The bigger picture
Singapore 20th January 2012
I have recently started to engage in a cooperation with environmental specialists to add further value to our goal in providing the greenest and most sustainable possible lighting solutions to our clients. The point is that we as professional lighting designers are specialist in our own little field of lighting design but have little knowledge or understanding on how our lighting design may further influence the design of other disciplines such as air and temperature control, electrical design, the integration with building management systems, architectural day lighting design and control and so on. In fact lighting is just a small part in the chain of sustainable design.
So in engaging further with environmental specialists will help us to better understand the bigger picture and most of all reinforce the message of the sustainable impact of our lighting design. For example, by embarking on an LED driven design, rather than halogen, we will create multiple saving effects. By reducing the power intake we reduce the direct energy consumption, yes, but do we know and understand what that means in terms of savings in regards to air-conditioning and temperature control equipment for instance? What is the impact on the electrical switchboard design? Because of the reduced heat emission of the lights, the sizing of the room temperature control equipment can be reduced, what are the savings there? There is a ripple effect throughout the building that we (I speak for myself here) do not fully understand as we are not specialist in these areas. So by engaging with the other specialist of related disciplines we will be able to make a much stronger case for the additional investment that may be required for sustainable lighting systems.
To make this more tangible, we may even need the QS to re-think the way budgets are put together by looking at the overall picture rather than the individual costs (of lighting). Comparing halogen to an LED equivalent is no longer and apple to apple comparison if you do not understand the bigger picture. The savings that you create through lighting should come back to lighting and not disappear in some-one else’s budget!
Light Watch 3-8: I leave you with a selection of “cool” building designs that at least have the “green” look. Whether they are really sustainable I don’t know but the design sort of implies it is! I don’t know anything about the lighting of these building but I would think that the above thoughts should heavily apply here!
It’s the economy…
Singapore 19th January 2012
In this part of the world we are now in between two major holidays. Xmas and New Year are just behind us, people living in the southern hemisphere (like Australia) are still having their summer break and right ahead we are looking at Chinese New Year starting 23rd January, a time when the Chinese in Asia shuts down. Some have already left for “home” to celebrate with their families. There is definitely a seasonal effect on business. Western countries are slowly getting back into business, with decisions and progress still on the low burner. At the same time the Asians are wrapping up for the Chinese New Year holidays which means they either want you to quickly submit some work before they go or they defer decision till after the holidays. Whatever it is any action (payments for instance!) are now only going to happen well after the holidays.
Bring into the mix the Eurozone worries, the high interest rates in India, the slowing Chinese economy and we have a situation where no-one really knows what is going to happen in the next 12 months. We have jobs in the pipeline, but are they all going to materialise fully, progress within the intended time schedules? Or will we see cut backs and a notable slowdown in the projects. I definitely see it happen already, but whether it is just the seasonal effect or a more cautious approach by our clients is hard to tell. Money in the bank is clearly the measure by which we go, always stay a step ahead of your client when it comes to deliveries. Sounds selfish, but reality has shown that the moment you release work without having received previous payment you will always run behind the facts.
With the uncertainties of the future re-enforcing your base is probably a good preventive action and with that I mean building alliances and strategic partnerships to increase exposure and potential client base. Most of all treasure your existing clients and treat them well…Just sharing some of the worries that play in my mind at the moment and I am sure that I am not alone with these thoughts, regardless whether you are running a small lighting design practice like ours or a multi-million lighting corporation….
Light Watch 3-7: There will always be a future as we as human beings have this never ending urge to invent and innovate. New products will always be developed. Panasonic for instance just received a design award for their latest LED light bulb which has been designed along the lines of a traditional Thomas Edison lamp, including the filament and clear glass…Also the compactness of LED technology allows us now to create fixtures where you wonder where the light comes from!
Layers of light
Singapore 18th January 2012
Opting for an “early” entry today as I will be off later for a meeting and not sure what time I will be back (and in what state :)) as I will be attending a friend’s birthday dinner party after that.
