PLDC Day 1
Madrid 20th October 2011
PLDC 2011 is on the way! After a welcome party last night on the (windy) rooftop of the Circulo de Bellas Artes building, we officially kicked off this morning with a keynote address from Paul Marrantz, suggesting to us that the Ipad may well save the incandescent lamp, a thoughtful reflection on today’s drive towards energy saving and where we are going from here. The conference program is divided 4 simultanous speaking events, so one needs to make a choice or navigate from from one venue to another in order to listen to presentation of (personal) interest. The 4 subject headings are Lighting Application Research, Lighting Application Case Studies, Exterior Lighting Solutions and Professional Practice issues. Personally the first and the last subjects have my greatest interest, but some case studies are interesting as well.
Unfortunately Paul Marrantz presentation on the lighting of the Burj Khalifa tower was disappointing and in sharp contrast to his excellent keynote address, so I moved to listen to Edward Bartholomew with an insightful presentation on applied darkness. Lighting is as much about lighting as it is about not lighting; light and darkness. I stayed in the room to listen to Malcolm Innes who followed up with thoughts and his research findings on how we perceive brightness in low lighting level environments such as in museums. How we perceive is very much the matter of measuring the exitance levels in relation to colour temperature and reflections of the material environment. As it ended a bit earlier I manage to catch the tail end of Kevin Shaws presentation on the legislation of lighting, set against the failure of many goverments to find sustainable solutions (with qualities accetable to us as lighting designers) in replacing the incandescent lamp. I stayed on to listen to James Benya analysing the situation about making our lighting design profession a regulated and accepted profession…we are on the way but need to reach a state where our profession is officially licensed with a real legal status.
The venue is physically quite challenging as we wrestle our way up and down the stairs (the two small elevators can not cope with the 1000 odd participants!) over the several floors that is being used for the event. The sponsor booths and main lecture hall are on level 2, a prefunction break out space and another lecture hall on level 4 and finally the reception registration and another breakout area with two more lecture halls on level 5…
The afternoon started with the key note address of architect of Hadi Therani (he’s done really interesting stuff with obvious thoughts for day and artificial lighting) after which I selected talks from Koert Vermeulen on the challenges of lighting the Singapore Youth Olympic opening ceremony (which I saw in Singapore), Kai Pippo’s ever-entertaining presentation with advises on how to run your LD practice, to finish the day with Torsten Bauer, who shared his experience in video mapping, a surging trend in the urban landscape. Time for some drinks…
In Light Watch pictures of the evet snapped with my (low res, sorry) Iphone camera 🙂
Light Watch 186: PLDC Day 1
Madrid 2
Madrid 19th October 2011
Looks like I have been mixed up with dates! Somehow I was in a state of mind thinking PLDC would start today, but really today was a pre-conference program in which I am not involved. There is a welcome party tonight with the real event starting tomorrow. I used the day to do some sight seeing as I had never been in Madrid before so perfect to take in the sights and sounds of the city. There is a great city tour bus on which you can hop and off at your leaisure visiting places at your own pace. I started with route 1
which has a pick up point right outside my hotel…
My first stop was Palacio Real where the old heritage lamp posts adorn the streets, some of them propped up with additional façade floodlights. Some ceremony was going on when I visited so I got some horses and carriages as a bonus for my “tourist” pictures. The roof Dome of the Catedral De La Almunia, next to the Palacio offered great 360 degree views of the city. With the sun in attendance the views were really nice with great light and shadow plays. Inside the Catedral there was some great light from the coloured lead-glass windows. And when it comes to burning a candle…its LED nowadays!
My next stop was the Museo Del Prado, like the Louvre in Paris, a must see place. Though not allowed I did manage to take one snapshot inside before I was stopped taking more. A great exploration in museum lighting, general ambient artificial lighting, focussed framed lighting and daylighting, its all there. Besides the lighting of course the paintings from all great European masters are there to appreciate, absolutely amazing. Some of the painters (like my own dutchie, Rembrandt) had great understanding of light.
In one of my final stops I could not resist visiting the famous Bernabeu Stadium, the home of Real Madrid, Jose Mourinho and Ronaldo. The tour was certainly worthwhile but what struck me most was that the part of the field that was in the shadow was being complemented with artificial lighting (see pictures below). In my limited spanish I managed to understand from the caretakers that they do that every day when the sun shines to make sure the grass grows even and maintains total uniformity throughout. Didn’t know that…of course the grass in Bernabeu must be one of the holiest grounds of soccer so no cost or efforts are spared to keep it in tip top condition! Could not figure out the light source, looked very sodiumish but that could be the
contrast with daylight.
