Prof Jan Ejhed is the Director of the Lighting Laboratory of the Royal Institute of Technology – KTH, in Stockholm, Sweden. He is currently also Director of Division 3 at CIE, Professor at the School of Design – Linnaeus University and runs his own office.

This interview was originally conceived for a book titled INDEX, which was released last month and focus on his thoughts and journey as founder of the Lighting Laboratory. INDEX was edited on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Lab and included this interview as an interesting and relaxed way of sharing the history, stories, ideas and the philosophy behind this educational project started by Jan and Agneta Ejhed 10 years ago.

I believe we should start from the beginning. How would you describe the very first and most crucial motivation for the decision to work with lighting education?
I would say it all started with a certain feeling of frustration, based on my own professional experience. The importance of quality lighting for a good life versus the existing calculation methods – named planning methods – which generated very poor environments. I felt a necessity to turn lighting from a technical approach to a man centered philosophy.

At the same time, I had a conviction that if I myself had succeeded to learn something about lighting, it should be possible to establish and education based on both intuitive and rational facts, to be related with the real professional practice.

Gradually, I was also more and more disturbed by the fact that in all the lectures I was giving I had to start from the very beginning to be able to arrive to the basics. That was because I was lecturing about light within architectural or design education, which meant students with no previous knowledge and who would probably not go on studying that specific topic. After so many experiences like that, I was longing to have students with whom I would be able to take the discussion on another level. Students with whom I would be able to share questions arising from my own Doctoral studies during the lectures. To educate on another level, than the basic, both for me and for the topic.

By the time I was asking myself ‘why do we educate thousands of engineers, hundreds of architects, dozens of pottery designers every year in Sweden and no lighting designers?’, I decided it was time to establish a lighting education myself.

Can you tell about the most remarkable facts along the journey of converting an idea into the Lighting Laboratory? (Negative and positive happenings)
In the very first years we were placed in KTH, even if we had managed to have the Laboratory here, we were still not allowed to offer a formal education. So, among other activities, we created a series of seminars for professionals.

Among the people involved were lighting designers, of course, but not only. We tried and succeeded to engage a wide range of professionals relevant and influential to the discussions around lighting, such as authorities, planners, engineers and so on, including some of the most active professionals at that time. This group of people met once each second week for 10 times – and it was mandatory to join all seminars-, with invited leaders and a specific topic for the entire series. The first topic was Light and Safety / Security, the second, Daylight and the third should have been Light and Health, but it actually wasn’t carried out.

It is possible to say that was our first experience at the Lighting Laboratory in KTH and it was a very successful one, in terms of satisfaction of the participants and the level of the discussions. Having a group of active professionals, enthusiastic about this opportunity to discuss was inspiring and my feeling is I would like to do something similar again! We were not arriving to consensus during our discussions, but the level was high, as it was based on previous professional experience and ignited by the school environment, which provided a freedom people can’t usually find in professional situations.

As for negative events, of course we had many. But, to be honest, I don’t remember. Maybe I am too much of an optimistic! I can surely mention the lack of money, always.

There is no question that you are a pioneer and you have opened up doors to many people, through sharing your knowledge and encouraging the development of new knowledge along these years.
But, being in the frontline of something also has a downside…
Absolutely. When you step outside the streamline, you firstly must fight hard to be taken seriously and, secondly, to prove there is relevance in what you claim for.

In this sense, the international contacts were always very inspiring for me, as they gave me a much wider and more open arena for discussions and development of ideas.

And, in practice, I am aware a have made a lot of practical mistakes…

In the very beginning, it was a course for Swedish students. Now we have applicants from more than 25 nationalities and the profile of the classes has been all about cultural mix. How do you see the importance of having international groups of students for the education in itself?
The first course started in Swedish, but already ended in English after one semester, as we had four German exchange students. After that episode, there was no question we should run the courses in English, creating and international mix of students.

This international mix is a very important factor for a high quality education, with the extra bonus of an informal flow of knowledge between the students. This flow is not controlled by us, but we surely aim to stimulate it by creating circumstances and an overall positive atmosphere for exchanges.

Among us, teachers here, we often joke about the possibility of developing this educational project in a much simpler and less ambitious way, as it would save us a lot of time and energy! Jokes apart, we go on with the ambition to improve the course from year to year, as we all believe in it. When you think about the quality of this education, is it possible to mention some key elements and how they evolved along this 10 years?
I see that the most important is to take in consideration that learning is a process; an individual process. So, what we do is to create a climate for learning. The teachers’ role is to give an overview, explain contexts, formulate the goals, structure the mass of knowledge and provoke students into their learning.

The method for engaging the students depends on the character of the content, such as lectures, seminar, tutoring, workshops, laboratory experiments, full-scale tests, study visits and trips, etc. But, in short words, it is always a combinations between intuitive and logic training; theory and practice.

For the practical activities, it is necessary to stimulate explorative attitudes and provide frames and rules.
It is very clear we can’t – and shouldn’t – give it all, but instead guide them in their own process of searching and, hopefully, finding!

I can say the basic ideas are more or less the same since the beginning until now, but nowadays the material is much more structured, both for teaching and evaluation purposes. We do have a methodology and for the future, I see we need to develop a lighting design theory or plural theories.

How would you summarize in few and simple words the philosophy of the education at the Lighting Lab?
Making it really short and simple: a humanistic approach – or man centered philosophy; with an explorative and testing approach – or doubt and question the rules; an innovative and logic strategy – or a combination of theory and practice; where the teachers pose questions and demand the students to find their own answers.

Apart from the realistic and clear ideas you have for the near future of the Lighting Laboratory, what are your hopes and wishes for this project in a much longer term?
It is clear for me that there is a need for the development of a “lighting design theory” or plural theories to have lighting design as centre. As I believe in this need, the Lighting Laboratory is to be a place for the development of such theories and research around it.

In short terms, Lighting Design includes both daylight and artificial light and is interdisciplinary. Its knowledge is based on the connections between light, human and the physical environment. Light affects our biological functions, emotional reactions and rules visual performance. In parallel, there is its relation with architecture and the design of built environments, with all that brings with it. Finally, for relevant lighting solutions, there is a clear need for wide technical knowledge, like in photometry, electricity, electronics, energy and environmental issues, and so on.

In my understanding parts of those elements are more developed, parts less. I believe it is important to arrive to a new balance and in this balance treat some issues in a deeper level. Personally I am more interested in the first part of these ideas – the light-human-space equation – and in that area I am interested in new ideas which dare to cross borders pushing the field further, pointing new directions, with innovative methodologies.

To sum up, my dream for the Lighting Laboratory is that it will be recognized as an ‘open’ place, a node, a centre pursuing education and research. The character of the centre should be openness, as it shall be an arena for discussion in the frontline of competence. A place for carrying out projects and, at the same time, take part on public discussion, being a clear voice of the lighting design professional speech. For sure, our specialty of having an international basis for our job will make a difference, as it does nowadays.

Thank you, Jan!

Check here INDEX release video

Mark Major is the director of Speirs and Major Associates, which he founded with Jonathan Speirs in 1993.

On the occasion of the Stockholm Lighting Days – at which he was a speaker – I had the chance to meet Mark for this interview.

I would like to start by requesting some kind of story telling. Can you tell the stories behind your interest in light and lighting? What kind of path took you into this field, back in the old days?

I’ve always been quite creative and grew up thinking I might become a painter or an artist, but I went through quite a formal education in which art was perhaps not seen as a ‘respectable’ profession, so rather than going to art college it was suggested that a better choice would be to study architecture. And, to be fair, I’ve always had a real love for science as well as art so it turned out to be a good piece of advice. For me, going into architecture was quite rewarding in balancing both the art with the science.

During my post-graduate architectural education in Edinburgh, I stumbled across a group of people practicing lighting design.  That was in 1984. One of those people was to become my creative partner, Jonathan Speirs. He had left college two years earlier and had formed a company with a theatre lighting designer called Andre Tammes. So, my introduction to lighting was quite accidental:  I had been talking to a friend about my search for somewhere to work during the summer and that I couldn’t really find the type of work I wanted amongst the architects in Edinburgh. If I am honest I was quite disaffected with architecture at that time. I often found it too regulated – too many rules. This friend mentioned these two interesting guys who worked with light but in an architectural context and put me in touch with them. So, I met them and the rest, as they say, is history.

