Lights Out!
Perth 5th February 2013
I am not an American Super Bowl fan, but when I read that last Sunday’s grand final was interrupted mid match by a lighting failure, I obviously took notice …forget Beyonce and her performance, …it’s the lights! According to public comments made by the venue management on the lighting failure, the system detected as per design specifications that there was some “bug” (overload?) in the system and proceeded, also as per design specifications, with an automatic shutdown to isolate (read switch off) the affected area. After a 30+ minute interruption the “fault” was rectified, lights restored and play resumed. Rated as the single highest live TV sporting event in the world with an estimated more than 100 million viewers, the last thing you want is a failure of the main component of the game for viewers to see (Light!) to be failing. An auxiliary back up system prevented the field from going totally dark…imagine the panic for the near 75,000 spectators. Apparently also all the escalators, concourses so prominent credit card machines stopped working, bar some minimal emergency floodlights…The networks covering the event seemed to have their own back up and I read that at no time did they lose any of the event’s coverage. Considering that one 30 second spot of commercial on the night was about U$ 3.8 Million, they better not! There is talk that the extravagant lighting and video effects from Beyonce’s show may have been at the origin of the problem as the failure occurred shortly afterwards….LED’s again?
As lighting designers designing for emergency situation is also part of our scope, while not always prominently spelled out. The trouble for us as lighting designers only is that we do not control the electrical installation and often it is the power structure that causes the breakdown. Our task is more to allocate the lights to be used in emergency situations and keep a tap on the electrical loading needs for our lights, but the actual trigger and power management is part of the electrician’s scope. I think it all brought everyone back to earth…we are human after all and failure is part of life! We design for people and that includes emergency situations!
Light Watch 4-22: Lights out at the New Orleans Superdome…btw who won? 🙂
Lighting standards
Perth 4th February 2013
Back in my Perth office, “enjoying” the Perth summer while I still can, time flies! The nice thing about the Perth climate is that while it may be hot(ter) during the day, at night it cools off to the low 20’s, even below, making it nice and cool as a contrast, not the continuous humid climate day and night like in Singapore…no let up there. The only way to get cool is to go into an air-conditioned space. It is very likely that it was my exposure to the cool air-conditioning and hot outdoor temperatures that caused my sick-flu symptoms in Jakarta last week….
Today I dealt with an issue that is sometimes brushed over in ignorance or just simply for the sake of a beautiful end result…lighting standards. As we are preparing the final tender documents for one of our projects the client wanted us to include a reference to the lighting standards applicable. With the project being located in China of all places, the obvious question is whether mentioning any (international) standards has any meaning! The project being a big outdoor landscape and recreational space enveloping a major corporate headquarters sprawling over several acres, the obvious standards are about glare control, safe and secure circulation, energy efficiency and product quality. IES, CIE, BS and the like have several relevant guides and standards that can be listed as reference. The point is that in all likelihood, if there are any standards to be applied, it will have to be the local Chinese standards. Believe it or not but the Chinese over the last couple of years have been quite active in developing their own lighting standards and there are quite a number of them. Unfortunately for us “foreign” designers it’s a bit hard to understand and relate to the Chinese versions, not in the last place because they are in Chinese! 🙂
When in Rome do like the Romans as the saying goes, so while we may well list the international standards as a reference, we should honour, appreciate and support the efforts gone into developing the local standards and take these as the lead standards for the project. I only have little ways to ascertain myself that I am in agreement with them…
Light Watch 4-21: I was quite impressed with the 3D printing images I saw last weekend, so here are some more…are these the lighting standards of the future?
3D printing
Jakarta – Singapore 2nd February 2013
The perils of frequent travelling and being exposed to climate/temperature changes, local food, other people’s bugs or plain fatigue from hectic schedules is that you need a strong body to coop and a good mental disposition to dissimilate it. It caught up with me the last few days and yesterday I was just feeling to sick and tired to even write my blog. I did manage to do my meetings, meet my clients returned and from Jakarta to Singapore under heavy medicine sedation (heaps of Panadol 🙂 ) to dive straight into my bed on arrival. Good there are weekends…
When I was in Jakarta I saw a program on waking up one morning discussing the latest about 3D printing…I did not even realise that it existed let alone that the technology was already so far developed that it is starting to become main stream with major architectural firms looking into (and I believe even already using) the technology to build models and even buildings. From Wikipedia I read that 3D Printing is also called additive manufacturing, creating the 3D object from a digital model using an additive process that add successive layers of different shapes and forms until the end object is completed. This is distinctly different from creating an object by removing material, which is the traditional machine technology.
