Design and reality
Goa- Mumbai 27th January 2012
It has been an interesting trip to Gao so far. After yesterday’s consultants meeting we spent the day “roaming the site” with the consultant and site team to iron out as much issues as possible taking advantage of our joint presence. I said yesterday how important the attention to the actual installation and implementation is. Its all in the details! Specifically in such large projects which are spread over many years of design and specification work, which saw many project managers and site personnel come and go, it is inevitable that things get lost in translation.
Let me share some of the things that I have been confronted with, baring in mind that the design was completed and spec’d more than 2 years ago and that during constructions issues came up such as site restrictions, changing operator inputs, unavailability of materials or products, electrical changes, budget limitations…all those things that cannot all be perfectly documented but pop up when the construction starts.
One of the issues are lamp types. In a project of this size it is impossible to have everything on dimming and each and every area on a 5 star product level even though the hotel is a 5 plus star. Energy and cost saving have to be applied where possible. So in the design stages decisions are made about areas that could use CFL or Metal halide lamps for instance (back of house areas, etc). We did that to the best of our knowledge and coordination, but found on site that some areas were moved back to front of house, but still carried the lighting design from back of house. As a result we had un-dimmable circuits with incompatible lamp types as a left over from an older design version.
We also found that the electrical contractor had taken short-cuts by combining circuits or incorrectly looping lights together. Also “loose” decorative lights (so called FFE items), such as floor and table lamps, that had to be hard wired into the dimming system were just simply plugged into a power socket. Electrical engineers by definition are not very creative when it comes to decision making. We had many ‘electrical” surprises…
Finally not all our fitting selections turned out to be the best for what we wanted it to do. That seems easy to say when you have them installed in their final environment, but 2 years earlier with only plans and your own visual imagination, it is not always that obvious….I would venture that in this project about 3-5% of our fitting specifications were not as suitable as thought at planning and design stage…. I can only imagine how much young and relatively inexperienced lighting designers get it wrong!
Light Watch 3-11: I leave you with some pictures of the Australian Open in Melbourne. The finals are on this weekend with a mouth-watering Nadal-Djokovic men final this Sunday. As a former competition player myself (long-long time ago 
) I can but admire these players…
Finishing touches
Goa 26th January 2012
Today is Republic Day in India and National Day in Australia. Why is it that I always seem to end up working on public holidays! As I write this, fireworks are probably illuminating the skies in Australia, in Perth under a sweltering summer heat with day temperatures as I heard today reaching over 40 degrees.
I am back in Goa for the finishing touches of our Grand Hyatt project. I have said regularly that your design is as good as the final implementation. Doing a great design is nice but it remains a design. Only when it is fully implemented and completed can you judge how good your design was. Before you reach that point you would have gone through many, many hoops and overcome many, many obstacles. We have projects were the client sort of takes over at the end and leaves us out the final completion, most of the time for budget reasons, taking the opportunity to reason themselves out of the final fee payment…very common in this part of the world.
But this client is serious in completing the project not only to their own satisfaction but also the design consultant team’s satisfaction, a rather rare happening. We all convened here in Goa to list out all issues and work out solutions to remedy this together. A sort of pre- “defects and liability” exercise. No finger pointing, just accepting were we are and see what needs still to be done to reach a common level of satisfaction, complete with an action plan for the remainder of the works. It shows a great amount of mutual respect to be able to assess and move positively forward without blaming each other. Inevitably in large projects of this nature things get lost in translation and design intent finds itself (for whatever reason) not always translated as meant.
To me accepting this, acknowledging this and finding solutions rather than criticising is something that will surely help to make this project something everybody will be proud of in the end. I have many issues still outstanding in lighting from non-dimmable cove lights to wrongly wired or installed lights, but the fact is that to the first time guest arriving at the hotel it looks fantastic and impressive. We (as the designers) may still see all the missing nitty-gritty that needs to be done or should be there, but for the “uninitiated” it’s the first impression that counts. That the hotel has already bagged its first awards as best new hotel in Goa proves my point. See some pictures below.