But, I think I did realise two things quite early on: First, that lighting design could provide me with an almost perfect balance between art and science but in a more creative way than architecture. Secondly, I felt this was an amazing opportunity to do something that seemed very new and quite groundbreaking. I mean, I had not realised at that time that there were so many lighting designers already in America. So, I was persuaded to do something that seemed quite pioneering and unusual.

So, it means it’s been 25 years since you met Jonathan?

Well… yes! I am getting old! (Laughs). Actually there is a bit of a difference, because I worked for Lighting Design Partnership (the name of their company) for a few years before going back into architecture. When I finally qualified as an architect, I decided to form my own company.  In fact, I handed in my notice at the architectural firm – the last place I ever worked for someone else – on almost the equivalent day in the last recession to the day that Lehman Brothers went down. I gave in my notice and arrived home to see on the news this financial disaster happening! I thought: “Great! What an idiot!” But, actually it turned out to be one of the best things I ever did. I found a little bit of teaching combined with some of my own work could keep me going. Basically, rather than being, like most of my friends, unemployed, I was self-employed with very little work. (Laughs)

It seems to me the influence of your architectural background is very clear. Even if you were not fully satisfied with architecture, it was somehow a successful attempt in your search for this art-science balance.

It is hard to say how conscious everything is. If you are being honest about it, things happen and you follow your instinct and your emotional responses.

I liked the idea that when people would ask me what I did, I would tell them and they wouldn’t quite understand it. You know, if you say you are an architect, everyone immediately thinks they know what you do. Somehow, having to constantly explain all about the role that lighting plays added a sense of being involved in something new and special.

It is also part of your company’s statement, to call yourselves ‘Lighting Architects’. In which sense does a lighting architect differ from a lighting designer?

Well, this is a very topical question in our studio at the moment! We are in the middle of an interesting change, I think. We are certainly still heavily involved in architecture and stating we were ‘lighting architects’ was a statement of intent, almost like a manifesto.  We used to say: “I am an architect but I work with light”.  But, given where the practice has now got to, and given the incredible range of talented people that work with us, we think of ourselves these days more as ‘designers that work with light’. It is not to say we are no longer architects at root but many of the people that are in the studio come from different backgrounds and in that respect I think we are much freer than we were as a result. The work we do these days now includes urban design, branding, and product design. So, it is a good question, very topical.

So there might be some changes coming…

Well, you heard it here first!

Good! And then when I think of SaMA’s projects, my general first thoughts are related to large-scale, high standard, impressive solutions. Still, the company is dealing with a wide range of project types: from interior private to urban public commissions, passing by churches, care centres, airports, master plans, bridges and so on, with a large variation of budgets and styles. My question is: Where is it that you feel more comfortable? Actually, more importantly: what kind of project motivates you the most nowadays? I might have a hint after your lecture today…

We are still very motivated by working on individual building projects. I don’t think I will ever resign my architectural past completely. But, I equally enjoy the level of strategic thinking that comes with working with a wide range of activities and in particular public space within cities. I think I am becoming increasingly passionate about the nature of this activity. Such work is not just about the qualities of light but also the way that the wider public interact with light in every way, including the need to consider light as information.

Alongside urban projects we have also begun to build quite a lot of work in the area of identity and branding. What we realize is that clients come and engage us not just to solve some functional lighting need but to use our skills to say something about themselves as an organization or to help create a sense of identity. By example, we have recently been doing work for the BBC, Sony, Nokia, and Virgin Atlantic in this direction. Ultimately, they are still lighting projects but what we bring to those projects is something different from what we bring to an architectural project, because we are working for someone that is selling a commodity or an experience: it may be a product, a lifestyle, but it’s something less tangible than form and space alone.

The other thing I should add is our increasing interest in ‘objects’. We have always been independent from manufacturing and supply but I think we have grown to realise through our work that one of the downsides of that is it deprives you of the opportunity to form good collaborative relationships with people that make things. We certainly don’t want to make or supply light fittings but we do want to be able to work with industry to help provide solutions without losing our integrity.  Doing that would be a huge mistake.  I feel very strongly that this relationship between the creation of masterplans, big strategic thinking, brand and identity and the impact that commerce has on our lives is critical to our future.  I don’t think it is possible to be innovative, unless you are engaging with what people are producing.

And you have recently made a street lighting luminaire, right?

That’s right. It was in partnership with the well known British industrial designers, Priestman Goode. This was the fortunate result of a project that we were working on. We had worked with Paul Priestman before on Terminal 5 where they were designing various things and we worked well together. He was interested in our ideas and the technical knowledge that we could bring to a project. In turn we found their approach really compatible with ours. They do a lot of work in all sorts of areas, within aviation, transport and public realm, designing not only objects but also systems and environments. We came across each other again in the development of the streetlight for the city of Cambridge. There was not enough finance within the project to develop the streetlight exclusively for the city so we spoke to a number of different manufacturers about the idea. We then selected a manufacturer, DW Windsor and worked in partnership with them to co-produce the product.  Hopefully it will be the first of many such collaborations with industry.

Sorento, photo by D W Windsor

In your lecture you mentioned the idea of the “dark city” and addressed the issue of urban lighting. Can you choose one of your projects in the urban realm, that you would like to talk about, and describe a bit the design process, focusing in the decision making of what should be and what should not be lit? I mean, the balance between light and darkness and the relation with the design process.

As I said during the lecture, I was being a little provocative when using the word ‘dark’, as opposed to dimmed. In a way, I was using the word to provoke an idea. I imagine that in future we might start zoning our cities with respect to light and its environmental impact, in which the light output ratio of an area will be considered as a major factor. In fact, this sort of system already exists through guidelines in various countries but through our master planning work we often tend to zone space into different areas of ‘district brightness’. I think, because we’ve had the opportunity recently to work on some massive lighting plans for new cities in Middle East, we have learnt to play with this problem at the macro scale.  We had to really think about how to deal with the lighting based on the uses of different areas.

There is one project in particular where there are large areas dedicated to different activities; cultural, commercial, tourism, residential, community, etc. When you are faced with large areas in which specific different activities take place you begin to ask; “what should the personality of this area be after dark?”  As a result we found ourselves zoning these different areas not only in terms of quantity of light but also in terms of quality including colour rendering, colour temperature, etc.  What we found was that in some areas we could be more liberal, like in the commercial zones, accepting brighter lighting levels, a whiter appearance to the light and good colour rendering.  By contrast we came to understand that the quieter residential zones could afford to be much darker and should perhaps have a different type of light that created less ‘visual noise’.  Finally we determined that some areas might exist in which there should be no light at all.  Thus the city is not just about what we should light or how we should light it but also about what should remain unlit.

Still trying still to relate big issues with more practical projects: you work a lot in the UK and also so many different places in the world, as China, Abu Dhabi, Denmark, Japan, France, Germany, Mexico…

My question is in the field of “Natural Light”, and I would like to know in practice how do you handle with your team the issues of both daylight and light culture?

To start with the daylight question, we have several people in our studios who are very good with daylight.  As a result we are happy to offer a service in terms of daylight and sunlight design. Its just that we don’t push it – perhaps we should?

We recognise however that the engineers working on a building project are more likely to address this issue because they are often doing full environmental modelling. After all natural light should be a very integrated part of any environmental solution.

Often, we ask the client if they have daylight studies of the building or the space, and when the answer is ‘yes’ we find out the studies they have made are for the thermal modelling, through solar gain, etc.  These are often very technical studies.

When we look at daylight and sunlight we attempt to look at things in a more architectural way. We have to understand how the spaces work and what the effect of natural light will be on the people that occupy them.  As a result we will often advise clients if they need help beyond the technical solution alone or if we feel a space has got particular daylight issues, such as with sun glare. At that point we will offer to do studies for the client.  This is often a practical measure and not something we spend a lot of time actively promoting.

