week we had a major meeting with one of our pilot project clients for which we had brought in Gooee, our LDoT partner in this project. Key part of this project is to create a system integration team in Singapore that can make sure we have the support and knowledge team in place to service the installation, integration and content management. We allocated a training workshop day to initiate the Singapore team to the workings and programming of the Gooee platform and ecosystem. Still much to learn, integrating data platforms and lighting!
Light Talk
Light Talk is also a busy platform and activity for me. Last week I met with the publisher of Lighting Today magazine to discuss my upcoming book, (working title: Light Talk 2) a compilation of my more than 15 years of writing my Light Talk columns (since 2003!). We are currently working on the artwork and the aim is to have it going for print by middle of this year… As it happens it also becomes an appropriate project as the magazine is going fully digital by next year. The book will also be a great memento looking back on the more than 15 years the magazine has been in print…
Also for my Light Talk video’s, I took the opportunity of having both Jan Kemeling and Mark Talent (Gooee’s COO and CTO) in Singapore to record an another edition of my Light Talk conversations. Once edited it will be featured on our Youtube channel and from next year onwards we will also provide access through Lighting Today’s digital edition of the magazine on their website. Look out for it!
Enjoy the week ahead!
Bangkok…the contrasts…
Udaipur
LDoT – Light Talk
The Life of Light – E04- March 2019
Perth – Singapore, Weekend 2-3 March 2019
This fourth blog edition of the year is becoming more undisciplined…Doing it weekly is still sort of a discipline, doing it every two weeks like I am attempting to do, seems much more of a challenge. Ok…I have an excuse…it was Alex 50th birthday last weekend and we decided to escape busy Singapore to celebrate with a short weekend away in a luxury resort…while it will be listed as referencing last weekend it is actually written in the days after…😊
LDoT
After my week in our Perth office with Ingmar the development of our LDoT process continued with more conference calls and meetings to further detail our collaborations with some new partners. Our pilot projects are requiring quite some attention. We are learning a lot about what system and IoT components producers are claiming they can do and what it turns out to be in reality! This is probably one of the biggest challenges we are facing (and we can just imagine what potential clients are facing), making sense of what sales people are promoting they can do and what the reality is.
At this point in time developers, property owners and facilities managers that are trying to get some head start with smart installations are left to believe what suppliers and manufacturers tell them (generally only the positive things), which of course is biased, limited and with sole intent to sell. They end up with individual systems most of the time over or under specified, that generally do not “talk” to each other. LDoT offers our clients, as one of the very first consultancies in the world, an unbiased, independent and professional advise and selection platform. Through our Menu of Things™ which we are developing in finer details as we progress with our projects and grow our partner collaborations, we are able to determine and provide our clients with more objective choices, considerate options that result in a value for money, dedicated project data design brief. As we are going through our proof of concept it is important to listen to the feedback and learn from the challenges we face along the way…for now we are enjoying the ride…
Ceilings
Ceilings are becoming the new battle grounds. There always was a “fight” for the best locations in the ceiling with lighting, air-conditioning, sprinklers, speakers, smoke detectors, WiFi boosters and access panels crowding and clashing with each other in the ceiling (coordinated ceiling plans…!). Now the smart sensors and cameras are adding a whole new dimension to this “fight”. By just looking up when you walk in a shopping mall or enter a corporate building for instance, you will discover just how many are already in the ceiling! The question is of course who takes precedence over what and who controls the process of integration…?
Singapore
Ingmar, on his way to Bangkok for some business development and attending a lighting manufacturers workshop, spend some time in our Singapore office during which we had discussions with a potential new partner for LDoT and chatted further with a partner about the potential use of blockchain technology in smart lighting. We are slowly getting our heads around it but it will take a while before this will be applicable in projects or system management processes…we will keep you posted!
IALD 50 years
This year IALD celebrates its 50th anniversary and IALD’s president, Mr David Ghatan, made a stop in Singapore en route to the Enlighten Asia event in Tokio, Japan. Invited by Toh Yah Li, who is IALD SEA local representative, David was welcomed to a dinner and drinks on arrival before heading the main IALD event the next day. About 70 from the lighting industry, designers, suppliers and manufacturers joined for the event at Habitat by Honestbee, Singapore’s version of Amazon Go, a brick and mortar shop that only allows you to enter and pay through an app on your mobile device. In a “market” environment you can buy food and products or simply order food (and drinks) for immediate consumption from the many food stations.
Before we indulged in the Habitat experienced David recalled a bit of the 50-year old history of IALD, its current organisation structure and provided a look into the future. There are only a handful IALD members in Singapore/ Asia so there is certainly scope for more to join! A strong organisation is good for the profession.
