Fast track
Singapore 10th June 2013
We are quite used to clients requests to fast track projects…they always want things yesterday. Unfortunately many do not understand the design process and how one consultants work impacts on the others. As we are generally not the lead consultant, we are somewhere lower down the pecking order, so we can only get started the lead consultants have progressed with their designs. We can put in our lights if there is no building or interior to integrate the lighting in. Yet time schedules have moved beyond the design stages in a few of our projects with the contractors already slogging it away in site. They work on deadlines and penalties if they don’t deliver on time, so they chase and cry foul (of course looking for excuses to get more time). We on the contrary have just been appointed (far too late obviously) to do the lighting design so we are sort of running behind the facts as they say. It seems a recurrent issue in my blogs lately…:)
So we need to find a fine balance between satisfying clients and contractor on one hand and making sure we don’t short cut the design works by compromising the quality of our design work. A very delicate balancing act indeed…As I blog about my daily experiences as a lighting designer, this is definitely one of them today! The thing is; we don’t have not just one client, we have many to satisfy, some of them are recurrent clients, so we have to uphold our reputation with quality deliveries. It takes time to build up a reputation, but it can be destroyed in no time, so you can understand the importance of taking your clients seriously and not dismissing their demands as ridiculous. In all this respect and communication is key. We need to acknowledge the client’s needs, at the same time we have to carefully balance our manpower and resources and (re)assign or add staff to deal with the demands within reason. In our business however these demands are highly seasonal and variable, so staff planning needs careful consideration as well…
Light Watch 4-102: One of the fast ways to move in China and many other parts of the world are the high speed trains. I have taken the Maglev train in Shanghai a few times which propels you up to more than 400km/hour…talking about fast track!
Guilin
Guilin 7-8th June 2013
One of those places in the world you really want to visit! I am on a short stopover to meet my client for a new project here and as it happens the project is in Yangshuo, the heart of the Guilin mountains, the backdrop and inspirations for most Chinese paintings that show those amazing mountain shapes with often low overhanging clouds or mist…It definitely is on my bucket list! My flight from Haiko was not surprisingly delayed, but still manage to arrive before night fall to enjoy the scenery. Our project is located along the river just outside Yangshuo. At night the surrounding mountains and river form the back ground for a sound and light show that can be viewed along the river banks in Yangshuo. On our site we don’t hear the sound but certainly see the light with one bank of floodlights located just next to our site plot. I counted more than 50 mega floodlights (search light types), which I can only assume are about 5KW or more. Looking back to Yangshuo I can see another 5 of these floodlight banks. Must be quite a spectacle as the scenery stretches a few kilometres around. The show has been created by one of China’s revered movie directors. While I do not have time to go see the show this trip around I certainly hope to do that on one of my future visits…the spoils of our job!
The project is an old sugar factory that has been restored and will be converted into a destination hotel.I would think its location and backdrop is a sure recipe for success. I am excited about the project and its opportunities for lighting. I came at night as I wanted to understand the night time conditions, get a feel for the place and most of all see how this light show that is happening right over the site will impact. Pictures I had seen had worried me but once on site I actually thought it brought some additional excitement. It created some extra sights that I certainly would not have been given the budget to do! Nice; I can’t wait to get my teeth into this project!
Light Watch 4-101: I snapped some images with my mobile last night, here are some impressions…
Manipulating light
Hainan 6th June 2013
Our key task as a lighting designer is to manipulate (artificial) light into lighting effects that either create the mood or the visual performance required or conceptualised for the application. While we have computer rendering programs to visualise our intent, we also take our cues from existing projects (not necessarily ours) or inspiration from daylight effects that occur in and around the site specifically. As our project here is an extension of an existing resort development, there is plenty of daylight inspiration to appreciate. Today specifically was a very sunny (and hot!) day with lots of light and shadow.