In terms of the cultural effects of natural light we have always been clear that we learn a lot from natural light. One thing I’ve frequently said in the past is that if you can sketch, let’s say, a tree outside in three dimensions and get the effects of light and shade to work then you are probably a lighting designer!  I say this because you are observing in a similar way to how a lighting designer observes: the softness of the shadow, the fall of the light, the fact that the light changes. Also when you are working in colour we all know that the sky is not blue and the trees are not green by observing them carefully. These are all obviously very basic things for artists to deal with but we do look to nature and the effects of natural light for our inspiration, which is why sometimes we use colour in our work.

As we said before, you work with a wide variety of projects. If it is not too much of a big question: how you would relate all projects in terms of what links them? In a more direct way: what is the philosophy of your work? Or how do you define your profile as a company?

I think it’s fair to say that we approach each project totally independently and we very rarely provide generic solutions. I feel very strongly about this but certainly we are not a practice where every restaurant is ‘high contrast’ just because we know that works.  Some might say, if a tried and tested approach works why not use it? Or perhaps there is a ‘house style’ a client is hoping for. But, I think we are very different from this. And this is also one of the reasons we have never done just hotels or just airports or just any specialized type of building. We thankfully seem to have avoided getting labelled.

We are just interested in handling each client, each project, and the context of each site individually. If you were going to use a single phrase to summarise this from an architectural point of view you would use the term Genius Loci. This would be the best way I can describe the philosophy of the firm. Combined with perhaps an organic approach, in the sense that we also believe that light is something that constantly changes.

I also don’t think we have this sense of trying to create monumental and permanent lighting schemes. I think people think we do this. And that’s because things get captured as photographs which somehow monumentalize the situation but if you go and actually experience our work you will know it is actually very different from that. I think the feeling we create in our projects is far more ‘human’ than the photographs convey.

You have worked for many years and completed many projects, and I am sure some of these projects have left the best memories. At the same time some of these projects have won awards worldwide. But, if you would have to give one of your own practice’s designs a special medal, which project would it be?

Only one?

Actually, more importantly, why? The most important is the motivation, not the real project.

I can think of a lot of projects I have enjoyed or through which we have achieved good results, and it doesn’t matter if they were led by Jonathan or Keith or me or a combination of all of us – as long as the project is good that’s what counts. But this is almost an impossible question to answer because it is nothing to do with winning an award! It is to do with looking back on projects and saying what was good about it and what was bad about it. What went wrong and what went right.  It is tough, but I will try to answer your question.

For me personally the ones that have provided the greatest challenge are the ones I am most proud of.  So, in recent times, I would mention the Sackler Crossing.

Sackler Crossing, photo by James Newton

I really like that project as it was a very interesting one from the outset. We found ourselves working in this very dark area, in a beautiful and famous landscaped garden at Kew Gardens working with one of the greatest British architects – John Pawson. So how can we go wrong?  Well the answer is that actually it would be very easy to get that very wrong.  In a way, I can say it was the simple nature of what we did, as it was pretty much one detail that gave a very good result. And it is a good result when you are there, not just in a photograph. Another thing I like about that project is that it builds upon a previous project which was done by Jonathan: the Bridge of Aspiration, which again uses a single detail.  Indeed, both projects even involved the same designer from our team – Philip Rose.

It is interesting to find similarities between such projects.  Perhaps at the time we didn’t realize we were actually consciously applying something we learnt from another project. Only later when we post-rationalized things we fully understood the similarities of those approaches. Even the same manufacturer was used despite totally different contexts. One is interior and the other is exterior. I really like these projects and I think they pretty much speak about the way we work – very different yet with similarities in approach – influencing each other.

Bridge of Aspiration, photo by Edmund Sumner

Another project would be the re-lighting of St Paul’s, Cathedral because this project made me sweat the most. It is one of the few projects that made me wake up at night thinking I might want to change this or that – usually when it was already too late. This is probably the project in which I have sat for the longest time doing nothing but being in a space and thinking, “how on earth do I do this?”  I have another cathedral project at the moment which is perhaps even more challenging. We have just started working on Canterbury Cathedral which is a really amazing building with such an incredible history. At least St Paul’s was largely conceived as a single project by Sir Christopher Wren.  The problem with Canterbury is that it evolved over hundred of years making it a very difficult building to interpret through light. So, yes, I enjoyed doing St. Paul’s and I enjoyed the tough process of really making sure we’d made no mistakes about anything. I mean, intellectually as well as in terms of details.

St Paul’s Cathedral, photo by Tim Soar

And finally and more recently Jonathan and Keith’s project for the Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi is quite amazing. I had no involvement with this other than when I went to see it during the programming and focusing phase.  When I first saw it I said to them both: ‘Really, this is not just a great project. This is an awesome project!’ To be honest it is as scary as hell in its ambition but they certainly pulled it off. Naturally I see Jonathan and Keith as ‘masters of light’ and I think great designers can create ‘masterworks’ during their career. This is certainly approaching a ‘masterwork’ and it makes me immensely proud that they have produced this as part of the work of our practice.

Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahayan Mosque, photo by Allan Toft

Then, if you think of other people’s projects, projects you have seen… I mean, there is no question SaMA is one of the most influential companies in our field today and I believe among lighting design students, for example, there are people who think: these guys can do whatever they want! (Laughs) At the same time, I am sure there are projects which made you think: “I wish I had done that!” And I actually remember in your “Made of light” lecture, I think in Milan, a few years ago, when you said that about the Allianz Arena, in Munich. Can you talk about projects that made you wish they were your creations?

Another very difficult question, but a nice one.

I think the Allianz Arena is a very profound piece of lighting design in the way the building changes identity. And here I must confess I have developed a great passion for football and I really identify with the notion of a brand colour of a team and what this means to the fans. From that perspective I understand how clever it was to allow this building to change colour in this way to deal with the problem of sharing a stadium, but not only as applied colour, but as light. So, I really wish I had done this project because: 1) It is a football stadium! (laughs) and 2) They made it change colour to represent the value and identity of the users! So, yes, wow! I wish I had done that.

Actually, the people I feel envious of are the ones who do what I would love to do but they are in two ends of a spectrum.

I used to go to the theatre – a lot more than I do now – and I’d kind of envy the theatre lighting designers. Sometimes I would watch a show and look at the lighting they were doing, rather than necessarily concentrating, as I should have been on the action – even though the lighting designer was doing a great job and not upstaging the actors!  I was often fascinated with the level of exaggeration and the fact they create transitory lighting for a few weeks or months and then it goes away and it supports and promotes ideas and creates emotions, all the things that we do but with huge expectations, as they know it’s going to go and it is just for a moment.

One of the worrying things about architectural lighting is how permanent it becomes and how there is an expectation that it will be permanent from the point of view of the client.  If I plan something and it ends up not being quite right, I can’t do what a theatre lighting designer does, which is go up the ladder and change it. I have to live with the result.

At the other end of the scale, I really admire and envy the rock & roll lighting designers, primarily because they have this great lifestyle. They go to all these parties and have a wonderful time going around the world. I know they say they don’t, but I think they do! I’m kidding…more seriously they are obviously working on the cutting edge in terms of technology and they introduce the most amazing ideas. I have actually been talking to people in this field and they all say it is not like that, that there is also budget and it is just like in our work, but I really think they have far more creative freedom to realize their ideas and have them executed by professional people, who want to build them and make it all happen. I do find that sometimes in architecture the disappointing thing is that the people who are installing the lighting or making the building are often not that passionate about what they are doing. You can say that’s a failure of the system. Sometimes you get a good comment back from the contractor, saying something like: Wow, I never realized what you guys did but it’s fantastic and I really like it. But, most of the time it is just a fight about money. They often just don’t want to do it saying it is too complicated, difficult or expensive and that they can’t see the point. So I like the rock & roll lighting designers and the fact that they do those big budget projects where they are allowed to realise their dreams which then go on to let other people enjoy themselves.

As my last question, I actually want to repeat the question I made in the conference after your lecture, as I believe it is worth publishing your answer. To rescue the question: you mentioned in the lecture that mankind mainly does what can be done, as opposed to what needs to be done and nowadays, with all the technology available, we can do a lot. So my question to you is: what is it that we really need to do for the future?

Well, I had to time to think about the answer to this question, fortunately, as this is very difficult, but inevitably the answer is to educate people about light a little better.

