Less is more
Singapore 6th September 2011
Since I am picking bones, I have another one that has been bothering me for a while. One that is not easy to escape as everybody sort of wants to be trendy and be seen using LED’s. I am talking about those full illuminated multi-media facades. We used to use a couple of 2 KW floodlights to light up a façade, now we smash a few kilometres worth of linear LED lights on the façade and call it energy saving! What, really? The ends to justify the means!
I am referring to the Financial Centre in Singapore, 200+m high, and in its latest renovation that sees a full height façade lighting using no less than 120,000 LED according to the news report a few days ago. They call them power saving LED’s. Yes sure they are but if you use 120,000 of them it’s a hell lot of energy still. The central business district is being stimulated by an incentive scheme from the government to boost the liveliness of the inner city, but does that mean that we have to fill every mullion and architectural niche in the façade with LED light and then connect it to a DMX controller to let loose an seemingly uncontrolled array of lighting effects? And since when do we spend millions of dollars on façade lighting? In the old days of floodlighting a few hundred thousand dollars was all we needed!
I am disappointed with the lighting designers that there does not seem to be any thought to really do something about our environment. Selling the story, as we see now so often with the slogan; ”LED is energy saving and long life, so ‘its good”, does not work if you use them by the hundred thousand’s. Also I have yet to come across an installation that still works without any failure after a month or so. Most of the time due to budget pressures resulting in shortcuts and installation issues.
I don’t know the finer details of the design and I stand corrected if I accuse wrongly for this particular project, but I am trying to make a general point here as I observe the lighting as an outsider. Do we need these screaming facades that are more ego tripping realisations than a real concerted effort to do something friendlier and less light polluting for our environment? I am not aware of any attempts towards minimising energy through the use of renewable energy in this project but at least that would offset something. Less is more. The beauty is in simplicity…
In Light Watch I attach an architectural rendering as well as a scanned foto from the newspaper announcing the newly opened Ocean Financial Centre…
Light Watch 156: Ocean Financial Centre Singapore
Integrated (other) services
Singapore 5th September 2011
I guess I have a bit of a bone to pick today…though it is probably just one of those Monday whinges. While many of us designers are idealists and dreamers with a passion for lighting design, in the end we still need to make ends meet and earn a decent living with what we do. I offer my services as an independent professional without any tie up with any other company. But I am very aware of the trend that more and more lead consultants such as architects, interior designers and M&E consultants are starting to provide other services (including lighting design) as an integrated part of their services. We see architects now providing interior design services, interior designers providing F&B, graphic and art consultancy and so on.
While several main M&E consultants like Meinhardt, Parsons, Lincoln Scott and the like have been providing these services for years, it is (for me as a small independent business owner) worrying to see that the bigger architects and interior designers (HBA for instance) are now also setting up lighting design divisions. Not only in support of their own projects (fine and understandable) but setting out to market their services as an “independent” company on top of it! While I am sure that in the end the goal is to have that lighting division operate at a profit, the fact of the matter is that they have a huge financial backing as the possible losses (relatively speaking!) are absorbed by the mother company’s profits. Several years back I had a first-hand view at this when one of the major electrical consultants put out a bid to buy my company. In the exchange of financial information that followed during negotiations it became clear that their small lighting design division was operating at huge losses. No wonder they can go in at low
and competitive fees…feels like an unfair advantage.
We all have our contacts and relationships in business and I have mine, but this development does make me rethink my approach to lighting design. Should I partner up with a strategic partner. Should this be a permanent tie up or just on project to project basis… something to think about…
In Light Watch today one of these applications where startegic partnerships could very well work. With the evolution of LED technology and its increased integration in façade design cooperation of lighting designers with structural façade designers makes
sense. Here are some picture of some new developments integrating façade, technology and lighting. Conceptualised by industrial design student Meidad Marzan from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem. The “Urban Tile” integrates façade technology with solar and OLED lighting. A video clip can be found at http://www.gizmag.com/solar-panel-fused-with-an-oled-screen-makes-an-urbantile/19683/ as well as the pictures below.
