022
DETAILS / INTERNATIONAL LIGHTING DESIGN SURVEY
engineering firms with their own lighting design departments have all put downward pressure on fees.
James Long, owner of James Long Stu- dio in the USA, has first hand experience of this phenomena: “What I’m seeing is architectural firms offering professional lighting design services as a way to increase revenue. Clients/architectural firms are ex- pecting deep discounts - they site the state of the economy resulting in less projects to go around. The looming threat is if your costs are not in line with their thinking they will shop the project around until they get what they want. One client actually used ‘Think Ikea’ as a reference for their budget. Sometimes you just have to walk away. In a strange twist we are working with a client who parted ways with the original design team but kept us on to work with a new design team.” However, the region where this sort of practice seems to be most prevalent is Asia where the need for lighting design has ex- ploded. This point is emphasised by Stephen Gough of Project Lighting Design, based in Singapore: “This year was challenging. We are finding that competition is increasing in Asia with many smaller or start up firms offering ridiculous fees. In particular the China market is becoming difficult as devel- opers try to leverage us down to lower fees using the smaller firms as fee benchmarks. I also see some of the larger firms offering highly competitive fees and just taking tons of work. I don’t know how they can expect to maintain any level of quality or indeed find the qualified staff to do the work. Hav- ing said that we are soon to open an office in Shanghai with a view to consolidating our position in the China market.” André Tammes, founding director of LDP in Australasia, is particularly scathing of the situation: “As the European and American economic mess worsens, we are seeing an increased rate of ‘suicide pricing’ for projects in Asia by lighting designers from the afflicted countries. This is deplorable because it represents only a short term, last gasp, fix for those who are struggling, inevitably resulting in an under-servicing of projects and creating confusion in the minds of clients who are led to believe that they can obtain high quality service for implau- sible levels of fee. Bad news which will take years to work its way out of the system.” And JK Yao of Chroma 33 in Taiwan: “People are becoming aware of the disadvantage of using LEDs, which is a good sign. Unfortu- nately, there are more so-called lighting practitioners but, sadly, most focus on mar- keting and not professionalism, especially in the Asian market.”
Returning to the notion of diversity and it is interesting to note the national / inter- national split of work between different regions. The overall average across all the lighting design firms is 58% national and 42% international work for 2011. However, this is heavily skewed by practices from the US who’s work is 75% domestic - understandabe for such a huge market. Compare this to European firms who’s 53% national average is nearer that of the overall average; and to UK firms who’s international projects actually exceed the domestic workload 56% to 44%.
Many responses to the survey stated that it was the fewer, international projects that brought in the higher fees, whereas less profitable projects in their own country were the bread and butter work that kept them going. Overall however, the feeling is one of positivity for the future with more respon- sibility falling to the lighting designer, even long after the project has been completed. This can only help with the establishment of lighting design as an essential profession within the building fraternity. Keith Bradshaw, partner at Speirs + Major in the UK, can see the way it needs to go: “We are working harder now than ever for fees but this is common to all professional services home and abroad. In an odd way we are relishing the challenge and the manner in which the market is making us stay extraordinarily focused and targeted. The value of what we do needs to be crystal clear and fundamentally connected into the project such that clients understand lighting design as essential and not a ‘nice-to-have’. Proving one’s worth continues to be a defin- ing factor of our profession.” Perhaps we should leave the last word to Louis Clair of Light Cibles (offices in France, Spain, Malaysia, Singapore and China) who is typically upbeat about the role of the lighting designer in the future: “Something is slowly changing. In France, clients are demanding more responsibility, even five years after a project we are still responsible for it by law, just like architects. In Asia the movement is starting. Instead of just using our ‘concept designs’ and not ask- ing us to control the construction as it was ten years ago, clients start to look for long life installations and start to accept our fees and our recommendations for construc- tion control. It is now normal to demand three years guarantee for lighting fittings, even if they are made in China. I think our role needs to become more professional and we will soon have less problems with people having no experience and asking for low fees and commissions from manufacturers.”
“It is exciting to be witness to great change and indeed disruption in the lighting design industry. We embrace it all.” Charles Stone, Fisher Marantz Stone, USA
“The main challenge is projects starting and then stopping so you resource your commitment appropriately and perhaps turn down other work and then the project that you think you have stops. We had at least six major project commissions that stopped soon after which is very disruptive and problematic to managing a lighting consultancy or any other business for that matter. dpa has had a lot of projects finish and open in 2011 so it has been an exciting period seeing years of work complete. We are generally very optimistic about our business and we have seen a significant rise in major project enquiries and commissions come to us in the fourth quarter of 2011.” Nick Hoggett, dpa, UK, Japan, UAE
“Poor cash flow and delays on projects have been a real challenge.” Paul Pamboukian, South Africa
“The construction Industry is in a mess. Hardly anyone (particularly the end-user / client) understands the LEED implications and cheap installation still seems to be the driver - ‘To hell with the future!’. In that respect little has changed since the ‘60s when single bar electric fires were installed just because they were cheap. When the regulators start to get tough on environmental issues then we might see a sensible move towards capital expenditure on energy efficient solutions. Can’t wait!” Lawrence Titton, Visual Energy, UK & Middle East
“The market for lighting designers is getting harder. There is more competition and more time and effort to get good jobs.” Mike Helbling, Vogt & Partner, Switzerland, Germany & Austria
“We are still finding compatibility issues with some combinations of LEDs, drivers and architectural control systems – as such we have had to employ a full time technical manager to work with manufacturers to help us avoid these issues.” Darren Orrow, Into Lighting, UK
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140