Frustration
Chennai 22 June 2011
Did I need a drink! My oh my….I will not name my project, but those who know where I am know the project I am talking about. I just want to share the sheer frustration in relation to this project. While this is not representative for all projects in this region or India in particular it is certainly something that many of my colleagues can relate too when it comes to the final stages of commissioning a project. Now I have to clarify that we have not been to site since September last year, not because we did not want to just because the client felt it not necessary for us to come. As our travel arrangements are reimbursable separately from our fees, this may have had something to do with it…
Let me just run you through some of the issues…First, light fixtures not properly looped together. In other words some lights switch on together that should be separated. Why? The electrician/ contractor thought it was easier to wire this way, did not really check the drawings, did not really care. Second, lights that are supposed to be dimmable are not. Why? The non-dimmable version was cheaper, saved a lot of money. Yes, but…. Another one… shoddy installation. Linear lights poorly aligned, resulting in awful light throw with uneven light distribution. Never mind we have proper details showing how to install, connect and align the lights. Who reads these details on site anyhow? Best of all, cheap local replacements for the lights you specified. It is not only the fittings. In some cases we found that the original lamp specification was replaced with some replacement bulbs found on the local market. There was I wondering why 2 out of the 5 down lights in the same circuit had only half the brightness. Only after some probing I found out.
The list goes on and on. It is a strange mentality because in the end the cheap alternatives, whether product or contracting work, are counter-productive. After having to repair, correct, replace and redo several times more money is general spent than if it was done right in the first place! Your feed peanuts, you get monkeys! Cheers!
In Light Watch a bit of Chennai. Everytime I come here I go from airport to hotel/site without really having seen the place. I was told that Marina Beach is really nice. Next time…
Light Watch 115: Marina Beach, Chennai
Long time between drinks
Singapore-Chennai 20-21June 2011
Did not make it last night…so today as compensation an extra-long blog, it is a long flight so plenty of time…I had a brief stop-over in Singapore on my way from Australia to Chennai, India. Another place, another (hotel) project in its final stages of completion. It has been a long while (close to a year!) since I last was on site. Not because of me not wanting or able to go, just clients stubbornness in minimising costs…
News has only gathered through sporadic emails and site feedbacks. As a designer this is kind of frustrating as we wish our projects to come out as close to our lighting design intent as possible and irrespective of how god our specs are, it still needs the designer to make sure it is also translated properly when site “obstacles” occur. Your clients best judgement is not necessarily the best option or solution. Ours is generally driven by our design intent, the clients’ solution generally by budget and time. We have been “dreamimg” this project from day one. So has the client probably, but was it the same dream?
It appears the hotel opened its doors at the beginning of June, which means it has operated up till now without us doing any aiming, focussing, programing, testing and commissioning. Hmmm…it will be interesting to see what has been achieved, how it looks, who made the decisions and how they have operated with it. I am only there for 2 days so definitely not enough to do a full T+C. Will I have to come back? Probably, but will the client spent the money…let’s see…
It’s been a long wait between drinks in this project, let’s see how much I will need the drink…:). To be continued…
This sort of ties in with todays Light Watch, the 21st June in the Northern Hemisphere happens to be the longest day of the year. Guess somehow an auspicious day to do a lighting assessment. Also called Summer Solstice,it is a point where the earths axial tilt is most inclined towards the sun, hence the sun reaches its highest point in our sky making its day presence the longest of every day in the year. Countries above the pole circle experience this time of the year as the time that the sun does not set beyond the horizon. I ever witnessed that in Northern Iceland where the sun just touched the horizon (around midnight) and then slowly started to rise again…strange but very interesting experience to have days where it does not get dark at all. I can only assume that the energy savings from the summer are off set by the added energy needs in the winter when reversely it remains dark all day…
Light Watch 114: Summer solstice, northern hemisphere 1 am…
Pace of life
Perth 17th June 2011
Travelling from continent to continent, country to country, climate to climate, culture to culture as I do as part of my job confronts me with many different life styles and most of all paces of life. I like to compare the speed of life in Perth/Australia to life on a bicycle, Singapore to life in a car and Shanghai/ China to life in a F1 race car. It illustrates the pace of life which totally reflects the pace of work. Perth is located in the state of Western Australia also shortened as WA. Most people say WA stands for Wait Awhile… 🙂
I love being in Perth (for a while) as it is an oasis of calm when I work there. People take their time, there does not seem to be a sense of great urgency (compared to doing business in China) and overall people seem to treasure and enjoy life more. It sort of brings you down to earth a bit. Then of course there is the climate which somehow also dictates lifestyle….there is a life after work…but then after a while I start missing the hustle and bustle of Asia. It is a good balance and I believe it also keeps me balanced (and energised!)