When we say that people are important, somehow that is kind of obvious! Of course they are. And of course their education is important too.  But, the education I want to refer to is a more global sense of education, not just to do with what KTH or Wismar teaches for example; and of course it is great that lots of students are receiving an education on lighting design, which is – by the way – a very difficult subject to teach, as it’s about the immaterial. But, what I am talking about is a wider education of the general public, of people who administrate cities, politicians and, also in a way our children.

In our book Made of Light, one of the things I am most proud of is this little exercise we did with children, done through Jonathan’s children’s school, and I felt these few pages were really great because the child’s view of anything is always really interesting and makes you realize things.

I obviously also talk to my own children, quite a lot, about light… well, one is only four so he is not really into it, but the other is eight and has started to ask what her parents do. So she is naturally quite interested and when they are asked at school what does your dad do, she says “he paints with light”!   That’s a really nice way of putting it. So somehow I feel my kids are inevitably going to get some kind of lighting education given what I do which, at the same time, makes me realize that other kids won’t. You see it is not a topic that often gets discussed – light. When you are with people in the streets or friends or lawyers and they ask “so, what is it that you do?” what often follows is a rather long explanation, and you really feel you need to actually go through that to get the point across. And anything that requires such an explanation must mean that this is really remote from their experience.

So it is this broad education, which is critical in which lighting is not treated as a sort of Cinderella subject or some add-on to society, but is actually part of society and daily life.  I hope I am making sense?

In your answer during the conference you actually said, in the middle of your speech, that we need to bring light into people’s lives.

Yeah.

Ordinary people’s lives?

Exactly and that’s why in my lecture I was happy to talk about light as a sort of ‘life-style product’. Despite what I said earlier people are worrying about light more. The fact that wealthy and semi-wealthy people are spending money on lighting is probably a good sign in that it shows that somewhere along the line they value good lighting as something they need.  At the same time I am concerned about delivering good lighting to everyone – not just to those that can afford it.

And this actually leads us back to where we were in the discussion with Erik Olsson and Jöran Linder. Maybe they have actually hit the nail totally on the head by saying that in a way lighting design up to now has been an elitist activity, limited to people that can afford it.  I think what they are saying is that we have to find a way to bring light to ordinary people’s lives and help them appreciate it. I think they are doing great work, in that respect.

Will Speirs and Major Associates do that type of work? I don’t know. I think we are not structured to work in that way.  We have certainly done social lighting work in the past but right now it is not something people come to us for.  We obviously do a lot of public work and we would like to think that helps society. We have also done a number of projects for charitable organizations in which we have worked on a pro bono basis. We can’t afford to do that all the time but there are certain people we have met and projects we were interested where we wanted to help such as with the Maggie’s Centre in London.  I mean if the chance is there and you can afford to give your time for free to make sure something is made better for people that deserve it then you should do it.  Like architecture, lighting design needs to develop a social conscience.  So, whilst our future is probably not in ‘social lighting’ I think we would like to do maybe a little bit more of work for good causes in the future alongside our other projects.

Thanks for the inspiring talk, Mark!

Another angle of the project that made Mark sweat the most… St Paul’s Cathedral, photo by Tim Soar

Paul Gregory is the founder and president of Focus Lighting, company based in NYC since 1987 and well known for its numerous lighting design awards and its unique approach to architectural lighting design.
I had the chance to meet Paul Gregory in Berlin, during PLDC, for this interview. In our talk, Paul’s great experience and passion for light were clear and inspiring.

You’ve been educated both in theater lighting and architectural lighting. Can you talk a bit about the development of your career?
I find the best way to learn about lighting is by observation and experimentation. When I attended the Goodman School of Drama, we did exercises where we closely studied certain paintings. We were told to note the mood created by the light and darkness. For example, the side lighting a certain angle illuminating the subject in Woman at the Piano. Then, we had to recreate the painting on stage with lighting. Those kinds of experiences were fundamental in my learning process. They came from my stage lighting education and are also part of the way I relate to architectural lighting. My method of designing is still influenced by the sense of drama light creates in any space.
What also fascinates me about working with light is that it is both an art and a science. Scientifically, there is the physical process of light falling on a surface and bouncing back, the reflectivity of materials, and the way your eye perceives light. The artistic side comes in how the light affects your emotions; like how the beauty and magic of a starry night sky makes you feel small and insignificant.

It’s been already 35 years since you started! How do you see your first projects when you look back at them nowadays?
My method has always been about creating compositions. I got the idea from the learning exercise of recreating paintings with light that I mentioned earlier. Of course the more situations you encounter, the easier it is to understand which methods and effects work, and which don’t. I have continued to refine my process to this day, and our projects continue to be an artistic expression of our learned experiences.
For example, I just received a phone call from a satisfied client regarding the landscape lighting for their private residence. We treated their garden as an artistic composition, handling the balance between foreground and background, frame, focus and gradients like in a painting. We analyzed views and applied the light in a way that extends the ambience of the art pieces inside the house to the outside space. The project is now complete and they love it!

Now that you mention this artistic composition, I remember your profile in Focus Lighting website, where you state you have been “revealing and highlighting architecture by painting pictures with light”. That makes me think of the relation between the white canvas and the architectural space. How do you see that relation? And, definitely, the role played by light in it.
The relation between lighting design and painting is in the importance of beauty and composition in relation to frame, focus, background and foreground.
If we take a photograph of a building, print it in color onto watercolor paper, spray fix it and cover it with black charcoal; when we remove the charcoal, we will reveal the building underneath. That’s what light does: it reveals. How hard we press with the charcoal eraser is how strong the light will be.
When we designed the lights for the Anniversary of the Times Square Ball, we had to think of the crystals seen from a distance of 5 feet, 50 feet or 500 feet, each of those with its different proportional size. We analyzed the composition of each view, and made sure it would sparkle in all situations!

So, we can say that one important issue for you is visual appreciation.
Definitely.

With a career of 35 years, I believe it must be possible to describe the development of lighting technology through Focus Lighting projects. How do you see the influence of technology on the lighting design process at your company?
In the past, there were many times when we could not find manufactured solutions for all of our design challenges. Often we needed to invent solutions, such as how to use a certain filter or accessory in a specific fixture. Now a day, in general, it is easier. We don’t need to invent so much. Most of what we need, we can find, but we still try to push for innovative solutions.

Perhaps, it is possible to say that Focus Lighting also has pushed the industry further, by demanding specific solutions.
Yes. I think so.

Even if it is not any more necessary to invent so much and cope with the lack of manufactured solutions, I can also identify in your work the effort of integrating lighting. For example at the Semiramis Hotel, in Athens, the integration of lighting with architecture is remarkable, almost total. Makes me wonder about the design process in terms of the collaboration with the interior designer (Karim Rashid). Can you comment on that process?

Actually, the hotel is not exactly in Athens. It is located in Kifissia, an exclusive suburb with much more free space and nature than Athens.The client wanted to create a unique place, which influenced their choice of location.They wanted the interior to be a piece of modern art where each element would be very specialized. Each guest room is distinct and has a symbol associated with it. When your symbol is blinking on the reception panel, you know there is a message for you. We tried to enhance the unique and distinct qualities of the interior elements by applying very slow color changes and creating specific contrasts with white LEDs.

Photo by Focus Lighting

Photo by Focus Lighting

Another project we have is the Science Museum in Chicago, which is being renovated for the first time in many years. One of our challenges is to make learning about science interesting to kids who come to visit the museum. Another challenge is to take the teachers into consideration. Many elementary school teachers are very comfortable reading a storybook to their students, but don’t enjoy explaining scientific problems as much. We see lighting as something that can improve these relations, by making science attractive and stimulating. We are not only lighting the exhibit hall, but also the integrating light into the exhibits themselves. We want the kids to go crazy for science when they experience this place!

Now that you mention kids… Focus Lighting has done both Toys’R’Us and FAO Schwarz! Is there a special feeling or attitude when it comes to having kids as the users of the space you apply light to?
Definitely (smiling). When I designed the ceiling for FAO Schwarz, I imagined myself as a 10-year-old boy and tried to develop something I would like to have in my own room… I would absolutely love to have that ceiling in my room!