Light Watch 3-10: Grand Hyatt Goa, India. Photo’s courtesy of Hyatt International group
Year of the Dragon
Singapore- Mumbai 25th January 2012
We returned to work today after the Chinese New Year holidays that has just brought us the year of the Dragon, for many the anticipation of an auspicious year ahead. The year of the Dragon is considered by many as the luckiest animal in the 12 year cycle of the Chinese zodiac. Interestingly the Dragon is the only animal in the zodiac which is not real! Maybe this year will be unreal! But it is seen as a symbol of power, superiority and rule. I have always been interested in Chinese/ Eastern philosophy, simply because I live and work in this part of the world and have had many exposures to it. While at times it may seem strange to the down to earth thinking we as westerners have, there is a lot of merit in the eastern thoughts and ways and I have at several occasions been able to appreciate its working. Think Feng Shui for instance..
So will the year of the Dragon bring us lighting designers good fortune this year? With all the misery around the Eurozone and other uncertainties in the world we can certainly use some good fortune and if the year of the Dragon can bring us that little push, we will all be happy. I have many projects cooking in the kitchen which I hope the year of the Dragon will bring to fruition! This is one of those times that you want the auspicious nature of the Dragon to definitely work for you!
Then luck also has to be forced your way. We can’t sit still and just wait for things to happen. Action, perseverance and self-belief are probably the key ingredients to get what you want. I certainly have great hope and expectation for this coming year of the Dragon and wish you all the same. I am on my way to Mumbai, who knows what new opportunities await me there! Go Dragon, go!
Light Watch 3-9: Chinese New Year is celebrated throughout the Chinese community in the world and lighting is a big part of these celebrations. Below some pictures of the Chjinese New Year of the Dragon…Gong Xi Fa Cai everyone…
The bigger picture
Singapore 20th January 2012
I have recently started to engage in a cooperation with environmental specialists to add further value to our goal in providing the greenest and most sustainable possible lighting solutions to our clients. The point is that we as professional lighting designers are specialist in our own little field of lighting design but have little knowledge or understanding on how our lighting design may further influence the design of other disciplines such as air and temperature control, electrical design, the integration with building management systems, architectural day lighting design and control and so on. In fact lighting is just a small part in the chain of sustainable design.
So in engaging further with environmental specialists will help us to better understand the bigger picture and most of all reinforce the message of the sustainable impact of our lighting design. For example, by embarking on an LED driven design, rather than halogen, we will create multiple saving effects. By reducing the power intake we reduce the direct energy consumption, yes, but do we know and understand what that means in terms of savings in regards to air-conditioning and temperature control equipment for instance? What is the impact on the electrical switchboard design? Because of the reduced heat emission of the lights, the sizing of the room temperature control equipment can be reduced, what are the savings there? There is a ripple effect throughout the building that we (I speak for myself here) do not fully understand as we are not specialist in these areas. So by engaging with the other specialist of related disciplines we will be able to make a much stronger case for the additional investment that may be required for sustainable lighting systems.
To make this more tangible, we may even need the QS to re-think the way budgets are put together by looking at the overall picture rather than the individual costs (of lighting). Comparing halogen to an LED equivalent is no longer and apple to apple comparison if you do not understand the bigger picture. The savings that you create through lighting should come back to lighting and not disappear in some-one else’s budget!
Light Watch 3-8: I leave you with a selection of “cool” building designs that at least have the “green” look. Whether they are really sustainable I don’t know but the design sort of implies it is! I don’t know anything about the lighting of these building but I would think that the above thoughts should heavily apply here!