Lighting design is not only about what to light but also about what NOT to light; bright and dark, light and shadow, accentuated and diffused lighting. In daytime lighting we are confronted with sharp and harsh contrasts when the sun shines to very soft and diffuse light when the sky is overcast. We accept that as being natural during the day, we can accept a balance manipulation of artificial light in similar ways at night. Lighting design is not simply putting a light bulb in a room to say it crudely, it is about how you package the lamps output and direct it to do what you want. This happens through optical systems, positioning, distance, aiming and manipulating the amount of light, in some occasions also the colour… Amongst all that, the key is understanding the spatial environment, the proportions, the materials, the finishes…light react and interacts with all these in a different way…and don’t forget the psychological effects of the manipulation on the human appreciation!
Light Watch 4-100: Here are some site pictures which will one day on completion show how today’s raw structure will be converted to spaces were day light and manipulated artificial light will create the mood and ambience to remember (hopefully!). To me it is the process from nothing to something that will contribute to a new memory bank of experience. I manipulate lighting for a job…these pictures from site provide inspiration…
Little Kingdoms
Hainan 5th June 2013
Back in China…Interesting site meeting today; one where the cultural gap can be really quite wide! Local culture meets international experience…We come together about once a month as the pace of this particular project has picked up with the aim to fast track completion in the next 12 months. That’s where you start to see little “cracks” appear as everybody defends and fends for his or her little kingdom of responsibilities. The them and us approach. Obviously everyone wants to come out on top with their responsibilities (at least let’s assume that!), so you fight for the info you need to produce the deliverables required within the agreed time frame. And that’s where it can get tough as the time schedules are not necessarily aligned! The site team seems to work along one time line (contractor signed off on a construction schedule that he needs to keep to avoid possible late penalties), while the design team work along their own agreed schedule. The reality is that the design schedule is very much dependent on the approval process. We can agree on a 3 week turn around for instance for a conceptual design, but if the owner then does not like it or keeps changing elements as you go along that impacts on all consultants along the line! Reworking, modifying and amending a design takes time; and with that all related disciplines! Somehow contractors working tight schedules on site do not have a very high understanding nor great sympathy for this design process.
So today we found ourselves battling local electrical contractor and procurement managers all wanting to move forward with their little kingdom tasks, blaming the designers for holding them up, while we still need to do our final presentation for approval to the client! There is nobody really at fault, it’s just that there are two worlds that do not necessarily appreciate, understand (or want to understand) each other. Who is King? Sounds like Game of Thrones!
Light Watch 4-99: Lighting is king certainly when it comes to shooting movies and the Game of Thrones demonstrates that every episode!
Haunted places
Singapore 4th June 2013
Today I received an RFP for a place that has quite some history. It is a hotel that has been closed, deserted and empty for quite a while now. Confidentiality does not allow me to disclose the name but it has been in the news a few years back, notably as the place of suicide of a famous rock star. The hotel also used to accommodate prime ministers and heads of states. So quite some history between the walls there! The famous suicide was in the news for days, weeks but I never realised it was this hotel. I am also not aware of the reasons for the abandonment and why the place has been empty and unused for such long time. While finances most probably have played a role in its demise at the time it may also have a “haunted house” stigma on it…who knows…but the building is lovely with a very strong historic and architecturally feature-rich façade. A new owner/ developer has taken the property on and has started its redevelopment. It will be under another name and operator; that much I know.
I think it would be my first time doing a redevelopment of a place that has a haunted past. I am not superstitious but there is something to it I guess…time will tell! You never know what sort of project will come your way! I have seen a lot over the years, from a sultan’s palace to now potentially a haunted house 🙂 But it is the spice of our profession, the unexpected, the outrageous, the challenging, the extreme, the weirdest projects…variation is the spice of life and we are blessed that we get to work on these different challenges. We learn every time and the fresh knowledge is stored in our experience bank to be re-applied at later times to keep fresh looks and approaches to our designs…
Light Watch 4-98: When you Google haunted hotels you will be surprised what you find…besides your typical haunted house look, most haunted effects seem to take place in corridors… 🙂
Flights
Singapore 3rd June 2013
It is hard to imagine business in this part of the world (or any part for the matter) without leaving your office for a flight to another destination. I drive in Singapore, Perth or Jakarta to meetings but otherwise we fly to our meetings. At current rate I am flying to a project destination on average once a week at least. Last week to Indonesia (3 flights) this week I am off to China (4 flights scheduled). All of these trips together amount to quite a lot of miles! From my first year of blogging I calculated that in 2010 alone I travelled more than 370,000km, more than 9 times around the earth…!
