LIGHT TALK

Bangkok – Singapore 2^nd September 2010

What I like about those in depth one on one design meetings is the time we can spend on resolving actual lighting design details. Getting the overall concept right is one thing but it is really the execution of the details that will finally make or break the end result. There is of course the follow up in getting it right on site by coordinating with the contractors and suppliers, but getting these details right at an early stage (or as early as possible) saves a lot of headache later on. If we work them out too late it becomes a hard call to have them integrated as most of the other consultants would already have finalized their drawings and understandably nobody is really happy if they have to modify or revise their work again. Lighting is not an stand-alone discipline, it has to harmonise with interiors, architecture, electrical, etc, etc.

So what sort of details am I talking about? For instance any light that has to be recessed or buried into a floor can be very tricky. Cabling has to be provided to the installation points, there has to be enough depth to recess the light (some of those in-grounds are damned big!) and if not possible because of structural slab issues we may need to agree on a plinth or raised base to accommodate the lights. Let’s not forget the water proofing issues.  

Many details are also related to lights integrated in millwork, cabinets, etc. The lead designers may have provided the main conceptual idea but do we have enough space to incorporate the correct light for the desired lighting effect? Coordination is critical. Incorrect dimensions may result in lights or electrical gear not properly concealed or lights even not fitting the allocated space. It wouldn’t be the first time that happens…

“Classics” are maintenance issues. Lights being build-in behind translucent panels but no-one really thought of providing any access doors for lamp replacements and maintenance. The onus is on us as lighting designers to point this out to the lead consultants. Sometimes it is just the location itself. The hotel where I stayed in Bangkok for instance had lights mounted into coves in a 4 storey high ceiling. All lights were off… I wonder why?

It’s all in the details….

Bangkok 1^st September 2010

One of the things that was proved again over my last two days of lighting design  coordination meetings, is that the more people are involved in a meeting the more views and opinions are tabled. Or better still, the smaller the team of “decision” makers in the meeting the more efficient and faster the progress. One of my key requests had been to keep the discussions team as small and relevant as possible so we could cover as much ground as possible. Our (China) clients are chasing like mad for us to issue drawings and technical documentation, but fail to understand the simple sequence of the design process let alone the importance of interdisciplinary coordination. I can’t possibly issue my lighting design concept without having full understanding of the architectural and interior design concept, can I?

My point today is that so often we find ourselves in meetings with too many people and because they are in the meeting they feel they need to say something to make themselves look important. But the result is that we get too many opinions, irrelevant or trivial questions or comments which most of the time delay the discussions and set us back rather then move forward. A classic situation in Asia is when the big boss is in a meeting with 4 or 5 of his subordinates. They start asking questions in order of hierarchy, first the most junior one then the next up till the boss, sometimes the other way around…. even better sometimes the boss comes in later and we have to go through the same sequence again.

One of the great challenges in our job is to manage our meetings. Most clients have no respect for our time and request your presence in meetings regardless whether the subject is relevant to you or not. In contrast these last two days have been highly enjoyable, extremely satisfactory and productive, just the lead design consultant and ourselves. Talking to like-minded people who speak the same design language brings out the best in all of us.

Bangkok 31^st August 2010

Currently in Thailand for a few days of design coordination meetings on some of our projects. On my way from the airport into town this morning I noticed a huge billboard sign promoting Ligman architectural outdoor lighting products. I am aware of several multi- national lighting manufacturers with a production base in Thailand (Weef for one), but advertising on commercial billboards is quite unusual for our professional type of lighting. Manufacturers in our professional business advertise in professional lighting or architecture related magazines but not often in mainstream public spaces.     

What about us lighting designers, do we advertise? I know some do at times, mostly the newer inexperienced companies, but to my knowledge the more established practices generally do not really take up commercial advertisement space. I have tried a few times in the early days of my practice only to find myself many dollars lighter with absolutely no noticeable return on my “investment”. Occasionally lighting designers take up a congratulatory advertisement with their clients at the opening of a project they worked on successfully, but most of the time we are “coerced” into it by a client who paid our fees and expects this as a token of gratitude.