Light Watch 155: The urban Tile, window blind
The book!
Singapore 2nd September 2011
This blog is about my (daily) life as a lighting designer and while there are generally many design or lighting related events happening in the day I select one of them as the subject of my blog. As some of you may be aware I am in the final stages of publishing the book version of my 1st one year of blogging and with a (self-imposed) deadline for going to print looming, I find myself spending more and more time in finalising the details of graphic layouts, illustrations, funding (!), so let me give you an update about how it is going as today I have spent most of my time on this and probably will over the rest of the weekend as well!
The text compositions and editing are more or less completed and we are now putting the final hand in finding the best illustrations to go with each blog, some being from my own or company photo collection, some being from royalty free photo libraries, some graphically created imagery, some my personal hand sketches and so on. There are 365 blog entries so quite a lot to select as my original blogs did not have any pictures. However for the book we wanted to make it visually more attractive by adding the imagery. Not an easy task but I am very happy about the look so far.
Then there is the matter of personal taste. Regarding layout, font types, colours, cover image…Of course in the end the bug stops with me as it is my book, my project, but the insights of professional people in the graphic and publishing world are definitely a valuable input to consider but sometimes throw you off balance. So I guess I have to follow my gut instinct and since it is my book, have it represent what I think it should represent in look, feel and content.
As the deadline approaches and the book really starts getting into its final shape I am getting more and more excited. I am about to follow in the footsteps of my grand-mother who was an architect and writer who published many books. It feels like the last month of a pregnancy and the birth is eminent!
In Light Watch today I have to mention the Night Lights festival currently underway in Singapore. It closes this weekend and I will be going out to have a look. Lighting is gradually becoming a mainstream element for festivals with many of them now being organised around the world. The picture are taken form the Night Lights and Saturday Indesign websites. Some are renderings of the effects to be seen. If I can get some pics myself I will share them later.
Light Watch 154: Night Lights Singapore 2011 on till tomorrow…
Niche lighting design
Singapore 1st September 2011
I am an architectural lighting designer by profession as that is really 90% of my day to day work, like the lighting of architectural buildings, city and landscapes, commercial and hospitality applications and so on. But once in a while I get involved into niche lighting applications such as my participation into the I-Light Marina Bay lighting festival last year, the development of customised lighting products, lighting balloons, providing expert lighting opinions and other things outside the run of the mill.
Today I met with a representative of a big international retail company that has its core sales in sports and leisure equipment and is looking at setting up shop in Singapore. While the potential for architectural lighting the outlets (along IKEA style sales concept) is obviously there, our discussion actually focussed more on the development of portable lighting applications that could be used in sports and leisure application such as camping, hiking, mountaineering and so on. Today’s miniature LED technology offers heaps of new opportunities for integration in camping, hiking gear and clothing products. The first tents with in-build battery operated LED lighting are already on the market, solar versions surly are only a short step away.
Many of these retail companies know roughly what they want but lack the technical knowledge to achieve proper performance specifications for these products and that is where lighting designers could step in. I am not sure where this is going to lead me and whether I will actually end up designing lighting products for this company (mind you I have a master’s degree in industrial design, so it should be up my alley :)), but it certainly is an interesting lighting design niche that I will enthusiastically explore to see how my years of lighting design experience and technical knowledge will be put to good use…
In Light Watch today something that was forwarded to me by one of my staff, things cool that involve the latest lighting, projection and interactive control technologies. Since we are talking sports and leisure…A company called Obscura Digital developped this cool interactive lighting for pool tables, aptly called Cuelight. I believe it has been around for a while, but surely the technology improves all the time. Las Vegas wouldn’t be Las Vegas and Hard Rock Café not Hard Rock Café without it! Have a look at the following links from which I also took the reference photo’s.
http://www.obscuradigital.com/work/detail/cuelight/
http://obscuradigital.com/pool/
Light Watch 153: Playing pool will never be the same again…
India and the (lighting) economy
Singapore 31st August 2011
The last day of August already…you may have noticed I was of the radar for a few days, courtesy of some public holiday, long weekend in Singapore. I took the opportunity to escape to Bangkok for a few days for a bit of “us” time. Though I have been to Bangkok quite regularly, it is always airport-hotel-meeting- dinner-hotel airport kind of thing without really taking time out to do the typical tourist things. So we caught up on that…an enjoyable few days of relaxing without computer!