The biggest challenge is to find the right flights; at the right price and for me nowadays at the right time! There are so many options and now certainly with the abundance of budget airlines. While we use to rely on a travel agent a lot to get our flights organised, the internet has made bookings on line a breeze and most of our flights are now indeed booked on line with electronic tickets, complete with meal, seat selection and boarding passes complete. It is hard to understand the mechanisms that determine the price of a flight, though. One moment they can be virtually free the next moment they can be astronomical. As we have to factor in the cost of traveling in our fees you can understand that we prefer those variations to be borne by the client rather than ourselves. The flipside being that if you do take it on to yourself and you can use a pre-agreed travel reimbursements is to figure out cheap ways to fly and make some money on the travel fees…
It is my blog subject today as we were trying to work out flights back from China that allow us to maximise our time with the client but minimise our travel time (and costs!). Turned out to be quite a challenge…but all settled now 🙂
Light Watch 4-97:
One of the most amazing video’s I have ever seen is the simulation of every single flight path over the world over a period of 24 hours. It shows the flight movements all over the world and you can see how activities go ballistic during day time in Europe to then slowly move to the US, then China. It’s a miracle it all seems to work…the images below are from study done in the US recently
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR00_uLfGVE&feature=player_embedded
Site works
Bali 31st May 2013
Today was mostly spent working sites and visiting potential new clients on site. It’s amazing how many projects are still being build and planned! You would think that by now Bali is pretty “full” (which judging by the traffic jams in and around Denpasar seems a fair assessment), but the reality is that it is still a beehive of project activities. We have several on the board here.
It is always a reality check to go to site, certainly once the building structure has come out of the ground. We form an image of how we think the project is going to look like (aided by renderings) but once you set foot on the site you get a real feel of the spatial proportions, the dimensions and despite all my years of experience, it amazes me every time how different the reality is. Sometimes it looks way smaller then you imagined, sometimes it is the other way around. My site visit this morning was of the type of being way bigger and impressing than I thought. Somehow the rendering and the drawings gave a much more subdued impression than the real thing.
But while the architectural structure was above expectation, the preliminary lighting seemed below expectation. While it may be early days to comment, it seemed to me that the ceiling mark ups and exposed electrical wires I could see for the lighting would not cut it for what we have designed and scheduled. For now I give them the benefit of the doubt as they say they follow our design drawings…Key to the ultimate success is often the quality and experience of the project construction manager, the good ones know exactly how to balance the responsibilities and involvements of both the design team as well as the construction team. It is a delicate balance between trust in the experts and the necessary due diligence. I don’t think I would be a good site construction manager; I would be to nice and understanding J That does not always get things done on site!
Light Watch 4-96: Here are some impressions from the site works
The Concept
Bali 30th May 2013
I am in Bali today and tomorrow for some regular project follow up…it’s busy at the moment! But a happy problem as they say J. Today we were presented with the interior concept for the main public areas. The thing with concepts is (whether for interiors or lighting, any concept really) is how far you take it and how much you literally apply in your design. Today’s ID concept was an interpretation of a pool concept. Your traditional swimming pool but then with all elements deconstructed and somehow re-apply into the interiors. Diving boards as bar tops, water slides culminating is seats, pool stairs into shelving, ceilings concerted in to inverted pools and to top it off underwater lights in the elevators…why not.
The challenge with concepts, any concepts, is to balance the implementation of its features with the real needs of the space you are designing for. As with everything, too much becomes overwhelming, too little risks to be so understated you don’t really notice. The thing with concepts is that if you really have a good one (like I believe this pool concept is) you suddenly have so many options and ideas sprouting out of it that you may lose sight of the ultimate goal which is to produce a concept for the operator that works and is practical to maintain and operate, rather than a showcase of any possible pool implementation as a feature. A typical case of not seeing the trees through the forest.