Our advertisement really comes from our exposure to the professional public of our lighting design achievements or expert knowledge. The prime source for our “advertisement” are publications that take a write-up on our projects. These are generally free as most professional lighting and architectural design magazines live by reporting on projects and other related expert lighting information. From my personal experience one professional report on one of your (successfully) completed projects nearly always triggers a reaction from someone somewhere.

In this day and age your website also provides an entry point for many of your potential clients. I do not have hard figures but I can tell for sure that a substantial part of our clients reach us through finding us on the net. But the best and surest advertisement is by far word of mouth. What better than a satisfied client or happy fellow project consultant promoting your services to others!

Singapore 30^th August 2010

How often don’t we hear: “It can’t be done?” I certainly come across it all the time, mostly from contractors, sometimes from other product manufacturers. It happens generally when we need to add lighting to an existing structure or product and our proposed lighting will mean changes to the original design of the structure or product. I am facing two of those situations right now and it will take our initiative to make it work otherwise the answer will remain no.  Most of the time these negative answers are driven by the lack of willingness to look for a solution because of the extra work and potential extra costs involved.

In a hotel project we have a situation where the contractor advised the client that the dome structure over the lobby cannot take the extra load (weight) of our lighting. Now the lighting design and details have been known to the project team, including the structural engineers, for more than a year, so I suspect that someone in the structural engineering department has stuffed up. Can’t prove it of course but really we are only talking about some integrated linear LED and Cold Cathode lighting systems. Surely the additional load will not be cause to a dome collapse. Specifically the weight of the transformers and drivers seem an issue. No one seem willing to look for a solution (as the lighting effect is a major part of the overall lobby concept). I am not sure if there will be an answer but locating the gear away from the dome seems to be one direction to follow. But then I will probably hear that we have a problem with the cabling…anything to avoid the extra work.

In another (residential) project we are looking at adding external lighting to an elevator. It is not a normal elevator, but a car elevator in a high rise building, allowing you to park your car at your front (penthouse) door all the way up, 100m in the sky. The car elevator is a highly technical structure, from my understanding a world first. But adding the lighting to the structure initially found only resistance. Today after a highly creative exchange of ideas it looks like we have swung their minds and we are all looking at “doing” it. All it took was just a positive mind and a willingness to find a solution…

Singapore 29^th August 2010

Having a lighting design practice is relatively simple when it’s you, maybe with a few staff operating from one office location. But as you grow and become more in demand you start expanding as a logical consequence in order to support the demands of the projects you have in hand. But our business is very much tied in with and sensitive to the world economy so we have to be mindful when expanding and diversifying knowing that there are ups and downs. I lived through the Asian economy crash of 97 and more recently the one from 2008. What is wisdom? What lessons did we learn? What is the best set up for a lighting design practice to weather all economic situations?

In 97 I was relatively inexperienced, with plenty of projects, but in a very narrow market, mostly hospitality and commercial developments all located in and around Singapore with only one project in China. As a result the economy crash hit me very hard and pushed me to the edge of bankruptcy. I got back up on my feet and today China is my biggest market with India second and further projects from Australia all the way to Eastern Europe. Because of the diversity in our project markets, I can say now that our China and India projects pulled us through the recent economy crisis. We were able to maintain our staff capacity though had to tighten our belts.  

Right now we are facing the dilemma on whether to expand or not. Expand in terms of staff, expand in terms of office locations and diversify in terms of project applications. Right now we operate from Australia, Singapore and China, but do we need more offices (clients always push for a local office)? The longer I am in this business, the more I start believing that less is more. A good lighting designer need to be involved in the project from start to finish. I know I can’t run 30 projects as a lighting designer, something has to give. So expansion means finding equally qualified lighting designers who can fully manage a project for me from start to finish while delivering the quality expected.

Those qualified lighting designers I know run their own business, those who potentially could still have a long way to go. So maybe expansion is not the way…?