It’s the economy…
Singapore 19th January 2012
In this part of the world we are now in between two major holidays. Xmas and New Year are just behind us, people living in the southern hemisphere (like Australia) are still having their summer break and right ahead we are looking at Chinese New Year starting 23rd January, a time when the Chinese in Asia shuts down. Some have already left for “home” to celebrate with their families. There is definitely a seasonal effect on business. Western countries are slowly getting back into business, with decisions and progress still on the low burner. At the same time the Asians are wrapping up for the Chinese New Year holidays which means they either want you to quickly submit some work before they go or they defer decision till after the holidays. Whatever it is any action (payments for instance!) are now only going to happen well after the holidays.
Bring into the mix the Eurozone worries, the high interest rates in India, the slowing Chinese economy and we have a situation where no-one really knows what is going to happen in the next 12 months. We have jobs in the pipeline, but are they all going to materialise fully, progress within the intended time schedules? Or will we see cut backs and a notable slowdown in the projects. I definitely see it happen already, but whether it is just the seasonal effect or a more cautious approach by our clients is hard to tell. Money in the bank is clearly the measure by which we go, always stay a step ahead of your client when it comes to deliveries. Sounds selfish, but reality has shown that the moment you release work without having received previous payment you will always run behind the facts.
With the uncertainties of the future re-enforcing your base is probably a good preventive action and with that I mean building alliances and strategic partnerships to increase exposure and potential client base. Most of all treasure your existing clients and treat them well…Just sharing some of the worries that play in my mind at the moment and I am sure that I am not alone with these thoughts, regardless whether you are running a small lighting design practice like ours or a multi-million lighting corporation….
Light Watch 3-7: There will always be a future as we as human beings have this never ending urge to invent and innovate. New products will always be developed. Panasonic for instance just received a design award for their latest LED light bulb which has been designed along the lines of a traditional Thomas Edison lamp, including the filament and clear glass…Also the compactness of LED technology allows us now to create fixtures where you wonder where the light comes from!
Layers of light
Singapore 18th January 2012
Opting for an “early” entry today as I will be off later for a meeting and not sure what time I will be back (and in what state ) as I will be attending a friend’s birthday dinner party after that.
Lighting design is very much about understanding the laws of perception. We don’t design for lux meters, we design for people to work in and enjoy their environment. So in the end lighting is all about what is created as a visual environment and how we as human beings will perceive and appreciate it. A down light produces a certain light distribution and it is how we play and have this light distribution interact with its architectural environment that we create the visual environment that you will experience. Hence understanding the psychology of seeing, human perception, is key to a good lighting design.
Part of my day was dedicated (still is, just taking a small break to write this entry) to breaking up the proposed lighting design concept in layers of light and build up the “lighting psychology” into an understandable presentation. While we see what we see and generally accept that as a given, we do not always understand why it was created that way, what the role of the lighting is and if it wasn’t done that way, what the (negative) consequences would be. So this breaking up of the lighting design in layers (components) of light serves to educate the client at the same time on how we came to our final concept, by building up the lighting effects and explaining their role step by step. The end result of a lighting design is a composition, an integrated combination of a multitude of lighting components, similar to an orchestra, where all the individual instruments and the part they play combine to the become the final piece of music that you hear.
Understanding the role of each lighting component is crucial to our lighting design team as well. We design with reason so by consciously focussing on each layer of light and making sure we have fully understood and maximised its potential we can confidently face the client when presenting the total lighting design concept.
Light & Learn 3-2: It is probably a good time to share some basic elements of perception as part of Light & Learn for this week. One of the laws of perception says that what is brighter seems larger and further away. What is darker seems smaller and closer by. In a schematic representation of a space with a floor, a ceiling and 3 walls (see below) I am showing the effects of light and brightness in an architectural environment. The white surfaces are the brightly lit ones, those colored the ones are not illuminated. You will see that the space in the 1st looks close-by and bigg, the 2nd deep and small, the 3rd low and wide and the 4th high and narrow. It is of course the same space…it’s the lighting that creates the difference.