Lighting design is very much about understanding the laws of perception. We don’t design for lux meters, we design for people to work in and enjoy their environment. So in the end lighting is all about what is created as a visual environment and how we as human beings will perceive and appreciate it. A down light produces a certain light distribution and it is how we play and have this light distribution interact with its architectural environment that we create the visual environment that you will experience. Hence understanding the psychology of seeing, human perception, is key to a good lighting design.
Part of my day was dedicated (still is, just taking a small break to write this entry) to breaking up the proposed lighting design concept in layers of light and build up the “lighting psychology” into an understandable presentation. While we see what we see and generally accept that as a given, we do not always understand why it was created that way, what the role of the lighting is and if it wasn’t done that way, what the (negative) consequences would be. So this breaking up of the lighting design in layers (components) of light serves to educate the client at the same time on how we came to our final concept, by building up the lighting effects and explaining their role step by step. The end result of a lighting design is a composition, an integrated combination of a multitude of lighting components, similar to an orchestra, where all the individual instruments and the part they play combine to the become the final piece of music that you hear.
Understanding the role of each lighting component is crucial to our lighting design team as well. We design with reason so by consciously focussing on each layer of light and making sure we have fully understood and maximised its potential we can confidently face the client when presenting the total lighting design concept.
Light & Learn 3-2: It is probably a good time to share some basic elements of perception as part of Light & Learn for this week. One of the laws of perception says that what is brighter seems larger and further away. What is darker seems smaller and closer by. In a schematic representation of a space with a floor, a ceiling and 3 walls (see below) I am showing the effects of light and brightness in an architectural environment. The white surfaces are the brightly lit ones, those colored the ones are not illuminated. You will see that the space in the 1st looks close-by and bigg, the 2nd deep and small, the 3rd low and wide and the 4th high and narrow. It is of course the same space…it’s the lighting that creates the difference.
Something from nothing
Singapore 17th January 2012
Time and again we are faced with situations were (prospective) clients ask us to produce “something from nothing”, often a frustrating activity. Let me elaborate…
Today I had two fairly similar experiences in two different fields of our lighting design practice. As you know, doing fee proposals is crucial to our business, as long as we keep doing these we are in business as somewhere along the line one will convert into and actual project. But fee proposals are quite tricky as you sort of lay down your commitment in regards to the services you intend to deliver against the fee you are proposing. So in order to make the fee proposal meaningful you need a decent input in terms of the design brief, scope of work and deliverables. So how to do that if you are not given any clear scope of work other than some rough descriptions of the areas (no sizes) and when prompted about the building size being answered: “one building is tall, the other is flat!” That makes it understandably challenging and needs a lot of experience to create a proposal that makes sense while leaving the door open to log in the final fee at a later stage when details are confirmed. I generally do not like to give a client a flat NO, as the lack of info maybe unintentional, possible due to their own lack of experience or simply the result of confidentiality at that stage. Diplomacy and education can do wonders some time…
In a similar situation we are in the process of putting a lighting concept presentation together for a shopping mall but as we progressed we discovered that the rendering was old, the CAD drawings made available did not match the rendering (unclear which one was more recent ) and of a very general nature, making it very hard to get a good understanding of the building and site details. Prompting the client did not deliver any additional info, so there is a great risk that the development of the lighting concept may turn out to be abortive work being based on seemingly obsolete drawings and renderings…yet the client is pushing us to come and present the concept. Again experience will help us put something together that will be a good base for the presentation, but it will take a skilful and diplomatic presentation to present something out of nothing. It will need to help the client understand and hopefully result in appreciation for what lighting designers need to create!
Light Watch 3-6: Getting the lighting concept right is really very dependent on understanding the architectural design concept. If you do not understand the architectural intent how to develop a meaningful lighting concept. Here are a few shopping mall designs that googled with very different design intent….
