Day 6 – Erco
Netherlands, 21st April 2012
My last day in Germany was the conclusion of my Erco visit, before heading off to see my parents in Holland. I will be on leave for a week during which I will not be blogging. On my return I will get back on my visit to Germany and some of the things I noted down in regards to trends in lighting and things I saw at Light & Build.
Light Watch 3-58: some more impressions from my visit to Erco
Erco leading the way with its solar roof on P2
Erco’s fully automated wharehousing in P3
P3 view from outside
A bit of history in Erco’s canteen
Thomas Schielke in full action in Erco’s Mock Up Room. Thomas has been intrumental in writing Erco’s great book about lighting design “Light Perspectives”. I will review the book at a later date.
Haagen’s Hauptbanhoff…finally on my way to Holland 🙂
Light & Build 2012 Day 5
Frankfurt-Ludenshcheid, 20th April 2012
Light Watch 3-57: Light & Build 2012 Day 5 and ERCO factory visit impressions
Philips LED seminar, the strive towards defining quality criteria
Konika – Minolta with its latest light meter; Lux levels, Colour temperature, Colour rendering all in one
The founding father of ERCO, Arnold Reininghaus
The famous library
Cameo appearance
Night at the ERCO premises
Light & Build 2012 Day 4
Frankfurt, 19th April 2012
Light Watch 3-56: Light & Build 2012 Day 4 impressions
Roberto proudly presenting the latest flatline LED products from PIL
Cree modules and urban systems
Occhio with the touch control (IO3D)and flexilens (Piu Terra3D)
Interesting materials for use with LED
Blackbody stand with OLEDs
Lasvit
A brave new development against the LED train; new plasma technology (see more at www.3PPBULB.com)
Solar panels and poles
Iguzzini new generation LED street light
Iguzzini…a truly exciting new LED downlight concept
IGuzzini party
Xicato light picnic
Light & Build 2012 Day 3
Frankfurt, 18th April 2012
Light Watch 3-55: Light & Build 2012 Day 3 impressions
Louis Poulsen launching the Silverback to a selected audience
Paulina introducing her Noche Zero event at PLDA’s international development forum
Philips promoting “freedom” of binning…they claim a better way to free us from binning issues
Philips also tackling the dimming issues, one of our maun worries
Traxon (Osram) with interactive LED panel
Osram as one of the few showing of progress with Zhaga…the committee striving towards creating universal interchangeable LED modules
Zumtobel stand by day
Zumtobel stand after hours (with band)
PLDA night venue in PalmGarten
PLDA night, inside
Luminale installation in the Palmgarten
Light & Build 2012 Day 2
Frankfurt, 17th April 2012
Light Watch 3-54: Light & Build 2012 Day 2 impressions
GE presentations
GE’s Lumination, uniform rastered flat light, transparent/ see through when off
FLOS with the magnetic LED mini hook-on spots
FLOS with their flatlite
Hoffmeister with the intelligent info touch/ movement screens
BEGA’s traditional stand concept
the now more and more familiar look of LED down lights
The outdoor plaza…
Xicato’s “work bench”
RCL’s lates remote controlled LED spots
The after hour party’s
Light & Build 2012 Day 1
Frankfurt, 16th April 2012
Arrived in Frankfurt on Saturday to attend the PLDA Annual General Meeting and had my first day at the fair yesterday. Many friends and familiar faces…I will not be reporting on L&B (yet) just share some pictures to share the mood and ambiance with you. Over the next few weeks I will undoubtedly come back and share my experience and findings of Light & Build. For those here in Frankfurt do look me up! I am somewhere around 🙂
Light Watch 3-53: Light & Build 2012 PLDA AGM/ Day 1
PLDA “standing” committee of directors and coordinators
Inspecting the PLDA booth on Sunday
Erco stand promoting their 7.62w.m2 energy usage on the stand
Local dimming option on the fitting
Viabizzuno outdoor plaza
Viabizzuno stairway to “heaven’
Endo 1030 Watt conventional versus 411 Watt LED
Some Artemide classics refitted with LED 🙂
Innovate, revolutionise
Singapore, 13th April 2012
Anyone superstitious?…Today is Friday the 13th….
I am not really superstitious but over the years I have learned to appreciate things like Feng-Shui and numerology. If I can I will avoid the numbers 4 and 13 (adds up to 4) at funny places like check in counters for instance. As I am flying of to Frankfurt tonight, I will watch out for the flight check in or immigration counter number. For me 3 is probably my favourite, followed by 1, 2 and 7, don’t ask me why exactly…these are probably the numbers that have done me well over the years. I am born on the 3rd (May), lived at nr 3 in Holland (my parents live there!), live at nr 3 in Perth, have my office at 03-09 (ads up to 12 and 3) in Singapore, KLD is my 3rd (and final) venture… I am sure we all have our favourite numbers and colours….