Singapore 28^th August 2010

I guess we all know the saying that money does not make you happy, but it is damn easier to be unhappy with a lot of money then without…and it is damn easier to do things when you have money…Where am I going with this?…In most of our projects the bottom line is really the money or the budget. On Friday I attended a design coordination meeting with the client in which so far we only had spoken the design concept language. But with everyone happy and enthusiastic about the concept it was time to get down to business…the bottom line. We had invited the client’s contractor to quote for the supply and installation works. That is when we all came crashing down from the euphoria of the concept. The cost would be more than 4 times the budget! (It would have been nice to have known the budget on forehand but as always the client tells you they don’t have one until you tell them what it will cost!)

So what to do now? Everyone loves the concept (we are working on one of the corporate lounges for the upcoming F1 night race in Singapore) but how to meet the budget. It is back to the drawing board obviously with the time clock ticking. And that is where creativity and problem solving experience is crucial together with a healthy dose of compromise. We like our concept to be perfect and of the highest quality, but at times we have to realize that there are other priorities and that perfectionism comes at a price.

I am confident that we will be able to create something memorable for the event within the budget, maybe slightly over, but it will mean looking at each and every component of the lighting design and weigh its importance within the overall concept, look at the numbers and fine tune the end result.

In our world money is everything. Somebody needs to pay for the design and most of the time people are always in the business of wanting more for less…

Singapore 27^th August 2010

I think it is a slogan from one of the big manufacturers, but today I was brought back to earth during a key presentation to one of my clients with sense and simplicity. Though it came unexpectedly and totally out of left field, the client made total sense when he questioned the use of LED down lights in my design. Without going too much into details we had designed the lighting for a public train station mostly on LED lighting with what we thought was the full backing of the client for this approach. The usual “green” requirements such as energy saving, watts per square meter, acceptable return on investment, etc.

We had done our comparison of the LED down lights with compact fluorescent down lights, a logical thought isn’t it, and the results of our study showed that LED was the best solution with return on the extra investment within the 3 years. The latest modern technology, excellent performance and overall financial sense with as bonus environmentally friendly lighting systems.

Until the client asked me during my presentation why we had not considered T5 fluorescent lighting. He admitted that he was interested in using LED where appropriate but that did not mean that the whole station had to be designed on LED. His reasoning was that T5 fluorescent was still one of the most efficient and economical systems available to create general lighting and since the station was basically a functional application, why not use T5? If we were so adamant that LED was the solution how did it stack up to T5? My first thought was to justify and defend my choice of LED that it was not really a comparable lighting system that it had a totally different lighting feel, etc, but then I realized that he had a point, that T5 had worked well for decades and still was the choice lighting system for many general lighting solutions.

I promised him to go back to my drawing board and look at a technical comparison between LED down lights and T5 linear systems and report back to him. Even though the lighting effects are fairly different there may certainly be some areas in which the conventional T5 still delivers better result than T5! I still have lots of arguments for LED but at least I owe him the comparison.

Sense and simplicity.

Singapore 26^th August 2010

Lighting is moving main stream big time. With LED products becoming also more consumer oriented we see a shift happening where architectural lighting and related lighting products are moving to a more public domain and made more user friendly for the general consumer. LED’s are becoming the trendy thing to have, specifically the color changing types which are sold as mood makers and ambiance creators.

I am mentioning this as Philips is opening its first brand store in Singapore (the Philips Lighting Brand Store) much in line with the Apple I-stores and others. I have yet to visit it so I am just going by my own thoughts at this point of time. And if the Brand Store alone is not enough, the launch has been given added “impact” by having Twitter feeds (www.twitter.com/PLstore) as well as being on Facebook (www.facebook.com/PLstore)  to communicate about its promotions in today’s world. It works for Apple, it works for Ferrari, it works for Gucci, why not for lighting? The combination with modern internet technology for communication such as Twitter and Facebook only adds to the trendy image. I have tried Twitter, but it’s not for me, my daughters have been urging me to join Facebook, but again it is too much on top of my daily email communications. But it works for many others! I am managing this blog, that is already something trendy, isn’t it? It is part of this new world…

The thing with lighting nowadays is that it has a lot of new features to offer which starts to make it interesting for the general public. I mentioned the color dynamics for mood and ambiance, but there is also lighting for health which is going to be a big thing of the future. With the new generation miniature LED technology it is now also possible to integrate lighting in furniture, appliances and even clothing. Easy to see that lighting manufacturers like Philips move into the multi-billion consumer market. The newly created “lighting products” are so becoming unique must have items. Combine this with the multimedia features that LED can offer and it is easy to see how lighting products can become a main stream must have branded product…only available in the Brand Store!