Is this a technology that will become popular in lighting and lighting design? Producing light fitting is something that I can see should be easily achievable. Certainly decorative fixtures, as it creates the product from digital files, whatever you can design with your computer you should be able to 3D Print. I don’t know the limitation in terms of size, materials, colours and structural, durable strength, but is seems there are technically little limitations. I can see it being very useful to create visual mock ups to test our lighting concepts.
When you start thinking further ahead it should be possible to integrate lighting components (LED lighting, lenses, wiring, controls?!) into a 3D printed product, since this should be technically feasible in a digital world…then the opportunities are endless. We could possibly bypass the lighting manufacturers and deliver our designs directly to the building contractor for printing and installation! …hmmm something to think about, let me know! 🙂
Light Watch 4-20: Not surprisingly when searching the net, I found quite a number of 3D printed light fittings already with companies like Disney world (!) having researched and created some interesting products! Here is some that I found including a the Disney video…very interesting, a development to follow more closely!
Lighting conception
Jakarta 31th January 2013
Having early brainstorm sessions with project architects is a crucial part of a successful lighting design process…at least that is my opinion. We do not always get to do that or be involved in early building conception stages, certainly when we are appointed late in the piece with all major architectural design works logged in. Today I had a morning meeting with one of the world’s leading architectural firms with a specific time build into the meeting schedule to spent on brain storming the architectural lighting of the façade and interior public areas.
The early interaction between lighting and architecture allows us to bounce ideas of the architect get a feeling of what can or cannot (lah!). Plus, with the client-owner present, we get a direction of what they are looking for. The QS then brings everybody back to earth with his number crunching! But really, it is a great platform for a conceptual design dialogue. Whilst getting a good feel of the architectural design intent, we also managed to high light typical lighting design issues and requirements, including maintenance and costs that can be averted with early planning and design attention. We settled on a combined (conventional) floodlighting and linear LED curtain wall lighting integration, providing us with a useful layering and mix of lighting effects. All this with a positive impact on maintenance, energy saving and costs! In the observation deck areas at the building top we agreed to design the windows under a sloped angle to counter possible lighting reflections from the interior lighting. It has yet to be designed but the architectural adaptation now will save us lot of head ache later on. The building canopy design will be reworked to create a space to invisibly integrate the building flood lighting, something which would have been a tough ask much later in the process…it pays to interact and brain storm with the architect in the early (lighting) conception stages! All in all a fruitful and good day spent in Jakarta (even the “majet” was not too bad :))
Light Watch 4-19: There is no end to people’s imagination when it comes to innovating and conceptualising new ideas with LED lighting J The latest I came across today was an LED snow boarding at night! Is LED on its way to become actively part of the Olympic Games movement? Who would have thought that a relatively minor innovation such as LED would find its way in so many applications!
You tube : http://www.telegraaf.nl/s/21257450
Minus One
Jakarta 30th January 2013
Staying in hotels as you travel is a good part of our experience as lighting designers, certainly if you design lighting for hotels for a living. These few days in Jakarta I am put up in a hotel provided and paid for by the client and it is not always a joyful experience. In this particular contract the client provides the accommodation (and the flights) something that minimises administrative work to recuperate the reimbursable costs. Basically we don’t pay anything, flights electronic tickets sent to us, accommodation arranged and paid for by the client. No worries. The potential downside is that you don’t know exactly what sort of quality standards the hotel is….
In this case the hotel is strategically located, nothing wrong but it’s very new with many of the basic services missing, like internet in the room! Right now I am sitting in the all day dining typing away on my laptop as here as well as in the adjacent lobby is the only place with Wi-Fi! And even that is not stable as it comes and goes…argh! The hotel is touted as 5 star, but really it is still at a minus one level. No provisions in the room, the lighting is absolutely crap and clearly cost have been cut on all level. No master switch near the bed…you have to get out of bed to switch of lights, the bathroom has only one single down light in the middle and one single wall sconce on the side. Lighting levels are terrible and facial illumination at the mirror is zero! There is a micro-switch for the cabinet that does not work, so I had to use some chewing gum to keep it switched off during the night. The sliding doors fell out of their girders when trying to open/close. The master lighting system does not work…last night I woke up in the middle of the night when all lights suddenly went on. Waking up from a deep sleep I thought I had overslept and had slept through all morning, only to realise later that is was 1am and not 1pm, when I opened the curtains to realise it was still pitch black outside! Definitely a Minus One star classification…next time I will request another hotel!