Photo by Fred Charles

Photo by Fred Charles

Talking about this imaginary’s boy room, leads me to think of residential lighting. We all have heard some designers that consider too subjective to discuss private housing commissions, making them not interested in this kind of project. At Focus Lighting, you do a lot of private houses.
I love lighting private houses. It is wonderful to make people happy with their homes. When you light up someone’s paintings and they see what they haven’t noticed in years, like the blue color of a dress or the texture of a cloth, they are just so pleased. That doesn’t happen in a commercial project, it only happens when you do the lighting for someone’s home.

I assume it is important for you to have direct contact with the client, even if there is an architect involved.
If I don’t know them, how can I make them happy? It’s necessary to meet people and get to know their wishes. Many times, architects have so much to deal with, that they perform more as team leaders than lead-designers. They have too many responsibilities to be specific everywhere. As lighting designers, we must be specific in order to respond to the client’s point of view. We must be able to directly interpret their views ourselves.

Moving to restaurants. Among the many restaurants Focus Lighting has worked with, MORIMOTO is a reference of the application of dynamic colored lighting in interior spaces. What I would like you to comment on is the balance between ambient lighting and functional lighting, considering functional the lighting for the appreciation of the menu and the food served.
The key to maintaining a comfortable constant light level for the dining experience is the fill light from above, in the furniture and especially from the side. Lighting from these three positions prevents the colored lighting from affecting the tables. Even if there is dynamic lighting in the restaurant, the US $150 sushi plate on the customer’s table has a constant level of white light. People have tried to copy that solution somewhere in England, but they didn’t understand it. The light on their tables also changes color, because they didn’t use the lateral light.

Photo by David Joseph

Photo by David Joseph

Moving to a much wider perspective and the idea of light culture, or the influence of cultural components in light preferences. How do you approach this issue in your design process?
I don’t really believe that people in different countries have different reactions to beauty. People are surely affected by daylight, the size of the window in their homes and the length of days where they were raised. But, there are fundamental qualities of light that are universal: the meanings of fire, warmth, safety. What a person enjoys is based on where they grew up: around the fireplace, or working in the field under intense sunlight. We should design the lighting of each person’s space based on these personal preferences.
Generalizations between countries don’t make sense to me.
To relate lighting and painting again, do Japanese people, for example, not like a certain colors because it does not show up in their traditional art? Do they all like something else? I don’t think so.
When I aim for beauty, I don’t think such generalizations exist.

I was about to suggest a reflection between your work and your nationality. But, I’ll leave this idea behind and ask if there is something you see as a mark in your work. When you reflect about your projects, is there something that is always there?
I’d say the reference to nature is a recurring theme for me. The beauty I find in nature is important to me – the colors of sunset and sunrise, the feeling under the trees in a forest, the energy from a waterfall.
If we can make a building look like it would be seen under the beautiful light of sunset, we have done a good job.

As final question, I would like to ask if there is any award – among so many received along your career – you would remark as special?
(For the first time, he hesitates to answer a question).
I would say the “Lighting Designer of the Year.” It was an award I didn’t expect it and it made me really happy. The surprise effect makes it special.

Well, Paul… Congratulations. And Thank you very much!

Tell me more about your history. How did you get started?
I left college having studied art and photography and went straight into a job with lighting consultancy. It was a company called Lighting Design Partnership and I was with them for four or five years before  I joined another company called Into Lighting Design and stayed there for another four or five years. At that point I decided to start my own consultancy and I called it Mindseye. Initially it was just me, but within about 18 months I joined forces with two other lighting designers, and the three of us worked together for several years. We did some quite interesting work. Enough that kept us busy for a small team.

We developed a sort of signature approach which was, wherever possible, to integrate the lighting into the fabric of the architecture. A lot of people had been talking about ‘light not light fittings’ and how that’s the important thing but our experience was that most people weren’t actually delivering that. People were still designing by putting dots on drawings in plan. So what we started to do was to talk with the architects and getting them to open up part of a wall, or maybe a junction between wall and a ceiling or open some form of a slot in the ceiling, and deliver the whole light for the space from those, which would have previously in lighting design tended to be just features. Instead, we wanted to use this slot to deliver all the light to the space.

(Garden Museum, London)

So, when did you get started. Tell me more about the first project Mindseye Lighting did.
The very first project was ‘Farmacia’, Drury Lane in London. We did something a little bit unusual in there. The budget was very low and it was a pretty striped out sort of space. Rather than spending money on light fittings we wondered whether we can form a MDF panel into a shape of a letter Y, and paint it white. What we did with that is put some very simple fluorescent colored tubes on top of the Y and that lit the ceiling as a background level. We used light blue, turquoise blue for the ceiling. Inside the “knee” of the Y shape we put some fluorescents and they shone down and washed the two vertical surfaces on either side of the shop where all the products were on the shelves. So when you walked into the space you didn’t really have the sense that there was a lighting system in there. You saw just these angled panels that weren’t very intrusive and they felt like they were a part of the ceiling. These panels were delivering the light in a very specific way, but using completely standard off the shelf kind of luminaires.

Earlier you spoke about contemporary architects still designing by putting dots on the plans. How does your design process start?
We try and understand what the vision for the space is, the theme or the intention for the space  and we try to work inside that architectural syntax. Besides that we also want to understand what kind of mood the client wants in the space. A lot of that comes from the intended use of the space – for example who will the users of the space be? The overriding point, however, is how this space should feel, and how should people feel when they are in it? Those are really the starting points of our design process: to really get under the skin of the project and to inherit the thought process of the designer and the client.

From there we start to analyze what kind of light, what type of light the space needs. What amount of light, what intensity of light, where should it come from, what directionality should the light have, what characteristics should the light have in terms of colour appearance, and colour temperature, the colour rendition capabilities, those different sorts of things. We think about the different uses of the space at different times of the day. What flexibility do we need to build in, what level of automation do we need to have? That allows us to analyze the lighting needs of the space.

When we come to a point where we know what the light quality of the space needs to be, we can start thinking about where should light be generated and what light source should be generating it in order to reach that result.

The last point of the process is to come to the luminaires. “If we want the light to come from there by this type of light source, then these fitting would be suitable.”The very last thing we come to is the light fittings. It’s the end of the design process. To determine where does an individual light fitting go, and what is it doing.

(Corpus Cristie, roman catholic church in Brixton Hill, UK)

I hear you studied art and photography. What influence do you think this had on your work as a lighting designer?
I didn’t believe that it had any at the beginning. What I didn’t realize until later in my life is that actually art and photography are both undeniably studies of light. And I now realize that my starting approach towards lighting design, I believe anyway, comes from the fact that my initial interest in it is as a medium, as a sort of substance almost, if you like, in it’s own right.

What do you think the ideal mixture is? Where does in your opinion architecture stop and light begin?
That should never happen I think. The two should feel symbiotic.

(Tequila bar, Soho, London)

You say you use light to emphasize the architectural message but on the other hand you are not afraid to use strong light colors. How do these philosophies work together?
You definitely have to be very careful with the use of color, but they can work together. It’s about getting the balance right. Even if you look at the work we did at the Birmingham Rotunda building where you have these aluminum tubes hanging down with LED nodes at the end of them you can create an intense space with really beautiful blend of colors or wash of colors, but also it works really well with white light.

(Birmingham Rotunda entrance)

In one of your descriptions you used the term “über sophisticated consumer”. What did you mean by that?
I think we’re living in a generation where many of our clients are very design literate. People read design blogs and webzines. Almost all newspapers now have a section on interiors or architecture or home furnishing and things like that. The world has changed in last last decade, I think, and one of the things that has changed significantly is that you have incredibly high expectations from certain sections of the public or the consumer demographic, who are really interested in ‘experiencing’ architecture and architectural environments and they will seek them out. They will actually make that a part of their social interaction experience: they will make sure that the place they do their socializing meets their life style expectations.

(Otto Dining Lounge, Stiff and Trevillion architects)

How does this reflect into your design? Does it depend on which project you do?
We’ve developed a style of integrating lighting. It’s about being appropriate. That’s what we mean by integrated in a wider sense.