In Light Watch today pictures from the Palacio, the Catedral, Prado and Bernabeu including my brief encounter with Jose Mourinho! 🙂
Light Watch 185: Impressions from my city tour today
Madrid!
Madrid 19th October 2011
I have made it to Madrid, after a family weekend with my parents in Holland. Believe it or not, its my first time in Madrid, not my
first time in Spain, I visited Valencia (Antares) a few years back and I must say I kind of like it. It has tastes of Paris about it certainly the majestic historical buildings along Grand Via (where my hotel is) and Calle Alcala where the venue of the PLDC event is located. I arrived in the afternoon as to have a bit of time to stroll around and soak in the city views and check out the venue, which is only a 15-20 min walk from my hotel, just nice for my daily dose of daylight!
The weather is fantastic, blue skies, sunny with temperatures close to 25 degr C…perfect for an afternooon drink on a sunny terrace watching the world go by. My first impression must be the crisp daylight reflecting of the beautiful buildings contrasted by the blue skies. There is something about the light in spring and autumn in Europe, certainly with the sun out and temperatures in the low 20-s, the angle of the light, the colour of the light, the intensity of the light. Totally different from the tropics!
The Gran Via was a display of Philips streetlights, their modern look sharply contrasting with the heritage buildings aligning the
streets. Even more interesting was the extensive us of LED multimedia screens, but not so much as an exposed add-on structure to the building but mostly disguised behind the heritage windows, like in the Telefonica building for instance. Not unsurprisingly I walked passed a Swarovski outlet on my way to the Circulo De Bellas Artes, the venue for PLDC. I popped in briefly to see the ongoing preparations but decided better to stay out of their hairs, knowing the last minute stresses that comes with setting up an event.
In Light Watch today a series of my first impressions from my city stroll this afternoon including a quick visit at the PLDC site where the preparations were in full swing under the watching eye and direction of Joachim Ritter. Big manufacturers trucks (the event sponsors) unloading their lights for the related product displays. The building has heritage interiors which surely will create a stimulating environment for the event. I am excited and looking forward to tomorrow!
Light Watch 184: Impressions from Grand Via and PLDC/ Calle de Alcala, Madrid
Travel planning
Singapore 13-14th October 2011
Phew….I think we all have that feeling at times when you know you will be travelling for an extended time and need to get all those things done before you leave. Suddenly all seems to come together at the same time giving you that feeling that the next 24 hours will not be enough to get yourself ready in time. I am about to leave for Europe (PLDC Madrid next week!) and have some extensive travel planned in the weeks ahead afterwards as well, so I need to leave the office organised and well directed before I take off tonight. I started this blog yesterday but just could not find the time to complete it…not much time to do todays entry either!
It is easy to get lost into details and keeping your head clear about what is important to be done by you now or what can be delegated to others or what can wait till later or when you are back is an art .In short you need to multi-task in the short time left…Over the last few days we worked on fee proposals, concept presentation and project and travel planning and not to forget the last hand to my book! Add in the mix some admin issues, contracts, payments and you pretty much the picture. I need 36 hour days at times! Anyhow, of to go packing in a bit, get a bite and then to the airport. Next blog from Europe!
In Light Watch today a look at how fast the integration of building materials with LED’s is happening. It is my anticipation that in maybe less then 5 to 10 years half of our lighting systems are LED building component intgrated systems. This company (Alucobond) will be prsenting their latest products in association with Traxon in Singapore in about 2 weeks. Here is a preview as sent to us this week.
Light Watch 183: Alucobond product application pictures
Coordination
Jakarta 12th October 2011
While waiting to take my flight back to Singapore I have some time to reflect back on my stay in Jakarta. Observation one: I spent nearly a third of my (working) time in a car trying to beat the traffic jams and reach my various destinations. The irregular driving and bad road conditions makes it nearly impossible to work (at least I can’t) but travelling with my Jakarta partner made it at least a well spent time allowing us to chat and catch up on our business and projects together.
The main reason for my trip to Jakarta was to consolidate the lightig design for the mock up room for our Bali resort project. The complication in this project is that we have a mix of international and local consultants and joint ventures with different company principals and design directors. We have interior and lighting design head offices for this project based in Singapore with each of them having a local affiliate for the day to day management and follow up in Jakarta, with the actual project (and local contractors) being in Bali. On top of that an operator based out of Dubai. As a result we have local coordination in Bali, local coordination in Jakarta and local coordination in Singapore. The head offices Singapore and Bali coordinate with their respective counterparts in Jakarta and as a result some details and issues get lost in translation. Seldom do we sit all together in the same room, so this coordination meeting was a great occasion to coordinate all design matters with everyone present and able to comment directly. It goes without saying that with everyone well prepared for their presentations, we managed to get much ground covered and decision made for the progress of the project. We do use teleconferencing as a meeting tool at times, but nothing beats the personal face to face touch….