Guangzhou 25^th August 2010

I am writing this while in transit in Guangzhou, China, as far as I am concerned one of the lousiest big city airports in China. It is so big and has such bad signage that you lose kilo’s walking around in frustration trying to find your way. No wonder my ticketing agent told me the airport requires a minimum 3 hours transit time! I am in for at least 4 hours if there is no major delay, something you can count on will happen… while I am at it.. the lighting is lousy as well. Though I spotted some (what looked like real) Targetti fixtures, in general the lighting levels are insufficient, inconsistent, glary and with a lot of reflective glare and in my opinion badly laid out. I know it is easy to criticize also I don’t know the history, so who ever lighting designer did this, it is not personal! I know how these projects can go totally out of hand! I have plenty such experiences.

Which brings me to the subject of problem solving…life is not so much determined by the problems that are happening to us, but by the way we react to it. As lighting designer we are continuously confronted with challenges, deadlines just being one of them. Key is how we confront those challenges (note I am calling it a challenge rather than a problem!) and the steps we take to resolving a situation.

The first step is the emotional reaction. People sometimes say nasty things, sometimes they mean it, most of the time it is just an emotional reaction on the spur of the moment. A tit for tat reaction generally does not work, as it results most of the time in an aggravated situation. In this process we need to bear in mind the hierarchical position of the person you are dealing with. Thought the person maybe an @#$%hole, he maybe the project manager or the client’s big boss. He may be a contractor who needs telling of. You may think you deserve respect, but you need to see the situation from a total perspective not just yours. So listen first, acknowledge the complaint or criticism, certainly in countries where loss of face plays an important role.  

So your second step, the actual physical reaction, will basically determine your future time and again. Where there is the need you can build your case and justify your actions, but very often acknowledging the situation goes a long way in resolving it, rather than bulldozing your way through. A commonly agreed solution brings peace. It is much nicer to work with interior designers, architects and clients that feel acknowledged and supported…life is much more pleasant in the end even though we go through rough patches first…..

PS: Just passed the mark of 300 blogs!

Sanya, Hainan 24^th August 2010

Design and site coordination meetings can be quite interesting and revealing. I have just completed another such day where the foreign consultants meet the local team (client, local design institute, local architect, electrical and structural engineers) and cross swords about the design and its implementation on site. This is about a 5 star hotel resort, one of the many going up in Sanya.

The first issue is generally the mock up room. Like in any hotel project a model room (or mock up room) is build to make sure the whole concept (interiors, lighting, etc) works as generally hundreds of rooms will be built as part of the hotel, so getting it right is crucial. The “confrontation” if I may call it that way, is always about what we have specified and what actually is being installed. For several reasons (local availability, cost savings and not to forget kickbacks from local suppliers) it generally ends up quite different from your design let alone your expectation, giving rise to a lot of frustration. That is where suddenly no-one is responsible…I didn’t do it…its not me! But someone must have made the decision to replace it.

Then there is the issue of old drawings or no follow up. We sent drawings to the client and site team, but when we come for a meeting it is like they just started looking at them. That is the good scenario. Most of the time you find out that they are working on previous issues or that you have been working on old drawings as they did not update you…either way an interesting discussion as again there seems to be no one to blame.   

A real beauty is when you find out that your drawings do not match with the actual site situation or that certain site conditions were not communicated to you as it means that all your design work was in vain forcing you to rework that design. Again no one is home when it comes to taking ownership as nobody really likes to admit making mistakes in this business…

There were not many lighting design issues today but it was an interesting meeting to watch nevertheless…