Before I left I had an interesting meeting with a potential new client from India who happened to visit Singapore. While we discussed the project brief and (lighting) design direction (the architect was present as well) our discussion also drifted off towards the current state of the economy specifically in India. We have quite a number of projects in India in our books but at least half of them are either on hold, shelved or moving at extreme low speed. So with the obvious looming of a new recession I was curious to get his take on projects and the economy in India, as I am seeing a clear slowdown happening in our lighting projects.
The main issue that emerged from the discussion is that many projects in India are indeed on hold as the government has ordered a review of approvals of all the building projects currently in process (and these are a lot!). While some clients may not bother to mention this to the project team it would explain a lot. With Mr Harare just ending his 12 day fast in Delhi in protest against the anti-corruption bill, which in his opinion did not go far enough to include the politicians and government as well, the picture becomes a bit clearer. There are many corruption and fraud cases going on in India (2G scam, land scam, Commonwealth scam, etc) just read the daily paper when you are in India.
As it appears many building approvals (specifically for high rise buildings) that have been obtained by eager developers are now being reviewed and scrutinised to make sure they comply with the “law”. It seems many have been obtained on doubtful grounds. A crackdown seems eminent! I am just conveying what I was told and have no direct way to confirm the authenticity, but considering the slow down I am experiencing in India it does make sense. I have no reason not to believe him as he is a big
time developer himself. He assured me his project is not affected.
In Light Watch today a few pictures from real simple lighting caught on my market rounds in Bangkok over the weekend . When the going gets tough the tough gets going, right? If there is really no more budget we can go back to the simple bare bulb…who needs a lighting designer :)?
Light Watch 152: Bangkok, Chatuchak Weekend Market
Lighting design and song writing
Singapore 26th August 2011
Conceptualising lighting is very similar to composing a song I guess. I am in the middle of working out a lighting concept for a building façade and am approaching it from different angles but am not getting very inspired. Lighting effects, technology, architecture, location, history all provide some starting points for the design concept but somehow it has to come together in something that makes sense! The reason I compare it to composing a song is that I happen to be reading Keith Richard’s (Rolling Stones) autobiography called “Life” and Keith was one of the main composers of all Stones songs together with Mick Jagger. It is very interesting read I must say (a bit rough on the edges but what would you expect!). But the interesting thing is how they created their songs. In the Stones’ case Keith would come up with the melody (the “riff” as he calls it) and then Mick would pen the lyrics and they would then finalise the final song structure all together. You could compare this to music being the architecture and the lyrics being the content…
Sometimes architectural designs are providing you the inspiration by just looking at its features, but sometimes there is nothing, just one of those buildings without any eye catching feature that could be used for the lighting concept. So I am approaching it more systematically and realistically a bit like the Stones…let me get the melody first. In this case I have decided on the basic technological concept I want to use (LED and solar energy) in view of the sustainability that we are after. By puzzling together all the architectural options I have in integrating the technology into the curtain wall I am gradually building the structure on which to build the final lighting concept. Now that I have the basic component of the lighting design (the “riff”) I can develop the final structure and content to make total sense and harmony with the building!
So in Light Watch today a look back to the sixties and seventies through Keith Richard. I can remember as the day of yesterday when we were starting to hear music from the Beatles and the Stones. The buzz! This was something new! I grew up with their music and whether you like it or not their musical creations have stood the test of time! In 2008 I was fortunate to attend the Stones concert in Shanghai…60 years old, but still hopping around the stage! In these concerts there is no music without light and in good concerts sound and light create the total visual experience…
Light Watch 151: Keith & the Rolling Stones (pics from Keth Richard & Stones websites)
Copyrights and royalties
Singapore 25th August 2011
The issue of copyrights and subsequent claim on royalties is an age old point of discussion, certainly in this part of the (Asia Pacific) world. It is only recently that China has started to crack down on blatant infringements such as Apple I-stores and IKEA outlets clearly using the branding without being officially licenced to represent the company or act as its official selling agent. A trip to the lighting city near Guangzhou, the lighting manufacturing heart of China, also reveals unbelievable copies form branded lighting products. It is so in your face that you just wonder whether those blatantly copying have any shame or honour.