Speaking of the latter project, The Birmingham Rotunda. You’re still working on that with its LED display. How do you feel about today’s interactive light art since this is not a gesture of emphasizing the architecture itself?
I think it’s possibly a little early to call in the sense that we’re only seeing the early days of that type of technology.

On the other hand there’s obviously a danger. Even if there’s the initial ambition for one of these displays as just being an art piece it’s obviously in danger of being highjacked for commercial broadcast. Have you seen the movie Blade Runner? I would say that that is the likely logical outcome of what we’re doing now. And I think we have to be very careful about the stewardship of these installations.

In fact what’s going to happen with the display screen in Birmingham is that the stewardship of the content for that screen is going to be by the Ikon Gallery Of Modern Art in Birmingham. There’s potential in the planning application for it to have, 30% of the time, commercial content. However the planning application is quite specific that the content has to be in the spirit of the art or in the nature of an art piece. What we’ve been thinking at the moment is that there would be some kind of commercial sponsor of the art. So you might have a company who are sponsoring art or people who would possibly align their brand with the art projects. They might want to point out the fact that they are supporting it. But the thing is that it is not allowed to contain commercial sales messages. The question ‘how is the content to be managed’ is always the key issue with these things.

(Birmingham Rotunda, exterior view, work in progress)

How do you feel about today’s … lets call them “green tendencies“…like light pollution, energy efficiency,…and how do you make these things work together since in one of your statements you did say that one of Mindseye main aims is to provide an innovative and project specific design service, delivering creative lighting solutions regardless of project size or budget?
We’ve always designed in a very energy efficient way. I think you should be aware of light pollution on every stage of the design process. From the beginning when you have some drawings on a table or concept there and as soon as someone suggests an idea, mentally you’re running through a checklist. Things like energy efficiency, maintenance and light pollution are always on that checklist so it doesn’t even get beyond scribbling down on a drawing or just thinking through conceptual ideas. We’d never get beyond that part of design process.

(HSM Belfast, a part of Switched on London,2008)

We spoke about Birmingham Rotunda and its LED display. Many might find it to be a pollutant. There were also a couple more projects like HMS Belfast. You did light it heavily. I liked it very much, don’t get me wrong, but somebody might find it to be too much… where do you draw the line?
This is a balance that society has to find in the same way as, for example, we know  that motor vehicles are dangerous and we know that far too many people die on the roads every year. And yet, we all instinctively accept that risk factor because we want to be able to travel where we want to and when we want to. I’m not saying now everyone supports the use of cars, but the vast majority of society does, so we deal with it: we accept that. I think that, with things like Rotunda, society has to accept or has to deal with it itself. That the possible enrichment of people’s lives, or civic pride, in whichever case may or may not outweigh the possible downside of light pollution. What’s important in the case of these types of screens is that they should always be dimmed down at night.

I see you mostly work in GB. Any plans for the future?
Sure. In fact we have been doing some international work in the last year or so. We’ve designed two floors of retail lighting for Macy’s in New York. We’ve been working on a refurbishment project with Foster and partners for the HSBC building in Hong Kong. We also have a church which we’re working on with John Pawson Architects and that’s in Germany. That’s a very exciting project for us.

Thank you for your time.

Realities:United(RU) is responsible for some of the most renowned projects in the area of dynamic architecture such as SPOTS in Berlin / Germany and Kunsthaus Graz / Austria, to name just a few and is as such at the forefront of the dynamic night-time architecture. Needles to say we were very excited to do an interview with Jan Edler who is together with his brother Tim a founder and principal of RU.

We talked about the concepts and ideas behind their work, the effect dynamic night-time architecture has on the urban environment, what can or should we communiate via these powerful new media and much more.

Tell us a bit about yourself and your background.
Both Tim and myself are trained architects who have started working together around 1997.

Tim and Jan Edler, ©2008 Annette Hausschild, Ostkreuz Berlin

At that time we were part of an art collective in Berlin called Konsultechnik, which was a platform of roughly 10 people coming from the fields of fine arts, architecture and media.

And what kind of work did you do in that group? Was it in any way similar to what you do now?
It definitely correlates content-wise. It was the first experiments in joining the built world and elements of the digital world but it was more of an abstract interest at that time.

MultiMind Project (1999)

For example ‘MultiMind’ project that was exhibited in 1999 in Deichtorhallen in Hamburg  was exploring the potentials of video communication in a space. That might have been the beginning of what we do today, if you can actually define what we do today.

Well, why don’t we try to define it anyway. What is it that you do today?
Our work exists somewhere on the border between architecture and art.

Kunsthaus Graz (2003). Facade lighting for the Kunsthaus in Graz.

Lately though, especially after the Kunsthaus Graz project, we’ve been inreasingly involved with projects that explore the possibility of architecture, and especially facades, to change. It’s not that this particular field of work would be what we were looking for when we started, it’s more that we gradually got involved with it. It is one of many types of projects that we are interested in but it is clear that it has become quite a dominant field in our work in the last couple of years.

One of the projects that I find particularly interesting is the Open House project. Could you explain a bit about it?
That project was developed for an exhibition entitled ‘Open House’ organised by Vitra Design Museum .

Open House (2007). Conceptual exploration on the Living in the Future

They invited 13 architects from around the world and asked us to work on and explore the ‘living of the future’ – how will we live in the future, how does the house of the future look like and similar. What we at RU did was to go back to the promise of modernism and modernity in architecture. It was a promise of a very transparent and light architecture with a close connection to the outside world, which hasn’t come true through the years after the start of modernism. For example in towns like Berlin, where it is cold throughout a large part of the year there is a need of creating a very clear division between the outside and inside.

Open House

We looked what if it would be possible to make this division much looser through the use of inteligent clothing that would have the ability to warm you up and cool you down. We were interested in the subsequent possibility of architecture that would be based solely on the activity in different spaces and not so much on the different climates.

Do you think there is a connection between the openess and transparency your Open house exhibits and your present work, where the facades are much more transparent and penetratable for the eyes of the observer?
I would say there is an abstract connection rather than a direct one. Architecture I believe is always trying to communicate something that is connected to the building and it’s use. The facades too, in my opinion, shouldn’t  be completely disconnected to the building itself. If you have a comercial building for example, which is mostly used for commercial functions then it might be ok, for example, to put advertising from global players on the fasade. You can argue about it but at least you know that the building is about the turn-over of money and profit.

The term “Media architecture” is  associated with quite a lot of your work. What does this term mean to you?
To be honest, I dont think that’s true. Maybe in some circles it is associated with media architecture, or to be more precise, media facades, but if you ask most people in the world, what a Media Facade is, you would hear it’s something similar to what you can see on Times Square in New York for example. It is more or less the idea of television, which is transformed and  transfered to the urban space. We are working on the very specific part of this field (media architecture) and I believe it is a groundbreaking work in a way, because a common understanding of this field doesn’t exist yet. It is being created in the present. And I hope that in time we will get away from the general idea of a television transfered to the urban space, even though that today media industry is the predominant influence in these types of projects.

What do you mean when you say that you would like to get away from the idea of media architecture as a transformation of TV onto the urban environment? What would you like the term Media Architecture to mean?
Well, I think all of the architecture is connected to media. Regardless, if it incorporates technology that we usually associate with it or not. In general, I do not believe it is about creating a new kind of architecture, it is more about broadening the understanding of what architecture should incorporate today. It’s less about creating a new term, its more about dealing with the phenomena, that architects have to incorporate into their designs in order to stay on top of the future.

Are these phenomena something that recently happened in terms of technology? What made it possible to have this discussion now and not 50 years ago?
Yes, I think it is connected with a progress in technology even though the architect’s dream of creating something that has the capability to change is quite old. It was a big thing in the 60s, for example the concepts of walking cities and so on. All the ideas were out there, but they have always been, either incredibly expensive or just not possible due to the lack of appropriate tehnology. But today, the display technology is giving us the possiblity to change at least at the surface, which might  lead to ideas of structures that could change also physically.  So, in that way it is, of course, connected to the technology which has  become available. If you walk through contemporary Berlin for example you see all of those jumbo commercials in the city, which have also become available due to printing technology suddenly becoming affordable. And in the times after the war when Berlin was showing incredible amounts of construction work due to the war damage, this was a very common way to earn money during the construction. Issues like these always come along with the availabillity of technology.