I am fortunate to travel and be exposed to all these different influences as I believe it makes me a better designer understanding all these different
influences that makes up some ones way of life. It does however require you to slow down (or speed up) and adapt to the pace of life, not always easy…. After a week in Australia I have considerably slowed down in my pace adapting to local life and business style, but it relaxes me and since my kids are here I can spent some quality time with them in the process….
In Light Watch today a reflection of the Perth life and business style…the city skyline at night. It is winter and dark early (around 5.30pm) so there are still some lights on in the few office towers the Perth Central Business district has. But contrary to many world metropolises there are hardly any fancy façade lighting or flashing advertisements to be seen. The big calmness…
Have a great weekend!
Light Watch 113: Perth City sky line
Patience
Perth 16th June 2011
Patience is a virtue they say…In our job as lighting designer we need to exercise patience at various times, in many ways, specifically with clients. They take their time with everything. Specifically when it comes to appointments and payments. Both of course are financially related. An appointment means a financial commitment, so most of them wait till the last moment to appoint you, maybe in the hope that they can eventually do without you as our profession is still one of those last items on the budget. It is getting better but still generally is…there is also a fine line between being patient and harassing the client on whether he has made up his mind to appoint you.
When it comes to the actual payment it is one and the same. In general clients wait till the last moment (and beyond) to pay you, at times applying all the tricks of the trade to delay the payment. Promptly paying clients are rare and if you have one, treasure them! Of course a happy client is more prone to pay then an unhappy one but as we are generally part of a greater team not everything always goes smoothly. Budget overruns also do not really help!
Patience is also required within our own team. As the boss you may have the greater overview and experience, but your staff is still learning. This requires patience and a good dose of understanding and anticipation. You need to know their strengths and weaknesses, understand and know what to expect and show leadership by example. Positive direction always works better then negative put downs.
I came to this subject today as somehow two people from two totally different backgrounds I worked with many years ago but had not been in contact with for more than 5 years suddenly re-appeared in my life by contacting me for projects. Out of the blue…I couldn’t help thinking that patience had something to do with it….
In Light Watch today I have to mention the lunar eclipse that was visible in western australia last night. The presence of the volcanic ash cloud made the surface of the moon even redder. Sunlight blocked by the earth is bended around the earth through the atmosphere and provides this reddish soft glow to the moon. .
Light Watch 112: Lunar eclipse, Perth
Financial Year
Perth 15th June 2011
Financial years are funny things, but every professional company has somehow to deal with it. In Australia we are generally running from July to June, so this is the last month of the financial year. We have to “close” our books by the end of the month and get our accountants to work out our final year end accounts for tax auditing. Most countries have invested lots of money in their tax department as it is a legal way to get money from people. And under the umbrella of “law enforcement” they can bully you to pay your tax. As an anecdote: I had a little fight with the Singapore tax department earlier this year as their system showed I still owed them money from financial year 1998 (!). Considering I left Singapore for Australia in 1997 there was obviously some mistake. But rather than suspending the payment demand pending my appeal and investigation, they persisted and forced me into paying first simply because their system was set up that way. After 2 months of communications back and forth I finally was proven right and my moneys were returned. No apologies….
Another interesting phenomenon of a financial year, specifically with government department that work on yearly allocated budgets (certainly in Australia), is that budgets have to be used up otherwise it goes back to the state coffers. So we find many of these departments and city councils pushing for works to be completed and their admin asking the consultants and contractors to invoice before financial year end. Today I had two of those projects where the clients asked us if we could invoice before months end to clear the allocated budgets! Now you don’t object to clients asking you to invoice, do you! 🙂 The thing is that if they don’t use up their allocated budget for the year it will look like they over budgeted and risk to be cut in budget allocation next financial year! Works for us!
In Light Watch today it is the Icelandic volcanic ash clouds 2010 all over again…now Australia is under threat from the Chilean volcano eruption that has seen huge ash clouds drift into Australian airspace. Today Perth airport closed temporarily as the ash clouds drifts over. It seems however that it is of short duration and that flights will resume in 24 hours. For the moment my travel plans are not (yet?) in jeopardy.