What caught my attention today and led to the subject of this blog is the court tussle between the City of Sydney and an Australian business owner in regards to so-called multi-functional poles also called smart poles, which are designed to integrate a variety of functions such as street lights, traffic lights, banners, signs and street names, CCTV camera’s and in some cases even street furniture such as a bench, a phone booth, or a bin and so on. The original design was developed by the City of Sydney for the Olympic Games in 2000 and about 2000 pcs line the streets of Sydney.
The (Australian) manufacturer of the poles however went on to sell the smart pole concept in other countries, one of them being Singapore, where about 200 pieces are now installed along Orchard Road. Key to the million dollar legal battle is that the City of Sydney claims that it has the exclusive right to the design and that any follow on sales like in Singapore should be subject to royalty payments. The manufacturer of course claims that the “Sing pole” is different in design and specification then the Sydney “Smart pole. I don’t know the finer details and I am sure they will somehow work it out, but the point is that it is really difficult in our line of business to protect and defend intellectual property rights. By just changing some components or shape of the product you can claim it is not the same while every-one with a right mind can clearly see it is exactly the same concept but (sometimes even not visibly) changed to avoid royalty issues.
In Light Watch today I leave you to judge for yourself with some pictures of the poles. The first two are from Sydney (smart pole) the next two from Singapore (Sing-pole).
Light Watch 150: Smart poles Sydney and Singapore
How green is lighting
Singapore 24th August 2011
Many countries, Singapore included, have so called “green councils, organisations mostly government driven that look after the sustainability of buildings, projects and new developments. In Singapore we have an organisation called the Singapore Green Building Council and their mission statement is to propel the Singapore building and construction industry towards environmental sustainability by promoting green building practices and technologies. I notice they are the sponsor of the upcoming Asia Building Exhibition in Singapore (14-16 September) under the theme “for a Greener Future”. A look at the program however shows little to nothing related to lighting. Lutron (lighting controls) is one of the sponsors and Crestron and Legrand (also lighting controls) are participating as an exhibitor. From the lighting players I only can see Philips and Samsung to promote their (LED) systems and that’s it. Nothing else on lighting… even on renewable energy I only saw one solar company from China on the exhibitors list.
So how green is lighting when it comes to exhibition shows like this…not much is my impression. But it probably reflects the green code classifications like LEED where lighting accounts only for about 1-2 points on the whole scale of 100 odd points that can be scored to get gold or platinum certification. In the scale of things lighting is not big when it comes to sustainable systems but yet it is very visible and one of the first things people think of when it comes to sustainability and energy saving.
What is in our power as lighting designers to create and contribute to green and sustainable lighting solutions? There are mainly three points to focus on. First of all minimum (to zero) energy solutions. This means minimising energy consumption, maximising efficiencies (lumens per watt). Zero energy is not really zero energy but points to solutions where we use 100% renewable energy such as solar energy through the use of PV cells. LED’s with their reduced power needs have brought this concept much closer to reality and there are
already several “zero energy” systems mainly in outdoor applications available. The second is closely related and considers the quality of the optical system and lighting design where we control the light distribution to maximise use and minimise spill and light pollution. The last one is lighting control where we design around maximising daylight, minimising artificial light and control usage in relation to presence and need. Sounds simple but it requires skilled lighting designers to really make it work!
In Light Watch today one of the first “zero energy” media façade lighting projects I am aware of, the Green Pix building in Beijing. Embedded solar cells collect the energy during the day and feed the LED lighting (which is interactive) at night. I blogged about it before but I dont think I showed some pictures.