I took the opportunity to interview David for my Light Talk conversations chatting about his views on lighting, our profession, the evolving technologies, the cultural differences and education in general. Once the interview has been edited it will be made available on my new Light Talk Youtube channel soon to be launched…
Thanks to sponsors Endo and Helvar for supporting the night!
Enjoy the time ahead…
The life of light 03 – February 2019
Singapore – Dhaka – Singapore – Perth,
Weekend 16-17 February 2019
It is a strange feeling not to write my blog on a weekly basis anymore…but it is strangely relaxing. I have a partially guilty feeling of letting down those who have been so passionately following me over the last couple of years, some even since the beginning at PLDC 2009! This year’s PLDC 2019, ten years later, may perhaps be a good moment in time to move from the written blog to the live Light Talk video interviews I have been preparing over the last few months. Trailers of the first three will be released very soon!
It starts to make sense to me in many ways. As the world is so entrenched in social media, everything is visual, and the world is fast moving from hardware to software, moving my Light Talk platform from being a written posting to an actual live video talking about subjects close to our lighting designer hearts with experts in their fields will be a new exciting chapter befitting our modern-day smart world…
Bangladesh
This country has always been associated with great poverty so it was quite an interesting coincidence that more than 20 years after I first visited the country, I was invited to Dhaka again to discuss new project opportunities by a client who had visited our offices in Singapore a few months ago. Coincidence in the sense that with our high-tech smart activities we are currently engaged in, Bangladesh would probably be one of the last places you would think of. The last time I was in Dhaka, the poverty was there for all to see, there was hardly any building development of significance, very few cars and international hotels could be counted on one hand. How things have changed…
The city looks like one big working site with buildings popping out of the ground wherever you look, cars now creating typical big city traffic jams and except the occasional knock on your car window little obvious poverty, Dhaka’s Gulshan area has modern buildings and shops and the projects that I am currently discussing with my client will have apartments that will sell for over USD 1 Million each!
Bangladesh is a very populated country with more than 160 Million people which predominantly is known for its garment and tea industry. It is also a country that sees the convergence in the sea delta of three of the biggest rivers in the world (the Ganges, the Brahmaputra and the Meghna). Not surprisingly the low lying river delta frequently overflows at times resulting in one third of the country being under water! For music lovers Bangladesh is also remembered for George Harrison & Friends famous concert for Bangladesh in 1971 that resulted in an epic live triple album.
So, what did I take away from Bangladesh? First of all, that things are not as they look or you thought they were. Yes, it is still a developing nation, but it is fast catching up. I found the internet, social media, skype and WhatsApp working perfectly, better than I have even encountered in other Asian countries. There is a hunger and appetite for all things new. Their biggest problem though is where to get it from and how to service and maintain the new “things” that you procure.
In discussing the lighting design approach with my client I sensed the eagerness to implement new smart lighting systems, while at the same time being realistic that sourcing of product and services will have to come from overseas and that specifically maintenance will be a challenge with very little manufacturers and companies have representation in Bangladesh. A strategy will have to be developed to make sure that not only will we be able to source our lighting fixtures reliably, we will also need to find knowledgeable contractors to install and ways to program and maintain whatever is to be installed for the long term. Bangladesh and LDoT…a very interesting challenge for the near future ahead of us 😊
Australia
What a contrast being in Australia a few days later…It was time to go back to Perth to spent some time in our office and work away at some of our ongoing projects. Australia is a country where everything seems to have been regulated, specifically when it comes to occupational health and safety (OHS). We are working on upgrading the lighting in some heritage churches to new LED technology, but every single work step has to comply with the regulations, if there is the slightest risk of danger, compliance to rules is imperative, whether it is the maximum height of a ladder, the minimum required ceiling space for a person to move, the proximity of any potentially dangers ducting, cabling or wiring, the list is endless. A simple re-lamping job we undertook this week was still on-going by the time I left, just because of this…sometimes it really seems over the top and definitely does not stimulate motivated productivity! The fear of being sued at times overtaking reason…
LDoT challenges: wired versus wireless
As we move towards implementing our first LDoT projects, one of the biggest challenges we have encountered is the disconnect between top management and the on the ground contractors. While we are discussing ways to reduce costs by going wireless we have found that in the meantime contractors, rusted in their traditional habits are already laying vertical cabling for switches in anticipation of the lighting plans they have seen…while we were too late in one project we did manage to put a hold on all vertical wiring in another project.
Understandably there is a certain fear on site that with ongoing construction works, cables have to be laid in time to avoid having hacking back concrete later on…the unfamiliarity with wireless systems in the lighting industry is still very dominant. Will it work? Is it reliable? Yet, nobody doubts the reliability of their TV’s remote control…todays remote wireless lighting controls are as reliable…we just need to get used to it…
Have a great time ahead, enjoy some impressions of Bangladesh below…
Views from our site…
Some night lighting!