It is the same for lighting, you need to pace the implementation of any feature lights or lighting systems and if used in big quantities understate the appearance somehow; at least that is my opinion. In general my mantra is no comments are good comments, because it means that your lighting fits in harmoniously and totally validates the overall architectural, landscape or interior concept. Comments are generally either “too much” or “not enough”…pace and balance, without ultimately loosing function and performance.
Light Watch 4-95: I went to Google some interior pool designs… here are a few
80-20
Jakarta 29th May 2013
We all know the 80-20 rule; 20% of the energy for 80% of the result, or 80% of the problems created by 20% of the issues. Eliminate or take care of this 20% and you achieve 80% of the desired result. Over the past few days I have been evaluating with the rest of the project team how to best create the visual mock-up of our design that best represent our conceptual (lighting) ideas. The challenge we however face in this particular project is a procurement manager who makes decisions purely based on price. Somewhere early in the project some QS put a budget together for the lighting of this project which now turns out to be totally inadequate. Not that I am specifying the sky, not at all, but still we seem quite a way of their budget. So his thinking is that he has a budget of 80 but the consultant has specified products for a value of 100. Simple solution…just ask some alternatives from suppliers costing 80. The problem is that what is being sold to him as “equivalent” is not. He thinks it is because it looks the same. Unfortunately it isn’t and can’t be. You cannot really expect an “accountant” to be able to evaluate and assess whether a supplier submission is compliant equivalent. That’s our task. So if that communication and consultation is not happening you have a recipe for disaster.
Our meetings today finally brought all parties to the (same) table during which I brought an important point forward. Having to achieve a savings of 20% on the costs does not mean we have to look for light fittings that cost 80%. The thing with value engineering is that we may very well reconfigure and re-assess the lighting design such that we maintain the 100% in critical and key important areas, but perhaps reduce to 60% in lesser important, non-critical areas. It is a designer way of looking at things not a bean counter way! The key target for us is to achieve the performance and quality standards that are expected for the property. Just cutting 20% will not do it…even in value engineering creativity is key!
Light Watch 4-94: Here are some more pics from Vivid Sydney…definitely no value engineering here. Variations on one theme; maximum enjoyment!
The man with the hammer
Jakarta 28th May 2013
As I was visiting a relatively new hotel property in Jakarta tonight as part of my continuous education (I am not ashamed to admit that I learn a lot from what others do- or not do), we inevitable got to talk about our project experiences. I went in the company of the interior designer and operator. What literally struck me was the story of the “man with the hammer”. I had ever experienced that with one of the project managers I worked with, this was a similar story experienced by the operator.
One of the most frustrating things in this part of the world undoubtedly is the value engineering that takes place behind your back or the poor workmanship we have to deal with. In the first case it is about finding out on inspection of the site that your original lighting specifications have been replaced by some “local” copy without consultation, without you even knowing. The idea behind it of course to cut cost, fair enough. But taking over the role of the lighting designer and making these decisions without consulting you is insulting to say the least. The point is that they know they would lose the argument in a direct confrontation, so they chose the silent route of secretly replacing your specs with their “choice” in the hope you will not notice. Not really clever when you deal with professionals… 🙂 Likewise the cost cutting exercises also works negatively on the quality of the workmanship exposing poor quality of installation and obvious shortcuts.
The problem is that once it has been installed, removing, rectifying or replacing can be quite daunting and full of unwilling people. The contractor is generally not standing in the front row when it comes to it. The “man with the hammer” is the most effective solution I have ever encountered in this part of the world to resolve the issue without any possible option for negotiation…get a slash hammer and just demolish/ crush whatever is not complying to pieces. Very effective, very dramatic!. I have experienced the action personally with a project manager asking the contractor nicely to redo a stone bench top that definitely did not look as it should with some cracks and other. When the contractor refused the project manager took his hammer and slashed the stone to pieces…leaving the contractor stunned but with no options…
Light Watch 4-93: here are some mood pictures of the Keraton Hotel we visited in Jakarta
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