Light Watch 149: Green pix media façade wall Beijing
Fast forward…
Singapore 23rd August 2011
Just got off from a 2+ hour long conference call with owner, architects and designers…a three city, two countries call, the wonders of technology! We are still early in the pace, at least that is what we thought, and with our contract only just been signed, the appointment fees yet to be received, we thought it more prudent and cost efficient to have our kick off meeting via conference call
rather than being away for at least 2 days, 5 hours flight either way as well as an overnight hotel stay.
I must say that other than not being in the same room and not having one on one personal contact, it is otherwise a fairly efficient way of meeting, certainly for an introductory meeting where we basically run through and present. For a design workshop it probably does not work that well, but for this purpose it worked well. Certainly considering we only spent 2-3 hours rather then 2-3 days!
It always amazes me that despite regular communication, you always seem to find out new things during these meetings. Somehow information that was sort of assumed or at a certain state of progress turns out to have had changes or developments not all parties were aware of. Clients have a habit of providing you with info on a need to know basis, or at least what they think you need to know. We just signed our contract and after studying the project files in existence embarked on the concept design, only to find out that major packages have already been issued for tender by the contractor. Our project is in China and the local design institute had already moved ahead. Our meeting was with the client and design consultants and only after querying the time schedule the client informed us. No problem, we will just fast forward to DD (design development)! We are basically left to
select the light fittings….
Of course we need to do our due diligence and make sure the architectural concept works and there is still room to move a bit, but with all budgets more or less logged in, our options are limited. The good thing is the project is fast forwarding, which i$ what we like. 🙂
As we are in the middle of some façade lighting design in Light Watch today some interesting designs that can be found around the world, all with some different lighting techniques. A Child eye care centre in London, UK, uses floodlit colorful structures, an
office building in Singapore uses LED integrated glass, The Grand Casino in Basel, Switserland, uses backlit LED glass and The Rundle Lantern in Adelaide, Australia, uses white panels with RGB LED up lights.
Light Watch 148: Curtain wall lighting
The economy again…
Singapore 22nd August 2011
I think none of us can’t help but anxiously watching the world economy (and our projects)…are we or aren’t we going into a recession again. I did not see 1997 coming and was totally un-prepared, resulting in a dangerous flirt with near bankruptcy at the time. But we survived and by 2008 we had rebuild a well-balanced port-folio with projects, in China, India and Australia specifically, that kept us alive throughout the crisis. But as always there is a time lapse between the developing crisis and the time it actually hits you, could be up to a year. Are we looking at another one in the making?
Over the last few months I have noticed a slowing down of project activities, appointments take more time, payments are delayed and most of all new projects are under tremendous fee pressure. In a recent negotiation last week, after we had already discounted our fees for more than 30%, the client said they were looking for fees half of that! Are you are kidding? Is this for real? There is no way a lighting design practice can take and survive on such fees alone. So there has to be other ways and what we see is tie ups of lighting designers with manufacturers or contractors. Or a JV with a bigger brother like a large electrical contractor or established architectural practice. We see it happening and it looks like we are more or less drawn into following suit to keep up. In the last few weeks we have explored two such options and we are now in the latest negotiation stages. The interesting part is that the fees do not really suffer a lot as we become a part of a bigger package and between us there is an economy of scale that justifies lowering of the fees. A development to follow…
In contrast to all the doom and gloom in Light Watch the lighter side of our work, entertainment and the magic that light and light projection can produce. I have been following the Yellow Trace blog for a while and always find some very interesting subjects
and creative design ideas. Todays blog showcases one the latest performances of Ron Arad at the Lighthouse in London called curtain call. Unfortunately I am not in London otherwise I would certainly go and see it! See more on the Yellow Trace blog at http://www.yellowtrace.com.au/. I will be adding their link to my blog for those interested in the future.
Light Watch 147: Curtain Call at the Roundhouse in London
The long awaited book compilation of Martin's first year of blogging is available. Order now.
Feedspot Top 100 Lighting Blogs