A new day…
The internet cabling…boosters everywhere…
The life of light – January 2019 /2
Singapore – Bangkok – Singapore, Weekend 2-3 February 2019
And so my blog seems to become a bi-weekly event…I mentioned my intention to slow down in my first blog of the year 2 weeks ago…I did sit behind my laptop working away some emails last weekend and feeling slightly guilty not writing my blog as I am a man of discipline, but then I let the events of the weekend unfold. I went to play my regular Saturday morning tennis with a group of friends as I do when I am in town and not traveling, then went on to other social activities over the weekend slowly pushing the urge to write my blog to the back of my mind…having written my blog for the last 10 years obviously get’s you into a routine and letting go is not as easy as you think!
Not to despair however, as the time freed up is making way for new things to come. I have meanwhile completed my 3rd Light Talk video interview with experts in their fields (with more to come!) which when editing is complete, will soon be available on our YouTube channel. Also in the making is Light Talk 2, the book with a compilation of my 15 years (!) of writing my column for Lighting Today Magazine…it is shaping up nicely and I hope to present it some times during this year.
ILight Marina Bay 2019 – launch event
One of the big events that kicked of last week was the launch of the ILight Marina Bay lighting festival in Singapore. The festival runs as part of the bi-centennial celebrations of the city state with many other events planned in celebration of the cities 200 year history. I was invited as a guest to attend the pre-opening launch that included a boat tour along the majority of the art works. The selection process has always been a mystery to me, with some selections definitely no-brainers with great visual impact and interest, others that leave you head scratching on why that was selected. Most installations have costs that are many times more then the allocated budgets (even if you include sponsor funds) which leaves you thinking haw that is properly allocated. I know for a fact that some artists were actually invited to participate (did not even submit something) but asked based on a previous installation done in another city. While I understand that there are political and commercial underlying reasons that define the final decision in regards to the selection of artworks, it does create a little uneasy feeling that it is not a totally open and fair playing field for budding artists that submit their artworks. Anyhow that is just a little site observation, as overall the end result of this year’s line up is pretty impressive with some great installations sure to woo the general public. It will run till the end of February.
City lighting festivals is the trend of modern day with many cities around the world now having some kind of light festival. It brings in the tourists and puts the city on the world map, through the many magical pictures it provides…
Bangkok
Last week also saw me going to Bangkok to engage the client on one of our projects about the implementation of smart lighting in their hotel. This is not as easy as it seems because most clients are still “wired” the old conventional way. So my presentations were tailored to gradually lead them by the hand towards smart thinking. I started with our “traditional” lighting design concepts with renderings showing the intended lighting effects through our layers of light presentation. Having put them at ease in regards to the lighting effects and various scenes they can expect I moved to the more “complicated” stuff, our LDoT approach. Explaining the process of data infra-structure design, I walked them through the many and various options that are available to understand space usage, opportunities for more efficient human deployment and most of all the ways to reduce energy consumption on a massive scale. For this it is important to understand that the bulk of the energy consumption in hotels is in the air-conditioning, more then double the lighting energy consumption. So integrating smart sensoring to allow adaptive controls of both lighting and air-conditioning makes a lot of sense and our ROI calculations showed that very clearly, with massive saving along the way.
With the client now on board we are working towards fitting out the current Mock Up Room with a scalable data infra-structure platform that will facilitate these cost saving functions. The infra-structure will have additional smart features linked to in-room mobile device applications. It will be our first pilot and proof of concept project so we are super excited. The client, enthusiastic about the potential, is now also looking at fitting out their new corporate head office in a similar way…
LDoT challenges: wired versus wireless
One of the key challenges that we encounter in our projects in relation to implementing our LDoT approach is the gap between concept and reality. While we discuss the opportunities for wireless solutions, saving kilometres of cabling and wiring in the process, we find that on site the contractor moves in the conventional way, installing cable infra-structures based on the assumption it will be wired. The disconnect between the project team and the contractor in regards to implementing wireless solutions has to be addressed in the early days of a project. While in itself a smart solution can still work with a wired solution, the savings could be so much bigger (including the future flexibility and scalability) if due consideration is given in the early stages to communicate with the installation contractors, most of whom have yet to make the switch to modern day smart solutions and infra-structure installations. We have encountered this in our projects the hard way and therefore early engagement is becoming more and more crucial in successfully negotiating cost saving implementations of smart data and lighting infra-structures. I guess we are all learning…
To all celebrating Chinese New Year I wish you Gong Xi Fa Cai!