Light Watch 111: Ash cloud on the way to Perth
Developping the relationship
Perth 14thJune 2011
I would like to elaborate a bit more on yesterdays’ topic of doing a paid conceptual design as a way of “getting to know each other” rather than providing speculative design in the hope of being selected. I think that preselecting potential candidates based on past merits and a proven track record is the first right step. Subsequently following up to pay the short listed consultants of your choice to develop a preliminary concept as a way to test the relationship and each other’s character to see if it works, is something which we see rarely but which I think is a great initiative as part of due diligence and developing a durable relationship. On top of that when subsequently one consultant is selected for the project, the “rejected” ones do not feel used and most of all respected for their efforts. At least I do. I have had a few of these projects and when I did not get the job still felt good…relationships are personal.
We have now started to engage with the client to develop this concept and most of all develop the relationship. There are several elements that we need to show the client such as communication, quality of the deliverables and commitment to time schedules. But these are mostly quantitative and measurable performances. More importantly it will be to show our expertise and experience in developing a unique content for our lighting concept. We would have to show creativity and substance through the concept story, the translation into lighting effects and finally (true to our vision of what today’s lighting is about) expose the sustainability of our design. I believe these components will show our client how well we are able to assimilate the development into a good lighting design concept.
In Light Watch today more of beautiful Western Australia. We do not have a Stonehenge like England, but we have an extraordinary piece of nature called The Pinnacles. Specifically at sunrise or sunset the light and shadow patterns are quite amazing. Not much more than a piece of desert with some pointy rocks mixed with the occasional kangoroo…but beautiful. About 1-2 hours drive north of Perth.
Light Watch 110: The Pinnacles, Western Australia
Avoiding unhappy marriages
Perth 13th June 2011
In our lighting design profession we are always in the process of building durable relationships with new clients. Generally our relationships are instant, the result of a speedy dating process. There is seldom a long term courtship between client and consultant. The client goes by our references or referrals and we go by their credentials (if we can!) and if we like what we see (or hear) the marriage is subsequently concluded. It is not surprising that many of these “marriages” end unhappily and sometimes in divorce. We definitely have been “dumped” a few times in the past due to irreconcilable differences. We have also in the past replaced a relationship “partner” due to unhappiness with the former.
I touch on this topic today as in an unusual move today one of my new potential clients is actually suggesting a courtship first before deciding on our appointment. He has preselected us (and two others) based on our references and passed track record and will pay us a fee to prepare a concept. Based on the concepts they will finalise the actual appointment for the whole project. A bit like the “Farmer wants a wife” TV series concept. Test your future partner in different situations; get to know them before you tie the knot. They told me they had had unhappy marriages with lighting consultants before and now wished to do due diligence by engaging their preselected candidates first before deciding who to appoint.
I think this is a great approach, specifically because they value the consultants’ expertise by paying for the “courtship”. They appreciate that we need to put in the work and reward that with a nominal fee, regardless whether we tie the knot later or not. That is how it should be. Too often I have refused or rejected projects where we are asked to come up with a concept as part of our fee proposal! Considering that conceptual work is a key element of our services and earnings it is in my opinion not right to ask us to develop a concept for free…anyhow we do not entertain speculative design. Therefore this clients approach is refreshing and professional and augers good for the future should we be appointed 🙂
In Light Watch today beautiful Western Australia. As I flew to Perth I had the most exquisite view of the coastline with its deep blue water and sandy beaches. There are by the way some amazing webcams available on line that let you connect with world; www.earthtv.com is one of them…
Light Watch 109: Coral Coast Western Australia
Solar bottle light
Singapore 10th June 2011
Sometimes people come up with simple yet “powerful” ideas. Recently I read that students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) developed a cheap and easily reproducible solar light bulb by using a simple bottle. The bottle is filled with a mix of water and easily available chemicals and then popped into the ceiling, its top outside in the sun, its lower part acting as a light diffuser inside. These solar light bottles are now used in poor communities in Mexico, Brazil and the Philippines.
It is a very interesting side of our profession as lighting designers as we hardly get to be involved at this end of the scale, lighting to the very poor communities, where just one light bulb alone probably means a lot of luxury. It puts a different spin on things. We design lighting as a profession, mostly high end developments with cash rich clients. But at this end of the scale lighting design, if we can call it that way, is about looking at ways to provide one lighting point in a room at no or absolute minimal cost. In rural areas where electricity is hard to come by and if available expensive, a lighting solution such as the solar light bottle seems a big thing.