We spoke a lot about the possibility of architecture to change. One of your projects that definitely fits into the category of dynamic architecture is NIX project. Could you explain a bit more about it?
NIX project was developed for the new building of European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt/Germany.

NIX (2005), Dynamic lighting utilising house lighting that is taken over by a centralised system when the offices are not in use.

Coop Himmelblau who were the architects invited us to the project mainly because they were afraid that the ECB might decide to put something like a big EURO sign on top of the tower in order to communicate that this is the building of ECB. Coop Himmelblau wanted us to look at the night time design and explore the possibilities of getting around the danger of advertisements on the top of the tower. Our approach was based on two starting points.  One was trying to find the design potential of technologies, which are incorporated into modern buildings, such as sunshading or lighting control systems for example. These technologies are there mostly for technical reasons, and are very rarely used to find the right ‘gestalt’ for the building. We called these technologies ‘anyhow technologies’, because they are there more for technical or environmental reasons and are usually not influencing the design of the building.

The goal that was driving us was making a step further from BIX (Kunsthaus Graz) project and taking the dynamics into the 3rd dimension. Not staying on the surface, but rather infiltrating the whole volume of the building and taking the whole building as your field of work. In that way, the whole building could become a piece of abstract art.

The idea of using lighting of individual office cells to create a something dynamic that spans across the whole building is actually in cohesion with the overall philosophy of ESB which is ‘bringing individual elements together in order to create added value’.

What would that ’something dynamic’ actually be? How would the night-time image of the building change and what would the dynamics be based on?
The idea that somehow took off was that a special piece of software would analyse what is happening in the bank from day to day and would create an abstract reproduction – a lightprint – during the night-time. But at the same time, anybody that kept working in the building after dark would distort that image. You could say that there would be an aesthetic will – an artistic software -  controlling all the lighting and creating these very slow and mild dynamics in the night-time, which would be in a constant dialog with the individual users of the building. If you think a step further and incorporate other technologies such as sunshading systems for example, you could have something like a technical will of the building which could override the individual user, if the buildings needs to cool down for example. It would be a constant struggle between different interests.

If you imagine a modern city with a large number of highrise buildings, what effect would it have the night-time environment if every one of these skyscrapes was changing in night-time?
Oh, it would be awfull (laughs)! We have to develop something better. It is a task of exploring the potentials of available technologies and I think we are just at the beginning of a long process.  But it also won’t do any good for us designers to burry our heads in the sand and not pay attention to what is going on, because other industries will do it instead of us. One of those is, obviously, the advertising industry. I believe, that we just don’t have enough experience to know what architecture might be able to say, if it had the ability to change. And that could be something completely different from what we expect today. The problem is, that in most projects you don’t have the option to explore different possibilities, because they are already pre-set to a specific field, which is mostly advertising. In that way, the project in Graz (Kunsthaus Graz) was very important for us. I believe we had a very unique situation: the Client didn’t know that they are getting a facade that could communicate to the outside world and consequently there was no commercial pressure behind the project. In that way, it was an ideal laboratory, where the Kunsthaus could actually develop an understanding of how and what will they, as an art institution, want to communicate to the outside. So they could do those various steps into the field of defining what dynamic architecture could be about.

Through the years, we worked on quite a number of ‘platform’ projects like that, where we basically create a grid which can be filled by other people. But in more and more projects we get away from that and try to develop the content of the installation as well.  NIX project is an example of an installation that is not a platform but is a closed piece with it’s own content.

How is it with technology that is needed for these applications? Is it already available?
Technology is roughly there, but it is not as simple as it looks like. That’s the reason why we don’t have it everywhere today. If you have the chance to incorporate this technology into the building at a very early stage of design process it is actually comparably cheap, so it is not adding a lot of extra money. However, one of the reasons why the project  for ECB didn’t go ahead was because the client would have to tender a lighting module that hasn’t been on the market yet. So on one hand it is a fundamental issue of having the available technologies, while on the other hand the problem with these kinds of project is that suddenly there has to be a certain level of communication between different engineers in the project who are not used to communicate between themselves. So you have to have a very strong architect who has the power to bring all those people from electrical engineering, building automation systems, security systems, data distribution engineers and so on to one table and make them understand that you want to influence what they are doing and that is not common. It makes it immensely complicated. And it makes you go through hell (laughs), because those people are not used to have a designer to come along and tell them what to do.

The other issue for example is just visualising the idea. In NIX project for example, we had to develop a special rendering software to visualise it, because you can’t wait for days and days for your rendering software to decide how the whole installation is going to look like.

What is your opinion on the recent trend of interactive installation. For example, where the lighting interacts with users texting messages, or it detects people with blue tooth devices and so on…
It can surely be temptive and beautiful, but very often is a sign of having no idea, in my opinion. Maybe it’s a bit evil to say something like this, but the problem with these installation is that a certain information is taken which, regardless of it’s importance and relevance, suddenly affects the whole building or facade. And you don’t know why would this piece of information be so important or how is it related to the building and so on. As I said, it can be very beautiful, but is quite often very plain.

Can you describe the usual role of Realities United in the architectural process. How do you get into the project for example?
There are different settings, the most simple one being  a commision from the client who wants to have a sculpture or an art piece. An example of this would be the installation Museum X. The most common setting for us is however, that we get approached by the architects. Quite often that happens during the competition stage.  Usually the architects initiate the idea of having us on board and then the client commisiones us, sometimes though we get commisioned by the architects themselves and we get on board their team.

Thank you very much, Jan

Editorial note:
Unless otherwise noted, all the images in this article are copyrighted by Realities:United. For any kind of reproduction whatsoever of the images in this article a permission from Realities United has to be obtained.

In october 2007 I had a lovely talk with a current hot-star of interactive art & design Jason Bruges in his studio in London. The talk was a pleasant and fast-paced walk through his projects, with Jason symultaniously clicking on his computer, drinking coffee and explaining his ideas and projects in a very graphical and descriptive way. Through his emotional and inspiring way of describing his projects, he somehow always makes you see the same beauty that he sees in his projects. This talk was definitely a fun and quick ride through the present state of interactive (lighting design) art.

Before working at Foster and partners he trained as an architect at Oxford Brookes University. His path towards interactive environments started with his collaboration with Imagination, where he worked as a senior interactive design consultant. In 2001 he formed Jason Bruges Studio, which is a practice that produces “a diverse range of work that includes interactive light sculptures, interactive environments, events and screenbased installations…”.

Would you say you work mostly with light?
Actually we don’t work only with light – we work with kinetic, we work with materials. For example the “Interactive DADO rail” we designed for a special needs school uses 3D sounds in the space, tactile feedback and light. It reacts to touch and the response is light, sound and vibration – visual, audio and tactile feedback. The children use it as a guidance system that can obviously also be an object to play with.

In general we are interested in all senses, so to say – we have projects where we play with wind and how can we make them interactive for example.

So interactivity is the feature that connects most of your projects?
Exactly. And regarding this interactivity, we are taking on board how people are exploring the building, how they are using the building, how the environment is conditioning the use of the building – all these things are taken into account when designing the interaction.

Is there anything that you focus on specifically at your projets?
Maybe the most important thing is how you interface your installation with architecture. For example what you embed your technology or installation in, what is the feel of it, it’s location, it’s spatiality what diffusors or materials you use (when you are working with light for example) and so on. Everything is important.

How do you manage with the ever-changing technology?
We definitely work with best we can, but technology is evolving so fast that there is always something new next month, so that we sort of freeze the technology at a specific time and say “we are working just with this at the moment”.

I imagine there has to be a lot of computer engineering, algorythm design etc. with your work
Yes, that’s true – but still we build a lot of things ourselves. However, when they go to a production site and are going to stay in a building for 20 years, we usually use external help.

What would be your ultimate goal regarding your work at this point?
To build a complete space – to build roofs, to build walls, to build entrances, to build atriums. Because what we are working with could be called “making spaces” or adding another layer of ephemerality.