Something from nothing
Singapore 17th January 2012
Time and again we are faced with situations were (prospective) clients ask us to produce “something from nothing”, often a frustrating activity. Let me elaborate…
Today I had two fairly similar experiences in two different fields of our lighting design practice. As you know, doing fee proposals is crucial to our business, as long as we keep doing these we are in business as somewhere along the line one will convert into and actual project. But fee proposals are quite tricky as you sort of lay down your commitment in regards to the services you intend to deliver against the fee you are proposing. So in order to make the fee proposal meaningful you need a decent input in terms of the design brief, scope of work and deliverables. So how to do that if you are not given any clear scope of work other than some rough descriptions of the areas (no sizes) and when prompted about the building size being answered: “one building is tall, the other is flat!” That makes it understandably challenging and needs a lot of experience to create a proposal that makes sense while leaving the door open to log in the final fee at a later stage when details are confirmed. I generally do not like to give a client a flat NO, as the lack of info maybe unintentional, possible due to their own lack of experience or simply the result of confidentiality at that stage. Diplomacy and education can do wonders some time…
In a similar situation we are in the process of putting a lighting concept presentation together for a shopping mall but as we progressed we discovered that the rendering was old, the CAD drawings made available did not match the rendering (unclear which one was more recent ) and of a very general nature, making it very hard to get a good understanding of the building and site details. Prompting the client did not deliver any additional info, so there is a great risk that the development of the lighting concept may turn out to be abortive work being based on seemingly obsolete drawings and renderings…yet the client is pushing us to come and present the concept. Again experience will help us put something together that will be a good base for the presentation, but it will take a skilful and diplomatic presentation to present something out of nothing. It will need to help the client understand and hopefully result in appreciation for what lighting designers need to create!
Light Watch 3-6: Getting the lighting concept right is really very dependent on understanding the architectural design concept. If you do not understand the architectural intent how to develop a meaningful lighting concept. Here are a few shopping mall designs that googled with very different design intent….
Cut and paste?
Singapore 16th January 2012
It is so easy to fall back on something you have done before… just copy and paste…but when you run a practice like ours where you are hired to come up with lighting design concepts, creative lighting solutions, time is very much of the essence. Clients want your design “yesterday” and as a result you find yourself looking for the easy way out to submit and issue your designs as swiftly as possible to have a quick turn-around. Time is money right? But more and more I find myself looking for that design edge, that something unique that will set the project apart. That can be a lighting feature by itself or an integrated solution worked out with architect, interior designer or even an artist.
Today again I got that itchy feeling we were moving too quickly along the proven paths, been there, done that, we know it works, client will be satisfied…I catch myself constantly trying to step back and see what we could do differently, how could we bring something special to the project. It is easier said than done as our lighting designs generally follow on from the lead consultant, being interior designer or architect who already have put in their fair amount of thoughts in the overall concept by the time we are called in. You can imagine that they are not always keen in us telling them to change details or layouts to fit some new crazy lighting idea we have.
To prove my point a short anecdote in regards to a lighting concept we have just completed for a hotel. We had presented the concept and generally all parties (client, operator, interior designer, etc) liked it and asked us to work it out in details. When we sent our details for comments last week, which needed the interior designer to modify some layout and detailing, the interior designer asked us to delete all lighting points that changed their original design…what? I suspect their main reasons being to avoid additional work (which they cannot really claim) and also avoid the extra cost for lighting which would undoubtedly affect the overall (tight) budget in general and leave less for interiors!
So what? Back to a “cut and paste design” without much identity?… We decided to ignore the ID request and stick to the concept with more visual impact that everybody approved of…if necessary the value engineering will be instructed by the client.