Anyhow off to Frankfurt tonight with lots of excitement and expectation. As I mention in my heading it will be very much about innovations and revolutions. So much has happened since the light L&B in 2010, so many technological developments have taken place, quality and performances have improved so much, so many players have joined the LED race that each and every-one will be out there to vow customers and specifiers like ourselves and show of why they are leading the pack. We have been privy to main peek previews over the last couple of weeks and from experience I know that many manufacturers will not only have the latest on show in their stand for the general public, but also have some further innovations cooking in their kitchens which they will show in the back to selected lighting specialist to get some feedback… I am looking forward to it. This year shapes up as a little LED revolution…
Light Watch 3-52: Innovation comes in many forms and sometimes in the least expected applications. I was recently made aware of a US company (Revo-Lights) who developed a “revolutionary” lighting system for bikes, yes using LED of course. To me this is a typical example of an innovation and a revolution as it takes an existing technology to create a new way of lighting which in the process may revolutionise the way we apply lighting on a bike. Below some pictures taken from their website; www.revolights.com
Check out the little video clip: http://vimeo.com/27280439
When time flies…
Singapore, 12th April 2012
Funny how a day can just wiz past without you actually realising what you have done! A bit like driving in automatic mode on the road, suddenly you realise you have reached your destination without really remembering anything from along the way. I feel a bit the same today, the day went passed just like that and if not for my blog forcing me to review the day passed I would probably move on to tomorrow without remembering the day. It was not a stand out day with any memorable happenings, just one of those ordinary days where you do a lot of small things that keep you busy all the time. Meetings with my team here on project issues, meetings outside with client, a teleconference, emails, phone calls and making sure I get most urgent things out of the way before I fly off to Frankfurt tomorrow.
The interesting thing is that a day like this actually is quite productive as a lot of small things get cleared out of the way. You work on one big thing and it may take up your whole day and all those little things that still need attention remain on the to-do list. So today I cleared a lot of the to-do list and it feels good! 🙂
We are lucky as lighting designers to have a job in which not a day is basically the same, yes there are patterns, but in principle I cannot predict what I will be doing tomorrow (figuratively speaking). One phone call can change the complete direction of a day. So today though busy, was kind of nice and peacefully crawling along and that is probably why I know suddenly look back and think what the heck did I do all day?
Light Watch 3-51: Today I would like to share some inspiration. As designers we need inspiration on a daily basis to keep feeding our brain with creative food. I do surf on other interesting sites to see what other people come up with. While it may not be our everyday stuff it does provide ideas and inspirations that one day may be used in different ways or applications. Lighting sculptures courtesy of the Yellow Goat design website.
Yes, a chandelier in an aquarium…
Light to your ears
Singapore, 11th April 2012
We all know the expression “music to your ears”…now there is also “light to your ears”. I am Linked-In to various discussion groups on the subject of lighting, lighting design and related applications of interest. Over the last few days a subject popped up in which someone discussed the use of light therapy through the ears. Build like your regular Ipod with ear phones, it has LED lights of a certain wavelength that penetrate directly via your ear channel to your brain.
According to the product statement the “brain simulation head set”, I quote, substitute the mood elevating effects of the sun, by channelling safe bright light directly to photo sensitive regions of the brain. It is said that our brain are as sensitive to light as our eyes. The promoted benefits are increased energy levels and prevention and treatment of mood swings. It boasts to have a CE Class II medical device certification and that it has been clinically tested.
I can’t really judge or verify the truthful ness of the products workings and results, but could imagine that it can have a positive impact on the body. I find it interesting enough to mention it as more and more research is being done with lighting to find how we can simulate our natural source of (day)light and reproduce its known remedial effect on our health and body. Serotonin, melatonin and other hormones in the brain play active roles in regulating our mood, sleep and depressions so this light therefore is claimed to have effect on well-known things like seasonal affective disorder (SAD), the so called winter blues, of course our body’s circadian rhythms and has a positive influence on sleep disorder and jet lag. Studies show effective results with this product within 8-12 minutes of use! Which would be far more efficient that the traditional exposure to light. I have not been able to determine at what wavelength and colour temperature the light operates.
Again I have to state I just go by what the website of the product claims and have at this stage no way of verifying whether the claims are true even though it appears the studies and researches have been underwritten and publicised by the University of Oulu in Finland including official papers on the matter.
Light Watch 3-50: In light watch some pictures and schematics to show its working
Light and Art Restoration
Singapore, 10th April 2012
A special subject today…It is always exciting when your children somehow get involved with parts of your life, in my case my life as a lighting designer. None of my children are active in my business, though my son Ingmar has worked as a drafts man at some stages. He has recently embarked on urban architectural planning studies, so who knows… 🙂
Today it is my daughter Valentine, who lives in Paris and studies to become a professional restorer of paintings, who showed me how she uses light to assess paintings that need restoring and how lighting reveals the textures and paint techniques…I found that very interesting and very much a close to my heart subject. As part of a recent exam she had to prepare a report outlining her methodology for assessing the painting’s condition, in this case a painting from French painter Ferriere depicting a countryside river scene.
Restoration of old paintings is no mean feat as you really need to understand everything that is to know about the painting, canvas material used, the way it is framed, executing humidity and heat tests to understand the type of paint and the way paint has been utilised and has integrated itself onto the canvas. Studying the cracks in the paint and the extend of varnishing the painting is all part of this research before you can even start thinking about restoring the artwork in its original condition. It is as part of this research that light is being used in several different ways.
First the paintings are examined with strongly angled light, from the left, from the right, from below and from the top, each angle revealing different aspects of the painting. We use this technique (grazing of light over a surface) often in our lighting designs to enhance and reveal nice material structures and finishes….
Then the light is used to shine through the painting to reveal canvas and paint thicknesses and how dark and lighter colours are used throughout the spectrum. Finally UV-light is applied to reveal any other irregularities not necessarily visible to the eye, in this case showing the homogeneity of the varnishing.
Very revealing…as light always is… 🙂 Thanks for sharing Val, very interesting!
Light Watch 3-49: In sequence below; the painting as is, lights shown from different angles (right, left, top, below), light from behind and the painting under UV light
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