PS: The flight was delayed and by the time I got back in Singapore I didn’t feel like starting up my laptop again….
In Light Watch today a look of some of the guestrooms we designed the lighting for over the years, Kempinski, Marina Mandarin, Grand Hyat, Oriental Hotels. It is interesting to see how interior and lighting design are intergrated. One can not exist without the other!
Light Watch 182: Some hotel guestrooms, China, Singapore, India
Too low!
Jakarta 11th October 2011
In Jakarta for the next 2 days… Attending design coordination meetings with the project team and taking the opportunity to meet some of our potential new clients while in town. We are in negotiations for some very nice new projects and nothing beats meeting face to face to make your pitch. It’s a shame that going from A to B in Jakarta takes such an horrendous amount of time. Those traffic jams drive me (litterally!) nuts making it really tough to do business here.
What spurs my blog entry today was a call from one of our potential new clients in Singapore who felt that our fee submission for a new project was too low! Generally we are commented for the fees being too high, so being told our fees were too loo was kind of a novelty. What had instigated their call was that they felt our manpower allocation (and thus the fees) was insufficient for the duration of the project. The tender bid had been a very tedious process with heaps of forms and schedules to be filled and one of them was the proposed allocation of manpower. Not knowing exactly how much manpower would be required per stage of work due to a rather rough design brief, we had taken an average hourly fee for the company (not individuals) and spread that over the
duration of the project. That resulted in a certain amount of man hours. However that is a matter of interpretation…you can have 10 manhours at $300/hr or 30 manhours at $100/hr. By not specifying the hourly rate,but just the manhours the impression was probably given of insufficient capacity planning and too low fees. This begs another question: Did I quote too low? Or others too high? I am confident that my fees for the duration of the project and the requested scope and involvement of work are adequate, not high, but competitive. Did I miss something? Today we manage to clarify some scope and reallocated some works accordingly which did push the fees a bit up, but not dramatically. The next few days will tell whether we made the right call as we are keen to get this job. With the economy impredicatble we want to secure as much work as possible!
In Light Watch today some skyline pics of Jakarta. Every city has its own specific skyline. Lighting plays a define role in depicting the buildings and landmarks in and around the city!
Light Watch 181 : Jakarta skyline
I-Light Marina Bay 2012
Singapore 10th October 2011
Today I spent most of the time finalising my entry for the I-Light Marina Bay Festival to be held in March next year. I participated last year with an entry called the whirlpool and really enjoyed the event. So being invited again this year I am keen to put in another entry and built on last years experience. In fact I was rather inspired over the last couple of days conceptualising the artwork and ended up with not one but two different concepts that I both liked. Torn apart I decided to submit both…as the festival is under government supervision also in regards to the selection of artworks it is hard to say what the final selection criteria will be. I am sure there are some political choices to be made to make it a balanced international event. I entered as a local (Singapore) artist.
Participating in such festival is not as simple as it looks. In my first participation last year we learned a lot in regards to the
practicality of the concept. While the idea was great we had totally miscalculated the efforts (and costs) needed to create a lighting artwork floating on the water! Not in the least because we could not just take a dingy and go over to the floatng platform, as it was governemnt water only authorised boats are allowed on the waters, forcing us to rent a government dingy every time we had to go there. At an hourly rate that went pretty quickly! Add to that the complication to get power on to a floating platform, making sure all was well fixed and installed…So this year my artwork is landbased!
One thing is for sure, the simpler the better! The more complicated the more things can go wrong. One of my submissions is projection based and is more a programming thing rather then an installation headache. The other is a bit more manual and structural, but by itself simple and straightforward. Hope we get it right this time! Whether one or both of my artworks will be
selected I don’t know but regardless I certainly had fun working on them. Will let you know!
In Light Watch today some pics from other entries in last years I-Light Marina Bay Festival.
Light Watch 180 : Artworks I-Light Marina Bay 2010
Finding balance
Singapore 7th October 2011
Sometimes we deal with clients who have never dealt with specialist consultants before. They have perhaps been in the local construction seen and have worked with contractors but dealing with international consultants is another story. I have been dealing with such client over the last few days, which has caused a lot of frustration and patience. Because this client has decided to build an hotel with an international hotel brand, they have sort of been forced to take on international project team of consultants as required by the operator. But being used to local (cheap) services and supplies, the professional consultants fees must have been quite a tsunami to them. From the onset it as been a struggle in regards to anything that has a dollar sign attached to it. We negotiated months about our fees, finally settled for close to half of our original fees with the agreement that our local
team woud be doing the project, while our head office in Singapore would be looking over their shoulder. In practive however we (the head office) have been heavily involved over the last few months not in the least through the personal requests from the operator.