Light Watch 3-5: Some creative approaches in lighting relating to shape, form, texture, size, movement, senses, technology…
materials and texture
shapes and forms
dimensions and proportions
senses; blow to light
senses; rub to light (brighter)
technology
technology
Superstition
Singapore 14th January 2012
It was not because yesterday was Friday the 13th that I did not upload my blog…I was simply on the run most of the day with hardly any time behind my laptop…and no, I am not that much into my IPhone or Ipad that I use these to tweet or blog on the run…I need to sit down behind my laptop in my comfortable office chair with a proper key board! That sounds so old fashioned already….20 years ago that would have been unthinkable…Anyhow I got up early yesterday for a run of meetings, before I flew back to Singapore later in the afternoon. On arrival in Singapore in the evening I went straight to my friend’s wedding anniversary party and “landed” in my bed well after midnight. This morning I had another client meeting after which I had some errands to run…amazing how busy you can make yourself be at times
My subject for today (yesterday) has to be superstition…it is known that many top performers, whether in sports or arts, have superstitions and rituals before they start their performance and I guess that many of us, even in our daily life and work, may have small little ones we openly or secretly follow before starting the day or work. So what about superstition in lighting design??? I am not really superstitious but sometimes catch myself avoiding (if I can) “unlucky” numbers such as 4 or 13. It can be for the date on my fee proposal, my room number in a hotel, my seat number in the plane and so on. Even when it comes to quantities, for instance the number of down lights, the length of a cove. Sounds silly, and sometimes it just is what it is, but somehow it runs in the back of your mind…what if…
There are probably many other small little superstitions that you may have, let me know. Would love to hear some of yours!
Looking back on yesterday’s Friday the 13th it was actually a very good day, had great successful meetings, a project payment confirmation, a potential new job, a newly restarted job that had been shelved, my flight arrived early… I went to bed very satisfied; this edition of Friday the 13th was a great day
Light Watch 3-4: I am always in awe about how daylight creates the visual world we live in. I spent my New Year’s holidays in Britanny, France and saw some beautiful plays of light and shadow, sunset included, specifically as in the winter the sun is low on the horizon creating string shadows and colours. I usually don’t share my holiday pictures but here are a few for you to enjoy.
Tax matters!
Perth 12th January 2012
The other issue that was bothering me yesterday was about tax… I guess when you work generally within one country it is pretty straight forward, your fees are inclusive or exclusive tax (in most countries GST or VAT) and that’s it. You know where you stand. But working cross border in other countries, like we do, brings a host of new challenges along. Till recently it was actually not too complicated. Our fees are generally net, in other words we invoice $10,000 we expect to be paid $10,000 minus some minor bank charges on our side as the banks always happily claim. But more or less we get the fees without any deduction. For that we have tax residency certificate in place that states that we pay our taxes in Singapore (or Australia) and that therefore as a result of double taxation agreements between countries there is no need to withhold any taxes on the fees in the country of payment origin.
I am not a taxation expert but so far this has worked well for us, with the taxes being deducted at our end when we do our annual income declarations. But recently (please let me know if you are experiencing similar situations), countries like China, India and Indonesia for instance, are requesting the taxes to be deduced at source, then providing us with a taxation certificate so we can use that to claim the tax back or reduce our tax dues. The result is that we are caught out short up to 20% at times in the receivable fees. Not happy Jan…
This has now happened a few times over the last few months and we have yet to find out how and if at all we can claim it back properly. In one of our projects in China the client agreed to increase our fees with the tax percentage so we would still receive our due fees net as per agreed contract. Something to watch as these kind of taxes can greatly affect the cash flow of small lighting design practices like ours!
Light & Learn 3-1 : So here we go with the first Light & Learn…Now this is very basic, but you would be surprised how many people (lighting salesmen for instance!) don’t know the difference between a lux and a lumen, one of the basic units in lighting. I was ever shown it in a very simple way which I have sketched below J
The basic units are:
Lumens, amount of light emitted in all directions; also commonly called light output
Candela, light in one specific direction; also commonly called lighting intensity
Lux (Lumens per m2), amount of light falling on a surface; also commonly called illuminance/ lighting level
Candela’s per m2, reflected light perceived by the eye; also commonly called luminance or brightness
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