ILIGHT MARINA BAY
BANGKOK, UNTANGLING OURSLEVES FROM WIRED SOLUTIONS
THE 10 YEAR CHALLENGE…WIRED VS WIRLESS 🙂
OH YEAH, THE WORKMANSHIP…
The life of light – January 2019
Perth – Singapore – Guangzhou – Singapore,
Weekend 19-20 January 2019
A new year with new resolutions. This will be my 10th (!) season of blogging having started in late 2009, it has been a great run which has brought my readers, my own team as well as my self great satisfaction and appreciation. Being able to share and communicate is very gratifying. Over the years it has also become an addiction which is now creating a bit of a conflict…I still have the drive to share my experiences but at the same time having a growing desire to wind down and move on to other things…the blog is an incentive and a discipline to keep alert to the daily happenings in the life of light and lighting design. At the same time it is a demand on time and focus on daily activities which potentially takes away from some of my other interests (which are manifold!) My second book is in the making but progressing (too) slowly. Other activities both in lighting as in my private life are attracting my interest so this year will be a year of rebalancing my interests, my focus and energy, both professionally as well as privately.
To allow the change to happen I have moved from a “the week that was” to “the life of light” as a more general title to describe my blog with the aim to lift the weekly pressure of having to write a blog. I may still write weekly, but I may lump it to a 2-weekly or just event related blog. Frankly I don’t know how this year will work out…I do know that I will take it easier (this is my 40th year in lighting design!) and take my time. I remain fully involved and committed to my practices and our profession but will be more selective in what I do and take on…it’s time for the new generation to take over the mantle…
I may report on project issues or general lighting design subjects that we can all relate to or experience while practicing our profession. The emerging world of IoT and how that will impact the lighting design profession will certainly roar its head more and more frequently, certainly considering that we have set up a company “Lighting Design of Things” last year to face and deal with that reality and be able to serve our clients accordingly to these new demands…we have exciting times ahead!
In this first blog of the year I want to share 2 recent experiences, totally contrasting in content but which I suspect many can relate to. The first one is about an unreasonable client the other quite the opposite…
Unreasonable and disrespectful
In our line of work, we come across all types of clients, good guys and bad guys. Most of the time we never know what we will get certainly when it is a first time working together. Relationships are very personal even if the relationship is supposed to be professional. Over the last couple of weeks, we experienced a project manager who totally lost it in my personal opinion. We had been working with a very reputable interior designer/ architect and the also the rest of the team, contractors and suppliers is of good repute. The client itself is a stock exchange listed real-estate property developer with further interests in many trades, a very established name.
However, under pressure to finish the project more than a month before the previously agreed time line of January and with planned Xmas holidays looming things started to spiral out of control. We all know that it is impossible to realise in two days something that normally takes five days and if you do try to achieve that shortcuts and miscommunication are bound to happen. So, in order to get everyone aligned and on the same page only one solution works in my experience…and that is to apply reason, trust and respect. You have to trust your specialist consultants, heed their advice, communicate and consult on agreeable and workable solutions to meet the shorter deadlines.
Unfortunately, as at times happens with middle management in Asia, they have an urge to show of their position by bullying and blaming anyone they deem as being under their command”, literally. They pay your fee, so you owe them your undivided loyalty. True to a certain extent…it should never involve disrespect or unreasonable demands. Specifically, if it is directed in this particular case to dutiful subordinate staff doing their very best to help and comply. What is unacceptable is that the bullying and blaming puts that staff under uncalled stress and duress which in return creates resentment and wanting to walk away. I spent a good part of my holidays counselling and directing my team not to take these attacks on their work as personal, even if it brought them to tears at some points! I am sure that some of you have experienced this type of unreasonable and disrespectful project managers or clients.
The good news is that you come out of this a stronger person, an experience richer and better equipped to deal with unreasonable and disrespectful people in the future, it is part of our learning experience. I personally went through these project periods many times. Today I front these people head on and tell them my mind prepared to walk away if they can’t muster any trust or respect. We are not perfect, by no means, and we do miss out things and make mistakes, but we own up and resolve it together…we are human beings and expect to be treated that way! The project is now about completed and by the looks of it with a happy ending…the end-result looks beautiful but a bitter taste remains…
Trust and respect
At the other end of the spectrum are the clients that selected you based on your merits and your proven track record. You are their specialist in every sense of the word, they respect you and they trust you. They seek your expertise opinion, they respect your professional opinion and communicate professionally in how to meet time and budget lines. It does not mean they accept everything you say, but these relationships and communications are based on mutual trust and respect, which in my experience brings out the best in people. There may be the odd one out that abuses that trust and respect but in my book this kind of trust and respect demands and achieves professionalism, performance and delivers more than your clients expects from its consultants. It motivates to prove them they are right to trust you, you owe it to your client, you owe it to yourself and the company!