Light Watch 4-18: But Jakarta is a lovely place…if not for the local food…makan! This afternoon I had lunch in a lovely local restaurant…here are some pics 🙂
Jakarta
Jakarta 29th January 2013
On the day after Dutch Queen Beatrix announced her abdication, I am back in Jakarta, early morning flight, 1-2 hours traffic jam and into a meeting, a fairly normal scenario. In fact the flight from Singapore is faster than the ride from the airport into down town. I could not life like that but I can kind of see that when you really live here you accept the traffic torture as a way of life and you start finding ways around it. This time I am staying for a few days so I find myself back in my hotel at a reasonable time without any pressure to rush back to the airport. 🙂
I have blogged about Indonesia before; it is one of the leading growth economies in the Asia Pacific region. I cant really put my finger on it other than by the amount of projects we are currently undertaking in this country. It is no wonder our office here is growing fast. Is it going to last…I don’t know. Everything comes in cycles, good and bad, fast and slow, up and down. That is the ying and yang of life (and business). For now I am focussing ahead to make sure I can manage my clients expectations.
The mix of projects is a bag of hotels, corporate towers, a bank and some commercial retail development, pretty typical for this part of the world. Hotels and resorts are typically about half the projects we are doing and interestingly they vary from the lower end of the scale (Holiday Inn Express) to the higher end of the scale (Raffles Hotel). I find that really challenging as you as you tempt to approach all hotel lighting designs initially along the same value and quality criteria; the difference being more in the simplicity and practicality of the execution and implementation. Simpler lighting layouts, more general lighting(less sophistication), simpler switching (no or less dimming), all with the aim to reduce the capital budget for building the hotel and minimise operational costs through simple and easy maintenance. Specifically in the lower tier hotels the issue of LED (Cowboys) is a big challenge…
Light Watch 4-17: As the Netherlands prepares for a new King (Willem Alexander) on the 30th January here are some pics of the recently renovated Palace of the Queen in Soestdijk. Look for the lighting 🙂
Keeping up with the times
Singapore 28th January 2013
Here is a statement for you: Life is not getting easier with a new computer! I have spent a good part of the weekend getting to “know” my new laptop so that I could start working with it today, which I did. But boy do you get used to your old ways of doing things! I have now switched from Windows 7 to Windows 8…a totally new ball game. And it is amazing how many little ways you have developed over the years to get around your computer, save, alter, move or delete documents. Now everything seems so different, what used to be somewhere is not, and on top of that I have touch screen options, tablet functions. It has been quite confusing today not knowing whether to swap or touch from the screen or use the mouse, which is a swipe-pad on the laptop. Some programs open and operate differently. Skype on W8 does not yet seem up to scratch so I am going to down load the old version. Anyhow I will get there eventually but at times I was thinking” where is the good old “simple” time?… I am trying to keep up with the times…
Otherwise today was much in the spirit of preparing/ finalising presentations as I have several lighting concept presentations in the coming week, all in Jakarta…yes it is busy in Indonesia! The first presentations to a client are always crucial as you set the tone for your future deliverables and the quality level of the design you intent to develop. A good time to high light some of our key issues such as quality versus budget, importance of specifications, clarifying the pitfalls of LED (hi-ha for the Cowboys). It is very much about managing expectations and preparing/aligning the clients mind with yours! All lighting concepts can be beautiful from the outset but are they realistic, feasible technically, financially, locally! We design for a certain environment, meaning, can our design be sustained in the local market where our project is situated? We design for people…a concept presentation is a great platform to show that…
Light Watch 4-16: As I am heading back to Jakarta I would like to take this opportunity to applaud Tamara, one of the creative design members of our Jakarta team. She has been very active in the lighting community through Facebook and even her own blog as well! She also entered the one-beam competition with some very nice and creative entries. KLD is routing for her! Some nice interaction between light and material, well done!