Cut and paste?
Singapore 16th January 2012
It is so easy to fall back on something you have done before… just copy and paste…but when you run a practice like ours where you are hired to come up with lighting design concepts, creative lighting solutions, time is very much of the essence. Clients want your design “yesterday” and as a result you find yourself looking for the easy way out to submit and issue your designs as swiftly as possible to have a quick turn-around. Time is money right? But more and more I find myself looking for that design edge, that something unique that will set the project apart. That can be a lighting feature by itself or an integrated solution worked out with architect, interior designer or even an artist.
Today again I got that itchy feeling we were moving too quickly along the proven paths, been there, done that, we know it works, client will be satisfied…I catch myself constantly trying to step back and see what we could do differently, how could we bring something special to the project. It is easier said than done as our lighting designs generally follow on from the lead consultant, being interior designer or architect who already have put in their fair amount of thoughts in the overall concept by the time we are called in. You can imagine that they are not always keen in us telling them to change details or layouts to fit some new crazy lighting idea we have.
To prove my point a short anecdote in regards to a lighting concept we have just completed for a hotel. We had presented the concept and generally all parties (client, operator, interior designer, etc) liked it and asked us to work it out in details. When we sent our details for comments last week, which needed the interior designer to modify some layout and detailing, the interior designer asked us to delete all lighting points that changed their original design…what? I suspect their main reasons being to avoid additional work (which they cannot really claim) and also avoid the extra cost for lighting which would undoubtedly affect the overall (tight) budget in general and leave less for interiors!
So what? Back to a “cut and paste design” without much identity?… We decided to ignore the ID request and stick to the concept with more visual impact that everybody approved of…if necessary the value engineering will be instructed by the client.
Light Watch 3-5: Some creative approaches in lighting relating to shape, form, texture, size, movement, senses, technology…
materials and texture
shapes and forms
dimensions and proportions
senses; blow to light
senses; rub to light (brighter)
technology
technology
Superstition
Singapore 14th January 2012
It was not because yesterday was Friday the 13th that I did not upload my blog…I was simply on the run most of the day with hardly any time behind my laptop…and no, I am not that much into my IPhone or Ipad that I use these to tweet or blog on the run…I need to sit down behind my laptop in my comfortable office chair with a proper key board! That sounds so old fashioned already….20 years ago that would have been unthinkable…Anyhow I got up early yesterday for a run of meetings, before I flew back to Singapore later in the afternoon. On arrival in Singapore in the evening I went straight to my friend’s wedding anniversary party and “landed” in my bed well after midnight. This morning I had another client meeting after which I had some errands to run…amazing how busy you can make yourself be at times 🙂
My subject for today (yesterday) has to be superstition…it is known that many top performers, whether in sports or arts, have superstitions and rituals before they start their performance and I guess that many of us, even in our daily life and work, may have small little ones we openly or secretly follow before starting the day or work. So what about superstition in lighting design??? I am not really superstitious but sometimes catch myself avoiding (if I can) “unlucky” numbers such as 4 or 13. It can be for the date on my fee proposal, my room number in a hotel, my seat number in the plane and so on. Even when it comes to quantities, for instance the number of down lights, the length of a cove. Sounds silly, and sometimes it just is what it is, but somehow it runs in the back of your mind…what if…
There are probably many other small little superstitions that you may have, let me know. Would love to hear some of yours!
Looking back on yesterday’s Friday the 13th it was actually a very good day, had great successful meetings, a project payment confirmation, a potential new job, a newly restarted job that had been shelved, my flight arrived early… I went to bed very satisfied; this edition of Friday the 13th was a great day 🙂
Light Watch 3-4: I am always in awe about how daylight creates the visual world we live in. I spent my New Year’s holidays in Britanny, France and saw some beautiful plays of light and shadow, sunset included, specifically as in the winter the sun is low on the horizon creating string shadows and colours. I usually don’t share my holiday pictures but here are a few for you to enjoy.