I travelled to China this week with one of those clients to visit one of those respected and trusted designers with manufacturing capabilities. We visited their showroom and manufacturing plant, but most of all were treated with royalty and were shown why their reputation is so widely admired. They exceeded all expectation (at least mine) by having created real life mock up sections of the various design details essential to understand and visualise the overall design intent. It made everyone instantly drawn in to their determination to deliver quality and perfectionism. It gave the client instant confirmation their trust and respect were deserved and motivated me as fellow consultant to deliver to the same standards. It also forged an immediate bond and relationship that will benefit the project and its desired end result. I left on a high and returned to Singapore confident that this project will undoubtedly become a success…
…what a difference trust and respect can create!
—after a lot of blood sweat and tears…
The royal treat
The new Guangzhou airport terminal…
The week that was 3rd – 8th December 2018
Perth – Singapore – Shanghai – Xitang, Weekend 8-9th December 2018
My last weekend before my Xmas leave is spent in China, quite representative of the many weekends I have spent away from home this year…A last sprint to the finish of the year with a short stop over in Singapore midweek on my way from Perth to Shanghai where I attended the Magnolia awards gala dinner ceremony on Friday as one of the final top judges. As I write what will be my last blog of the year I am sitting warmly (it’s near freezing outside with snow that had fallen overnight in Xitang) in the Shanghai Pudong airport business lounge waiting for my return flight to Singapore with a flight to Medan, Indonesia waiting for me tomorrow morning…at least I am working with Alex on this project so we can travel together. After that my meeting schedule for the last 3 days of the week look hectic and close to overbooked but I will take it knowing that I can fly off next Saturday to enjoy the Australian summer…
Perth – LDoT
My days in the Perth office earlier in the week were busy but fairly uneventful. Ingmar and I used our time together to further our business plans, partnerships and collaborations for LDoT. We are working on some pilot projects that necessitates careful analysis of what our partnerships can bring to the table. Most of all what seems interesting throughout the IoT industry is that still many are unclear or unsure about where their revenue streams will be. We are working on our LDoT model and time will probably help us refine the way we offer our services. Hence the importance of collaborations and pilot projects…
Singapore, meetings
Prior to our planned end-of- year company dinner I had a filled day full of meetings, in the morning with my design team to resolve design issues (some political in nature) and agree on design decisions to move projects forward. More than ever we are aware of the importance to manage the project implementation to make sure we achieve an end result as close to our design concept as possible…managing suppliers, contractors, fellow design consultants and clients are of critical importance. My guidance towards the team in this matter helps them understand and act in a diplomatic but assured manner.
After a lunch meeting with one of our intended LDoT partners it was off to afternoon meetings were for two of our new projects. Our award-winning Atlas Bar is providing us a lot of respect and acknowledgement in the industry which has now resulted in 4 new high-profile projects in Singapore, all in the F&B sector. They are all fats track…we like that…😊
KLD company dinner
What better place than our award-winning Atlas Bar to hold our annual company dinner to conclude the year with our Singapore team. This time it was earlier than usual as it was the last suitable date we could find to have the whole team together. I treasure this event as it gives me the opportunity to express my appreciation to the hard work that everyone puts in all year around. It’s not always smooth sailing in our projects and inevitably there are stress situations and frustrations, happy moments and disappointments, excitement and moments of learning. There is no doubt that the team has made great progress in professional attitude, skills and independency, both externally towards our clients as well as internally amongst themselves. I am proud of everyone and our yearly dinner gives me that opportunity. Thanks to the team for supporting me and the company this past year! I am proud of you!
Magnolia award night
After barely 24 hours in Singapore I was on route to Shanghai again to be a gust of honour at the Magnolia Awards Gala dinner night which was held in one of the ballrooms of the Kempinski Hotel in Pudong. The event started at 2.30pm already and saw an afternoon of presentations and acknowledgements from an A-list of well-known personalities in the lighting industry. I was only informed 2 days earlier that I was expected to do a presentation as well and managed just barely to put something together using a revised version of my PLDC presentation renamed Lighting Design and the IoT, a look into the future of lighting…a topic that found great interest and feedback. It was great to see the Shanghai governor supporting the event. We were told by the organisers that no less than 2 Million RMB was poured into organising this maiden event! Every participant received an award for participating (great motivational move) with only a selected number of winners, the once we had judged to be the top of their class. Besides the trophy the winners also got a painting that represented their winning project, a very original idea! The gala dinner went on till late with lots of toasts and group selfies. I enjoyed meeting many friends from the industry (including from my shanghai team, thanks for coming Andy!) and I look forward to next year’s event…
Xitang
Finally it was off to Xitang in the early hours of Saturday, about 1 and a half hours drive west of Shanghai. While it was already about 6-7 degrees in Shanghai the weather had turned colder with a light drizzle of snow on arrival in Xitang with temperatures close to freezing point. The client had initially asked for the meeting to be next week, but when told them I was already in Shanghai they did nit hesitate to move the meeting forward to Saturday to accommodate me. Little did I realise that the complete team (about 40 people!!!) all came down to Xitang for the meeting that started at 9am. Some even flew in from Shenzhen! I can only express my heartfelt appreciation to the whole team to sacrifice their Saturday for me! It does show the great respect that the client has for me.