Coming to fruition
Singapore 25th January 2013
We don’t always get to live a project from start to finish. In my particular case I left several of my lighting design projects with Lighting Images in China when I moved to set up my KLD practice and did not see them through to its final completion. Today I received feedback on one of those projects, the Zhengzhou Tower in China, that was ceremoniously completed just a few days ago and in which I spent heaps of time and efforts with a difficult client to get the lighting design concept worked out to its final specifications. I still have a file with the visual mock up pictures when we tested the potential light fittings on a life-size façade panel in order to establish which value for money would work best…not easy as the cost of the LED lighting for the façade ran in the millions…
We had several challenges to overcome (besides the budget!) in the lighting design of this project; first of all the physical lighting performance of the LED floodlights. Mind you that this design was done close to 5 years ago when LED floodlighting (linear in this case) was still in its early development. In the process we had to deal with some client “preferred” suppliers (LED Cowboys?) who had convinced the client their product was the one. We however had set ourselves on quite another product with in our opinion a much better lighting quality. On top of that our preferred light fitting came from an internationally reputable manufacturer, which came with the obvious peace of mind. The visual mock ups proved us right…
The other major lighting design issue was to find the locations within the façade curtain wall that allowed “easy” access for installation and maintenance of the light while at the same time making sure that spill light (in and outside the building) was restricted to a minimum. Issues such as cable runs, waterproofing and lighting controls were an integral part of the design process at the time…it is nice to see now that another one of my projects has come to fruition and the lighting stands majestically tall (300m high) in the Zhengzhou city skyline.
Light Watch 4-15: Here are some pictures of the project…have a great weekend
Computers
Singapore 24th January 2013
It is safe to say that life without computers in our, or nearly any, profession is practically impossible! I have lived the years of doing lighting design without personal computers and laptops and I can tell you that was quite a different way of life! Not many of today’s lighting designers would know what it is to do lighting design without a computer! When I just started with Philips (1979!) we had one huge main frame computer (the size of a whole room!), which was shared with the whole lighting department. It’s main use being to do lighting calculations for big projects like a sports stadium. The computer would work on an input of punch cards, which would take you a day to prepare after which we would run the calculations overnight. As the computer would run and calculate the projects in sequence of input, you had to “queue” up and wait for your turn! As the inputs were very sensitive to the computer language you would enter on the punch cards, you often found your calculations messed up or not properly executed, which then meant you had to review all your punch cards (often more than a few hundred!) to find out which one had a mistake!…When I still think of it…
Presentations were all done with hand sketches and presentation hard boards, actual printed layout drawings (which you had to have printed in a special print shop if you did not have a proper A0 printer in your office. We would then travel to our clients with all these rolls of drawings, stacks of presentation boards and reams of computer calculation print outs! But now? All you need is a simple laptop with good graphics, a HDMI/VGA connection to a TV screen (have you seen the sizes of the TV screens nowadays!) and of you go!
Why am I on to this?…because today I got myself a brand new laptop. Somehow my laptops don’t last much longer than 2-3 years max.; and the way I go about them probably still a miracle they survive that long. I eat, drink, sleep, travel with them and they are practically on 24/7. The amount of times I dropped the laptop or spilled food on it… My preferred brand has always been the IBM, nowadays Lenovo, Thinkpads. Had them for years, very reliable. Not surprisingly I got the latest hot Lenovo Ideapad, the Yoga13…wow, Windows 8, touch screen technology…the perfect fit since I am really getting used to my Ipad 🙂
Light Watch 4-14: Here are some images of this latest hot laptop…
Colleagues
Singapore 23rd January 2013
An important part of our life as lighting designer is to spent some time with colleagues in the business…for many reasons. First of all there is little to no reason to lock yourself up in an ivory tower. This holds for your relationship with your own team as well as with colleagues in the business. Our world (of lighting design) is a small world anyhow and isolating yourself only isolates you from the world of lighting design. I have always been a great promoter and participant of sharing knowledge, it has always served me and helped the profession well. Lighting design is a relatively young profession with little competition but also with little public understanding so in my opinion we have everything to gain in sharing our expertise and experiences so we can build and grow the profession in an established and well respected trade. My blog is one of the tools in sharing my (more than 30 years) of experience with my colleagues specifically and the greater public in general.
As it happened yesterday was a double “colleague” day. First I had a “colleague” meeting with my team in Jakarta. We are in the process of moving to a new office and had welcomed some new staff over the last few weeks which I had not yet met. These meetings for me are very important, we are a team and I need my team to feel connected and supported. It promotes en encouraging spirit. Then back in Singapore I attended a manufacturer sponsored dinner where several of my lighting design colleagues (read: friendly competitors) were in attendance. That is often the time when you find out who got which job or to whom you lost a job… I think it is great feedback and sharing our experiences with clients helps us in negotiating projects in a world and economic climate which is not always easy to navigate! We all wish each other to do well, which is in the interest of our profession in general. And while we do come across each other in project acquisition stages once in a while I have to say honestly that most of the time we don’t. I guess that we all carve out our little niche of clients and relationships that helps fuel our lighting practice. It was nice to meet my “colleagues” yesterday…
Light Watch 4-13: My Jakarta colleagues… 🙂
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