Tax matters!
Perth 12th January 2012
The other issue that was bothering me yesterday was about tax… I guess when you work generally within one country it is pretty straight forward, your fees are inclusive or exclusive tax (in most countries GST or VAT) and that’s it. You know where you stand. But working cross border in other countries, like we do, brings a host of new challenges along. Till recently it was actually not too complicated. Our fees are generally net, in other words we invoice $10,000 we expect to be paid $10,000 minus some minor bank charges on our side as the banks always happily claim. But more or less we get the fees without any deduction. For that we have tax residency certificate in place that states that we pay our taxes in Singapore (or Australia) and that therefore as a result of double taxation agreements between countries there is no need to withhold any taxes on the fees in the country of payment origin.
I am not a taxation expert but so far this has worked well for us, with the taxes being deducted at our end when we do our annual income declarations. But recently (please let me know if you are experiencing similar situations), countries like China, India and Indonesia for instance, are requesting the taxes to be deduced at source, then providing us with a taxation certificate so we can use that to claim the tax back or reduce our tax dues. The result is that we are caught out short up to 20% at times in the receivable fees. Not happy Jan…
This has now happened a few times over the last few months and we have yet to find out how and if at all we can claim it back properly. In one of our projects in China the client agreed to increase our fees with the tax percentage so we would still receive our due fees net as per agreed contract. Something to watch as these kind of taxes can greatly affect the cash flow of small lighting design practices like ours!
Light & Learn 3-1 : So here we go with the first Light & Learn…Now this is very basic, but you would be surprised how many people (lighting salesmen for instance!) don’t know the difference between a lux and a lumen, one of the basic units in lighting. I was ever shown it in a very simple way which I have sketched below J
The basic units are:
Lumens, amount of light emitted in all directions; also commonly called light output
Candela, light in one specific direction; also commonly called lighting intensity
Lux (Lumens per m2), amount of light falling on a surface; also commonly called illuminance/ lighting level
Candela’s per m2, reflected light perceived by the eye; also commonly called luminance or brightness
Recyclable by weight
Perth 11th January 2012
We come across some interesting issues as a lighting designer. Some are typical or practical design issues, some are more of an administrative/ business type of issues. I had a bit of both today. I will blog about a design issue first and will leave the other issue for tomorrow, if nothing else spectacularly comes my way 🙂
I have blogged about recycling before surely, but today I saw a new term: “90% recyclable by weight”. Another statement said 100% recyclable. Now in the general green train of thoughts recycling is obviously a part of the overall strategy, certainly for short life consumer products. But what does it mean for lighting or better lighting systems. The “perishable” goods, if I may call them that way, are the light sources in general. From 1000 hrs for the good old incandescent lamps to multiples of 10,000 hours for LED. So how would that be administered when we talk LED systems? I asked the question to the sales representative that visited me today as I was curious to understand how in lets say 10 years I could come back and claim some money back for recycling? Being 100% recyclable sounds like a great sales slogan (socially responsible) but how will that work? He could not really tell me but promised to check it out with the principal manufacturer that produces the “recyclable” fittings.
To me recyclable means that the fitting can be taken apart and (some of) the components can be re-used or remodelled/ reconfigured to new use. Does 90% mean that 90% is e-usable? That would be great! But this requires some engineered solutions in regards to the design of the light fitting. But most of all there should be a system in place to take collection of the fitting offered for recycling. The “by weight” implies a certain price per weight, sounds like a good start. But who administers this? I would assume the local agent. Will it work like any, say, lotto ticket? You buy from any acredited lotto store and you can cash in your “winnings” at any other licensed reseller store?
Then there is an aspect of time. You don’t renovate every year, so to speak there could be as much as 10 to 15 years from the installation time to the time of “recycling”. Will you need some certificate of authenticity to prove original purchase in order to validate the recycling? Interesting…see what response I will receive. I will let you know (if I get any!)
