Blogs
Light Collective
Sharon Stammers and Martin Lupton
Light Festival, Marina Bay, Singapore
Posted by Sharon Stammers: Light Collective have just spent a hot and sticky jet lagged week in Singapore eating spicy seafood and seeing the sights. No, we weren’t on holiday. We were there to speak about Light (of course) and how it inspires us at the University of Singapore. We were also there to prepare for a Guerrilla Lighting event in October as part of the Lighting Festival to be held in Marina Bay at the invitation of local designer Ong Swee Hong.
OLEDs are coming...
Just attended part of the two day OLED Summit held by OLED insider magazine. Good show by the organisers in terms of being ahead of the game on this topic. Despite costing £900 to be a delegate, it was well attended but with a majority of OLED manufacturers and a smattering of designers (we counted 12 in the audience compared to the 16 on the delegates list).
The Social Light Movement
Light Collective love a good campaign and our newest venture along with co-founders, Isabelle Corten, Erik Olsson and Joran Linder has taken off rapidly without us even trying to promote it. Inspired by the work of Olsson/Linder and Corten, we have long been interested in encouraging good lighting design in areas away from the city centre.
Embrace the darkness
Posted by Martin Lupton It’s 08:30 on the 3rd of June and I am sat in Lyon airport waiting for a plane. Not enough time to do anything useful and I’ve forgotten my book so in desperation I turn to the free copy of the FT. In the middle of today’s edition is a special report supplement called “Sustainable Banking”. On the front is a quarter page ad from the Mizuho Corporate Bank talking about their support for LED research and development for the advancement of technology ...
Vegas baby!
Posted by Sharon Stammers Determined to get to Lightfair this year despite rocketing air fares, I endured an extra ash-caused 7 hours at Gatwick with only Martin for company (hellish!) and finally arrived in the Atomic City. The main reason for the trip was to support the PLDA US co-ordinator at the third incarnation of Darknight. The event format started in the UK with a trip to Rainham Marshes, a location one hour out of London, designed to plunge urban designers ...
Ray Molony
Editor of Lighting magazine
Taking on the pirates
It’s always fun walking the aisles of an exhibition – usually in Asia, but not always – and spotting the copies. “Oh look, there’s a version of Starck’s Romeo Soft – and here’s Artemide’s Tolomeo crossed with the PH5”. “That’s the first time I’ve seen a Lingotto made from folded aluminium.”
Light + Building blog
Monday: I have tasted the future here at Light + Building and it tastes, well, fishy. Sushi and sashimi made up the press brunch at Toshiba’s 400-square-metre stand as the Japanese brand led the Asian assault on the traditional triumvirate of Philips, Osram and GE. I nearly choked on my California roll when Toshiba said it wanted 20 per cent of the European lighting market by 2020. The scale of the ambition is awesome – and with Sharp, ...
Unqualified remarks
I cannot let Grant Daniels’ remarks about the Lighting Design Awards in the latest newsletter to the Society of Light and Lighting go unchallenged. He says the awards are “devalued by… unqualified judges”. The last time I looked the team included Keith Bradshaw of Speirs and Major Associates, Tim Downey of Pinniger and Partners, Doug James of Mindseye and Jim Morse of Light + Design Associates. All working practitioners at the top of their game.
The third stage of lighting
On 1 July 1858, the London meeting of the Linnean Society – the premier learned body of its day for natural history – was sparsely attended. Despite this, the agenda was crowded with items of business and the reading of numerous papers, including a treatise on the flora of Angola. One paper read during the long session was a late substitution, not in the advertised programme, and by all accounts it didn’t attract much interest from the assembled scientists.
Lights go out over Europe
“The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.” So remarked the statesman and foreign secretary Edward Grey to a friend one evening some 95 years ago. He was of course referring to the outbreak of the First World War, but the same could be said this week of the traditional light bulb.
Into Infinity
I went up with Jonathan Speirs to see the switch-on of Stockton-on-Tees’ new Infinity Bridge last night. The stunning 32m high footbridge is part of a £15m regeneration project on Teesside. The spectacular footbridge, created by Expedition, had the full rock’n’roll treatment for the £250,000 opening, including fireworks, freerunners clambering over the 120m structure and lots of colour-change.
Jill Entwistle
Where they won’t spend a penny
Public loos are rarely the province of the lighting designer except in the more chi-chi establishment. In fact it was a bit of a turn-up when DPA won an award for the Bullring ones a few years back. But nice though it is when someone’s had a stab at something more winning, I’d settle for one fitting over each cubicle. There are a number of criteria (which by and large we won’t go into) for selecting which cubicle we enter, but one of them is whether it has a light.
John Bullock
Nothing Left for Tomorrow!
Picture the scene – it’s Sunday afternoon and there’s an open box of Milk Tray on the table and Billy Cotton is on the wireless. Although I’ve already eaten quite enough, thank you very much, I really really really want another chocolate, probably because there’s one of those lime barrels still left. “Well, if yow et it now, there wo’ be none left fer termorrer” speaks the voice of maternal wisdom from the settee.
The Zhaga standards
The Zhaga standards – from a new organisation made up of top lighting manufacturers – aim to “give consumers confidence to specify and purchase LED products …’”: ‘So, Mr. Bond – we meet at last.’ ‘Damn you, Zhaga. But you’ll never get away with it. I’ve seen many dastardly plans in my time, but if you think you can take over the world by subjugating the wills of those free spirits in LEDland, then you’ll just have to THINK AGAIN!’
A Proclamation to the People!
The exhibition season is surely upon us and the halls are filled with glorious, sparkly doings – everything decked out in its very best energy-saving and sustainable splendour. A recent exhibition experience was so overwhelmingly positive and life-enhancing that a small groupuscle created itself out of the shimmering air, and manifested itself around a table, from the residue of lattes, cappucinos and espressos.
Will the real designer please step forward?
Another magazine drops through the letterbox and, courtesy of the general economic gloom, I have plenty of time to flick through the pages before going into the kitchen for another cup of tea. And what do I find? Oh, joy of joys, but vindication of something that’s been winding me up for ages. It was a piece titled ‘Electrical installation work – who is the designer?’ and it comes from those lovely people at The Electrical Safety Council.
Short-sighted energy saving
There are times when its like living in a parallel universe, where everyone seems to see the world in a completely different way. Take, for example, a news report from yesterday’s newspaper telling me that the town of Toulouse is undertaking a lighting trial that’s designed to save them 50 per cent in energy costs. Meaty stuff – so how do they do it?