We spent the morning going through the project details, design and drawing changes site issues with the aim to update everyone and all be on the same page. After lunch we “did” the site area by area to confirm and agree on the site changes. The idea of this meeting was to be able to make on site decisions as to fast track the project which looks at completing in the next couple of months.
After another review round at night (for the lighting evidently) I reached my countryside hotel desperately needing a hot shower after a freezing cold day at the office. We accomplished a lot and I look forward to the completion of this project which I feel will be a contender for awards with its unique design and features…
I hope you all had a good year. Merry Xmas and a great successful year ahead to all my readers
See you in the new year…
–> KLD end of year dinner at Atlas Bar
–> Magnolia awards gala event
My view from the stage…
The award winners
–> Xitang morning meetings
–> It’s snowing!
–> Afternoon site visit
–> what would we do without our mobile phones…
–> Night time review
… it’s getting there, still some tweaking to do in the commercial sector…
Waking up to overnight snow at my country side hotel…
The week that was…26-30th November 2018
Shanghai – Singapore – Perth, Weekend 1-2nd December 2018
We are approaching the end of the year and as always there are many things to complete or tie up before the holidays. I came back from Shanghai having participated as judge to the inaugural Magnolia Lighting Design awards, had a short stop over in Singapore filled with meetings before moving on to Perth where I will stay working from our office till middle of next week.
Magnolia Awards
The inaugural Magnolia Lighting Design awards are curated by the SIES (Shanghai Illuminating engineering Society) and saw more than 300 project entries! To add weight to the value of the competition highly regarded personalities in the lighting industry were invited to help judge the results of this competition. Professors of the Fudan University’s lighting department, the president of the China Illuminating engineering society, the vice chairman of the SIES as well as international lighting designers like Murray Robson and myself. I have to give credit to the professionalism of the judging. After two rounds of preselection the shortlist contained close to 50 projects. Projects were judged on criteria such as relevance, sustainability, innovation, technical qualities and implementation. Scores attributed to each of them, but not after each shortlisted project was actually visited by the team. I visited some as well and it was specifically interesting to see how some of the submission photo’s actually looked better then the reality. Very few actually match up in reality…!
After the scores were tallied clear winners emerged (sorry cant share that yet…next week 7th December is the official awards night). It was great to see that all head judges scored fairly consistently with very little discrepancies in our assessments. Awards will be given in three categories, 1st, 2nd and 3rd price or if you want awards of excellence, merit and commendations. I was impressed by the high quality of the projects submitted. Look forward to the award night next week where I will be present to hand out some awards and do a little keynote speech…
LDoT partners
Our list of partners and collaborators is growing and we had a few further meetings this week work on some specific projects. Integrating IoT data infrastructures into lighting or applying them in general is still very much a virgin territory, no-one really knows what is the right way, there are no standards yet, whatever goes, goes. Figuring out what is the best and educating our clients fairly and honestly is a big challenge as we very much rely on what manufacturers and system developers tell us mixed with our own intelligence and research. The lack of use cases makes all ROI figures really hypothetical and hence we are all more or less in pilot project stages to figure out exactly how and what…
Sorting the IoT cowboys from the “good guys” is part of the process we are going through. The interesting thing is that listening to one developer/provider talking about their competition provides a different understanding than to listen to that “competitor” himself. We did just that this week. It is a very educating process, but one we have to go through to, to professionally advise our clients and understand what is actually being offered.
Atlas II
During my half day in Singapore I did find the time to meet the client for a night time visit to the proposed Atlas II location. The reason being that the new sister bar will also have some outdoor seating, hence understanding the environment of the outdoor terrace and the visual link between indoor and outdoor was important. Always good to make sure we are all on the same page when it comes to developing the concept.
Raine Square
On my arrival in Perth the next day I went straight to site to assist the contractor to whom we are sub-consulting for this project to fine tune the façade lighting. While we much appreciate the confidence of the electrical contractor in our services, it also became clear that our limited involvement (mostly concept and specifications) laid bare once more the need to always be involved from start to finish. While the contractor did a good job the lack of testing and visual mock ups that we always recommend showed. We managed to tweak the façade lighting and set some rules for the lighting in terms of mixing effects, but in the back of our minds we know that if we would have been involved in the full process we could have made sure the exact right light fixtures and lighting effects would have been achieved. While the client seems to love the outcome, I know it can be so much better…
Manufacturer meetings
As always we embrace the interaction with our suppliers to get ourselves updated on the latest and newest developments in the industry. Our Singapore team visited the Signify application centre while our Australia team visited the newly established Unios headquarters in Perth. Talking to the people behind the products and seeing, experiencing the behind the scene supports they can give is extremely important. In our line of work the people behind the products are as important as the products themselves.