Light Watch 3-3: A collection of some interesting pictures all to do with light, colour, materials and perception….
Recharging for the year ahead
Perth 10th January 2012
So what has been happening in lighting design land these past few weeks? December saw the usual busy end of the year rush to get things finished before Xmas with many companies slowing down towards the end of the year. End of the year parties, D&D’s for many. While we had some projects rushing us to issue work out before Xmas, we did have a relaxed and informal dinner with the team and family at an iconic location in Singapore to sound out the year. Some companies I am aware of, have new year’s get togethers, to charge up the batteries for the new year ahead. I think it is always good to take time out, a step back, whether at the end or at the beginning of a year to look back at the year past and look ahead towards the things to come. Team spirit, direction and motivation in small practices like ours are crucial. Taking time out to be with family and friends outside work are as important.
Looking ahead I must say I have mixed feelings. On one hand I am a bit worried about the economic woes the world is facing notably the Eurozone situation, which may affect our lighting design projects in smaller or bigger ways, who knows? I have a distinct feeling that some project developers have put the brakes on projects, delaying the start, slowing down the pace of work and most markedly of all taking their time to pay! We have noticed several of these happenings over the last few months. One of our project clients stopped a whole project mid way and sold the whole development just like that…we are unsure whether we will be asked to complete the job. It would be interesting to hear from any other colleagues whether they have similar experiences.
On the other hand however we also are looking at some really great opportunities and projects ahead, some confirmed some in the process of confirmation that are getting us excited and full of anticipation. We have entered a competition last year which results should be known soon, I am scheduled as guest speaker at lighting related events in Manila and Qatar in the next few months and last but not least my book is finally out and honestly I am really proud and excited about the end result! The reactions have been really nice so far. Thanks to every body who helped realise this book!
Light Watch 3-2: As always every year (and still on my bucket list of to do thing) is the ice festival in Harbin China. It goes without saying that lighting is the key to this festival as the place seems to come to live specifically at night when the lights come on….
Happy New Year!
Perth 9th January 2012
Happy New Year everyone…
I know some of you have been eagerly waiting for me to restart the blog in this exciting new year. I was really enjoying my time of blogging as quite frankly it is quite something to write around 400 words daily for the blog on top of my daily work with KLD. But I enjoy doing it and the response and feedback I have received over the last year have been really nice and encouraging, so here we
go again for season 3! Please bear with me to get in the “groove” again, 🙂
So what do I have in store for 2012? Well first of all I would like to add another dimension to my blog. Besides Light Watch which I will continue this season as well, I am planning to introduce a section called Light & Learn. This will be a more educational part, which as and when relevant will be included as part of the blog. I anticipate that I will have subjects that sometimes may need some technical background and will use that to illustrate that hopefully in simple ways so we have also some lighting theory popping up once in a while as part of the blog. I do not expect that to be a daily affair but, maybe once a week for starters. Let’s see how we go! Of course if you have any suggestions or subjects you would like me to touch or elaborate on please let me know. It would be nice if we could make the blog a bit more inter active! Don’t be shy, no question is stupid, really. It’s always easy when you know right? Also I don’t know everything so your questions or the subjects I come across, may trigger me to do some further research…
Last but not least the book is rolling from the printers this Wednesday (finally!!!) so I will start sending them out to those who have ordered next week when I am back in Singapore. I am enjoying a bit of Australian summer before returning to hot and sweaty Singapore. I hope you all had a wonderful break wherever in the world and are ready to take on this exciting year with me! With all my best wishes for the new year!
Light Watch 3-1: I have to show some of the new year firework pictures from around the world. It remains a magical sight. Interestingly it seems like all the world landmarks are nowadays the centre of the fireworks displays, reinforcing the tourist images that each country uses to promote itself. See if you can spot the capitals from around the world.
The long awaited book compilation of Martin's first year of blogging is available. Order now.
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