It requires a total mind shift as designer where lighting is not a luxury commodity but a treasured basic need. I can only speak for myself of course, but such news items always bring me back to earth, to the extent that I am seriously questioning myself if we are on the right track with all these mega luxury developments (Dubai- China), crazy multi-media façade lighting and so on.
It makes me even more determined to strongly look at each and every lighting design we produce to make sure we do not “overdo it”, have maximised energy saving and designed the lighting to sustainable levels. As lighting designers this should be central to all our thinking, we have a leading role to play. We have just commissioned our first 100% LED restaurant in Singapore, saving 80% energy per lighting point, without
sacrificing on ambiance or comfort! I feel good about that….
In Light Watch today check out the solar ligt bottle at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zMAWztZ6TI.
Many other websites report on it.
Light Watch 108: Solar bottle light
Exchange currency
Singapore 9th June 2011
Bit of a scare with my blog yesterday, not sure what happened but could not upload other then just the heading. One of those days you wished you were an IT expert! I later realised I had Windows service pack 1 installed earlier in the day and that as a result the blog software could possibly not communicate properly with the updated laptop software. I downloaded the latest blog software version and …voila!…we are back in business!
Doing business in Asia is always about money, always about negotiating a better deal, getting discounts. It is so ingrained in the culture
that you need to prepare yourself for that in everything you do. Most of all your fee proposals. Today I have been busy preparing some lighting design proposals for projects in China and part of the “technique” to get what you want is to build in what I call “exchange currency”. Little things you are prepared to forgo to get the bigger deal. There are many small little things that are part of negotiations and giving face to your (new) client.
First of all always be prepared to give some discount 5, 10, 15 even 20%. That is part and parcel of life here in Asia. More discount is not
really advisable as then your credibility and integrity in terms of the fees you proposed is severly undermined, unless you decrease the scope of work or responsibilities accordingly, which is what we do if a client has a specific budget. Further components for exchange currencies are; number of trips for meetings and site coordination, duration of the project, reimbursable expenses and so on. All little things but which can significantly add to the overall consultancy fee costs. May look like small currency individually but added together it can be good exchange money in your negotiations! (Don’t forget that in this part of the world it is always hard to get the last 10-20% of you fees!)
In Light Watch today one of the “to visit” places on the “Bucket” list. As I was negotiating a resort project in rural China my logical thought goes to Guilin, famed for its typical mountain landscapes, lakes and beautful sceneries so often captured on Chinese scrolls and paintings.
Light Watch 107: Guilin, China
Control the uncontrollable
Singapore, 8th June 2011
We can control lights and lighting effects with electronic or simple mechanical equipment, we can control our environment to a great extend by what we do, but controling the human mind is probably the most difficult thing on earth. We are driven by emotions and by our character and our actions and reactions therefore are very unpredictable and generally triggered by our mood and state of the moment.
When everything goes well and according to “plan” we are generally in a free flowing mood and positive state of mind but when difficulties and unexpected problems arise we can get into panic reactions and irrational behavior. I guess that is the inate nature of the beast…self protection and self defence. I raise this topic today as often in some stage of a project (generally towards the end) we are confronted with things that don’t work, assumptions that have been proven wrong, people who do not deliver on promises and so on. But the show must go on so we somehow have to find ways to make it work. We had such situation in one of our projects over the last week.
Emotions can run deep and people generally don’t like to be wronged, even if they are. Very little people take ownership and responsibility for mistakes and blaming others is then generally the first line of defence. One of my early day teachers told me not to react on the spur of the moment and sleep on it before reacting. Though some people (like me) are wired to react immediately, “sleeping on it’ has been proven a good advise. Controlling your emotions, think before you act.
People have a tendency to react emotionally and say things to make themselves look good if acused of wrongdoing or under achievement. That may then be felt as personal attacks by others and the war of words is born. It takes a good project manager to nip these in the bud and avoid uncontrollable escalation of emotions! As the saying goes, if you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem!
In Light Watch today a symbolic place when it comes to emotions, or should I say senses? There is a chain of themed restaurant called “Dans le noir” (In the dark) where people eat in complete darkness. Eliminating your key sense (sight) your emotions are triggered by the rest of your sense (sound, smell, touch, taste). I blogged about it before. Not really the job for a lighting designer 🙂
Light Watch 106: Dans Le Noir, Paris
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