PLDC video
Finally we saw the long awaited PLDC mood video come out this week, expertly put together by my daughter Kyra through her Kyramedia company. The video provides an excellent look back on an event that by all accounts was highly successful.
lease enjoy the official PLDC 2018 video here
Enjoy the weekend
Mood images Shanghai and some of the shortlisted projects
On my way back to airport…heavy fog…
Raine Square
I am not a fan of colour, but client likes it…
Manufacturers visits
The week that was…19-23rd November 2018
Singapore- Shanghai, Weekend 24-25th November 2018
As I am about to fly of to Shanghai this weekend to be one of the judges for the Magnolia Lighting Design Awards in China, I am contemplating what seems to have been a whirlwind week with many meetings, conference calls and happenings…
Blockchain technology for lighting
Perhaps one of the most exciting things from this week was the follow up on last weeks meeting with the Dutch delegation focussed on innovation and blockchain technologies. I was introduced to the team in Holland that has currently what I believe is the worlds first blockchain application in lighting and the potential to apply that with our LDoT platform seems very possible and exciting. I cant say too much at this stage but perhaps after my follow up meeting in the coming time with the Dutch representative handling innovation based in Singapore I will be in a position to share a bit more. Ingmar also completed his blockchain course successfully this week, so we are excitingly looking to the future and how blockchain technology will be integrated for lighting…watch this space!
Dutch – Singapore business innovation
Another logical follow up I did from last week’s meetings was to meet with the Dutch embassy’s division that supports start-ups and other innovation-based companies. We are looking at collaborations and partnerships. Looking forward to further develop this and support the Dutch- Singapore business innovation community.
Coelux
This week also sees the first phase of commissioning our Keppel Seaview project that has no less than 10 Coelux skylights at the executive floor. We had been keen to introduce these in our projects before and finally managed to realise this in this project. The realistic reproduction of actual daylight together with real visible sun never stops to amaze and not surprisingly was the talk of the day during the commissioning. Well done Grace and team.
Atlas II & Ritz Carlton
We had our first kick of conference call for Atlas II with the HK based lead designer this week and are excited about the overall concept of this little sister bar. Interestingly we also got appointed and had our kick off meeting for the renovation of the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Singapore with world renowned interior designer Tony Chi (great to be working with him) and found Proof & Co (who operate the Atlas Bar I) to be involved in the curation of the new bar at the hotel… nice to work with them again! So, two great and exciting projects right here in Singapore that kicked off with a bang this week.
LDoT system integration
One of the big challenges for the integration of IoT into a lighting infra-structure is exactly that…integration. It is nice to have all these smart devices, interface modules, sensors, gateways and what have you, but in the end you still need a party knowledgeable and experienced in these systems to be able to properly integrate and program it. As it as new playing field for many, certainly when we talk about the horizontal integration of various smart systems (normally operating as individual silo’s), it is a whole new ball game. This week I had meetings with two parties to establish their role and responsibilities in doing that. The system integrator (SI) can be a party dedicated to a specific brand (as we did with Gooee this week) or more general and versatile in its ability to install and probably more project manage the installation and integration. It is critical for us (now promoting LDoT), that we know who will be the ones to talk to, who will actually install or manage the installation of these smart data infra-structures when it comes to integrating it with our lighting design…another step forward this week in closing that so important gap in available expertise.
Smart light fittings
Except for the Gooee driven Aurora light fittings there are basically no real IoT data platform enabled light fittings available in the market. If we are to really integrate these smart platforms with smart sensors with our lighting, ideally these would be physically integrated in the light and not installed as an add-on or clip-on as we experience today. This week I had several meetings with lighting manufacturers, keen to develop smart IoT enabled fixtures, advising them in the requirements to be ahead of the pack and create an edge in their product range offering.