I find it hard to find the balance between being cooperative and bluntly saying: “you pay peanuts, you get monkeys!”….Not to say that our local team is incompetent, on the contrary, but it is the balance between involving myself and staying at bay. We have great respect for clients budgets and making sure we balance the budgets with the basic quality required is one of our main atsks as designers. However there is a point where you have to draw a line, regardless how much pressure, the client is exercising. In our case their direction is not driven by knowledge and uderstanding of the design process and as a result we are nearly blackmailed into producing sub standard work! We have to keep our focus and put up our hands if from our professional point of view
the demands are not acceptable, but that can easily result in a personality clash: “I am the boss so you do what I say…versus…I am the design expert and I am telling you that it is not acceptable!” How far do you push it….Do I sound frustrated? I probably am!
In Light Watch today the Bulgari Resort in Bali…to make things to a breathtaking level you need to invest in quality…there is no free ride and it does not mean necessarily expensive!
Light Watch 179 : The Bulgari, Bali
The art of timing
Singapore 6th October 2011
Back in Singapore for a few days before heading out again next week…its gonna be some busy and interesting weeks of travelling including the upcoming PLDC in Madrid. Time is definitely our commodity and planning your time wisely is therefore crucial for our survival, as a business person and simply as a human being! I only had 3 “airplane” hours of sleep but decided to hang in their for today rather then to catch up on some sleep this morning. I often find that these extra hours somehow make me more tired. I’ll catch up on my sleep by taking an early night off.
With still a few deadlines looming there was plenty to do back in the office, but planning my next few weeks was really one of my main activities. Consulting with my clients, my travel agents and my team to see how best to spread myself and the rest of the team to satisfy the demands of our clients and the needs of our projects. The art of timing is not easy as you cant please everybody (though we do try)…as the saying goes he who tries to please everybody satisfies nobody. Do we really need to spent 3 days on site or can we do with 2? Do we actually need to meet or can we handle by phone or teleconference. Do I fly overnight and have a full working day or do I sacrifice half a day for traveling after or before a good nights rest?
I am not sure about my colleagues in the business but I am pretty sure that certainly overseas travel is somethng that needs to be planned well ahead. I generally require 3-4 weeks noticce and even then I am not sure. Right now I already have commitments for March next year! So planning my time is an art, and certainly the negotiations with my clients (as wel as those with my private friends and family) require a clear head and understanding wat I wish to achieve during that time that I a committing myself to someone else. In generally involves other people so you assume ( never assume anything!) that the party you are committing your time to will have the same commitment to you. It wouldn’t be the first time I travel several hours by plane to find out my
client suddenly decided that he had other more important priorities!
In Light Watch today a look at bridges. As it happens I have also been working on a lighting concept for a suspension bridge…may as well look around a bit what has been done before….
Light Watch 178 : Infinity Bridge, England – Peace Bridge, Canada – Bosporus Bridge, Turkey – Erasmus Bridge, Netherlands
Walking a fine line
Chennai 5th October 2011
Still in Chennai, finalising some site issues and archiving defects and liabilities so we can report back on what is till outstanding or in need of urgent repair, replacemnt or modifications. It will probably take us another week or so to compile our final report and issue that to all parties concerned for follow up. It’s always tricky as one can be easily tempted to play the blame game…as I mentioned yesterday, diplomacy will certainly be a good virtue in order not to alienate too many people and get things properly finished in good spirits.
As in most cases (like here) when it comes to hotels we deal with two parties; the owner client who hired us and pays our fees and the operator who will have to use the premises we have designed and to which standards we (in principle) have to comply. As we are on the hotel operators prefered list based on past performance (Hyatt in this case) we need to certainly satisfy the operatinal site as well as the investor site, these two are not always and necessarily on the same page!
As the investor has been very tight in their spending (what’s new!) we have ended up with a lot of non specified, incomplete and alternative solutions that not necessarily represent our original design intent. The fine line that we walk is to accept or reject (for whatever it is worth) of what has been installed versus what is the minimum acceptable to us and the people (operator) who have to run the place with what is being provided to them. I had a good talk with the GM today and came to an agreement on the way forward and the understanding that some of the remedial or outstanding works would be taken up by the operator themselves under our guidance. I think a realistic and positive attitude, it’s a fine line but we will get there 🙂
In Light Watch today let me share some site pics take of different areas that show the general intent in terms of lighting ambience and mood. There is definitely potential in these, but there are quite a number of pics I cant show you …..ok, I am off to
the airport shortly, it has been an interesting couple of days.
Light Watch 177 : Some mood pictures from our project in Chennai
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