Could you describe the project you did for the 100% design festival?
It is a project we did for Greenpeace. We used the new 100% dimmable version of compact fluorescents which means that they dim down to 3% and they fire up at 3% too. We got the first 500 of the production line. We had an idea of making a raised garden – classical british ornamental flower garden, if you want – with lamps serving as a metaphor for plants. The interaction design supported it by dimming down the lamps when you are not near and lighting them up when you are. It’s like planting flowers: they bloom when you are near and die when you are away.

How often do you work on outdoor installations?
We are involved with landscapes a lot at the moment. We are currently working on a park in Fulham (Normand park) where we are building interactive luminaires. Each luminaire is site specific regarding the tree next to it, which means that the size, shape and form of the luminaire can match the tree and winds itself into it. Tree canopies are used as a texture maker and the light is interactive and reacts to the presence of people.

What would be the effect of this intervention?
It’s another layer of experience – it makes it richer. And it’s even safer, because if anyone is hiding in the park these things would have been triggered. It’s good from the security and from the energy point of view.

Since we already mentioned the energy point of view –was that the idea behind “wind to light” project?
Yeah – sort of. This project is really about “visualising the invisible” but it’s also taking a look at renewables as an aesthetic device rather than a bureacratic box-ticking exercise. There are so many regulations regarding renewables and sustainability, but what I was interested in, is whether we can use renewables as an aesthetic pallete. I mean people always want to decorate their environment, they always have and they always will. So why not do it in a very sustainable and renewable way? This installation is about putting it out there as a question, and people responded very well to it.

Where do you find your inspiration?
For me (pauses for a while)…just looking at wind or water…or across the field. Mostly very ephemeral things. Things that are dynamic, things that change – things that human beeings inherently enjoy. Flowers dancing around, the beauty of aurora borealis – you think of all these natural phenomena and people very very widely enjoy them and are amazed by them. It’s a bit like biomemetics – kind of copying from nature. Or better – taking Nature as an inspiration.

There are hundreds of interesting natural phenomena that would be quite fun to reproduce. Because in the end it’s about creating richness and texture in our environment where there is a lot of artificiality that doesn’t have to be as artificial as it is.

Thanks for your time, Jason.

Interview conducted by Mitja Prelovšek, MALD

I met Aleksandra Stratimirović in a nice cosy little place in Stockholm. It was spring in a town where they worship it perhaps the most in the whole world. And it was in Södermalm (the southern part of Stockholm), where you would go to enjoy it. And most likely it would be a place exactly like the one where it turned out that she forgot that we were supposed to have an interview. Well, in the end it was more of a relaxed talk than an official interview anyway.

There is a certain peace and out-of-this-world aura about Aleksandra. She speaks carefully and maybe even reluctantly about her work – as if she doesn’t really want to talk about it or that there are no appropriate words for what she wants to convey. But she definitely makes you listen.

Perhaps the best portrait of Aleksandra would actually be her own – a self-portrait that is called Sunny Day and is currently on display in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Translucent and very still. Something that stands out from, what is according to a japanese writer Murakami called – a giant anthill of capitalist society.

The above photographs are by Bojan Brecelj

Aleksandra was born in Belgrade where she attended the University of Fine Arts and Crafts. In 1998 and later on she attended various courses in the University of Fine Arts and Design in Stockholm, Sweden among them Lighting Design and Daylight and Architecture course. She currently lives and works in Stockholm as an independent artists working on different kinds of projects with exhibitions and awards ranging all across Europe. Among other things she is also an active participant of Lighting Detectives community, which is a group of Lighting Designers, that organises various lighting events around the world aimed at improving the quality and awareness of importance of light in urban space.

You were born in Belgrade and lived there for a long time –is there a difference between the night-time environment of Stockholm and Belgrade?
Belgrade is so much stronger. They use light everywhere and large amounts of it too. Regarding this we could also use a very popular saying in Serbia: the more the better.

Is observing these differences also the idea of Lighting Detectives?
Once per year Lighting Designers that are members of Lighting Detectives, meet and go to tests, try-outs and analyses at a location they choose.

And these events happen mostly outdoors – in urban space?
Yes. When The Detectives were founded, each member was supposed to analyse her or his own town. Now, it has more than thousand members, so this idea changed a bit.

What is the result of these analyses or events that are organized by Lighting Detectives?
It depends what was the purpose or the meaning of the event in the first place – it could be to show certain characteristics of an environment that is beeing analysed. It could be a workshop and to do something very quickly – it’s quite open actually. Every town or every initiative Lighting Detectives undertake is different. The only thing that is common between all of these initiatives is that all of the members of Lighting Detectives inform eachother of their activities and plans.

James Turrel once said that with his installations he is trying to create something like “pure light”. Is there anything that would join or connect Your work like the above statement connects Turrel’s?
Light is always part of my work – a very important part. But there is always some other material that I like to use together with light. A material that binds light and shadow, a material that conveys the main motive or the main beauty of light. Which one I use depends of course on the environment or space that I work in. It depends what that space wants to have.

What kind of projects are you involved with now?
Currently I am working on an interior installation in a courthouse here in Stockholm. It is a very interesting space - no daylight or very little amount of it. The installation consists of quite a large number of light points on the wall, distributed in a pattern that resembles a night view of a town from an airplane for example. These light points flicker – but very slowly. It is like the movements and changes in a nocturnal urbanscape –on a largescale it moves very slowly. And these light points change in groups – at a certain point a group of light points on one side is stronger but this stronger light slowly moves to the other side. The slow rhytm of change is very important. Because the user of the space shouldn’t and actually doesn’t really notice that there was a change, but on the subconscious level he/she does realise that something is different. This pace of movements and dynamics is very important.

How did you find out about the most appropriate speed of movements as actually a non-user of the space.
I had many meetings with the client where I learned about who is using the space, how fast do they pass through the space and so on. It was also very important to consider the people that work here – that they are not bored by the installation, but at the same time to be pleasant for those that come here for the occasions that are usually not so very pleasant for them, since it is a courthouse.

One can notice that your installations are very much like paintings or installations that are meant to be observed. They are a bit different from the “ambiental” installations, where the visitor actually enters “inside” the world they create. What’s your opinion on that?
I think it depends very much on the space where this installation will be. If it is a public building, it is not appropriate to create something like a “dark room” in it for example (smiles). But still, I think that it is possible to create something very attractive that enables someone, maybe not everyone, to spend some time in that feeling or mood. Even with two-dimensional installations that are sometimes the most you can get in many spaces it is still possible to create a window to a world, that exists beside the one that we live our daily lives in.

Thank you.

Interview conducted by Mitja Prelovšek, MALD

The theme of “Light Symposium 2008“ will be “The Future of Light and Lighting“.(The symposium will be held in English).

The main aspects of the questions regarding the future of light and lighting are the following:

- art and daylight technology – status quo
- light and health – the biological, physiological and psychological impact of light
- tendencies and trends in architectural lighting design
- lighting design education

The PLDA Vox Juventa 2008 conference will be part of the Symposium programme. Vox Juventa is a conference for young Lighting Designers organised by PLDA (Professional Lighting Designers’ Association). After being staged in Stockholm, Hildesheim, and London (parallel to PLDC 2007 = Professional Lighting Design Convention) Vox Juventa will be hosted by Wismar 2008. This will be the fourth time it is held.

“Fifty containers,” Sheikhawat answered, a bit tentative for he wasn’t sure whether such a ‘huge’ order could be serviced by the supplier. He was, however, clearly under-prepared for the supplier’s answer. “Fifty containers is too less. We are servicing requirements up to 200 containers. We can take your order in about six months… maybe,” it was the Chinese supplier’s turn to be tentative. Sheikhawat admits returning from that meeting disappointed, but as luck would have it, he soon found another Chinese supplier who could meet his 50-containers requirement of fixtures, tilings, racks, cash tills and trolleys every quarter.

There is a wide discussion about the ecological advantages and disadvantages of banning the edison lamp – The Bulb. Some countries have already adopted laws that limit to significant extent the use of Light Bulbs in domestic areas – notably Australia and Ireland. However, the ecological impact of this move is still argued. The websites savethebulb.org and banthebulb.org present their respective view on the issue.

Professional Lighting Designer’s Association has also published a statement written by Gad Giladi – an active member of PLDA and Lighting Designer.