LaaS
Finally, it seems that we are moving a step closer to a potential Light as a Service project. We have approached our preferred partner to support us and are now looking forward to discussing this in more detail together with the client…
Enjoy the weekend 
Coelux being commissioned at project Seaview
Ritz Carlton east wing today
Kick off meeting with Tony Chi
System integration discussions with Goee
The week that was…12 – 16th November 2018
Singapore – Mumbai – Bangkok – Singapore, Weekend 17-18th November 2018
As relatively quiet last week may have looked like, the more hectic and faster pace this week has been. From Singapore to Mumbai, on to Bangkok and back to Singapore, with meetings in Singapore on Monday before departure and Friday back on return, with very little sleep in between. I was glad to finally have a full night sleep last night…
Monday meetings
Before leaving for Mumbai I first had a project kick off meeting for a new prestigious restaurant in Singapore (our award winning and successful Atlas Bar project seems to have attracted some interest from new clients in the F&B sector). The project is confidential for now, but I am looking forward to share it with you once we get going. The meeting was followed by a conference call (tender follow up interview) for one of our projects in Malaysia where we are shortlisted for final confirmation. While they gave us the impression that it was more a matter of when rather than if in regards to our appointment, I have no illusion they may have spoken in the same way to the other shortlisted practice. Official appointment confirmation due in December…
Air #%$#@
A bit of ranting first…For my trip to India I had reluctantly accepted to fly one of the national carriers to fly to Mumbai as SQ was fully booked with little other options available to meet the project meeting time schedules. The airline listed the Dreamliner as the aircraft, so I thought how bad can it be…well it was…while I was prepared for the lesser service and food offerings…my business class seat reclining was hardly working and my TV screen had to be rebooted no less than 6 times (!) after which it still did not work. The remote was not working and the so-called touch screen was so far away that I had to unbuckle myself to even reach the screen. It did not work either anyhow. I decided to take it on the chin and just go to sleep in half-half reclined seat position. Strangely enough 30 mins before landing my TV screen decided it was going to work again…out of itself…
The return overnight flight was a total disaster. I thought that as long as I have a flat bed I can at least sleep. But lo and behold they had changed the aircraft from a Dreamliner to a 20-year-old A320 with seats only reclining about 10 degrees! Reason for the change? Not enough passengers to justify the Dreamliner…I can tell you the mood in the business class section was foul! I would not be surprised if many will file a complaint. I am considering…specifically as I had a connecting flight to Bangkok on arrival in Singapore in the early morning. Having some sleep on the overnight flight was really elementary in the overall scheme of my schedule…I did manage to have a quick shower in the lounge, but you can imagine how the lack of sleep impacted on the rest of my day! Not an airline I will reuse anytime soon…
Mumbai
Ranting aside, I did have a great time with fruitful meetings in Mumbai. The project had been on hold for about a year but we are back steaming ahead with the mock up room soon to be completed and the rest of the project’s design development moving fast forward. The meetings were held in the architect’s office in downtown Mumbai and saw the whole project team coordinating the design in a workshop style meeting over two days to update and bring everyone up to speed with the design changes. Architectural value engineering had compressed the building’s podium block from 8 stories to 7 stories, effectually integrating two levels of public areas (restaurants, spa, lounges, lobbies, etc) into one. A creative exercise but it all seemed to have worked out well. The two-storey convention centre housed in the basement “suffered” only minor changes. Over the coming weeks we will revisit our original concept designs and work everything to a level where we can move swiftly into DD stage. We are looking forward to finally move ahead with this prestigious project. While the actual project is in Delhi, the MUR is being built in in Mumbai, which we visited to see the work in progress…
Traffic jams
Going from Mumbai to Bangkok basically means you are moving from one traffic jam to another. In Mumbai over the 2 days I was there I spent nearly 7 hours in a car moving to and from hotel to the architects office and the MUR site. I added another 3 hours in Bangkok driving to and from the airport to site…I really can not understand how people can live in these cities, not only because of the traffic woes, but also the unhealthy air quality you need to “wade” through…
Bangkok
The Bangkok trip was very much a kick off meeting for me. The client only recently signed us on as part of the team and I look forward to develop the working relationship with them. While they are a big player in the Thai market, owning a bank, shopping malls, hotels and residences, they have so far hardly used any outside consultants for their projects, mostly being supported by their own inhouse design team in the past. Besides our architectural lighting services this project also will have opportunities to introduce our LDoT services in several areas. We really appreciate the client’s confidence in our services and will do our very best to deliver well beyond their expectations…
Governments
My return flight from Bangkok was delayed with a 2am arrival in Singapore as a result, but no let up there as I had Friday meetings and conference calls lined up. As it happened my brother, who works for the Dutch government, was in Singapore leading a delegation of government representatives, entrepreneurs in innovation, smart systems and blockchain technologies. When my brother invited me to join their delegation to visit the Future Cities Lab I grabbed the opportunity with both hands. Blockchain technologies are a potential opportunity for lighting so I wanted to know and understand more. But most of all getting inroads into governments is always difficult so the opportunity to connect to both the Singapore as well as the Dutch government delegations as well as the innovation research carried out by the Singapore universities was an opportunity not to be missed…
Enjoy the weekend
Mumbai in the morning…on our way to the meeting…impressions
arrived at the architects office…meetings…
lunchtime in the street
off to see the MUR
checking out suppliers…
Bangkok
the site
media facades
Blockchain for lighting…?
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