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DETAILS / INTERNATIONAL LIGHTING DESIGN SURVEY
THE CHANGING ROLE OF THE LIGHTING DESIGNER
“Pressure on fees is still very high, but staying diversified is a big plus.” Ted Ferreira of CD+M Lighting Design Group sums up the mood of the lighting design profession as lighting designers are having to adapt from straightforward lighting scheme providers to a much more integrated approach. Here’s what the lighting designers are saying...
Keith Bradshaw, Speirs + Major (UK): “There is no doubt that local and global markets change personality month on month. This period should force us to consider what exactly are the unique skills that differentiate one practice and the next which is ultimately better for clients and better for us.” Koert Vermeulen, ACT lighting design (Belgium): “We are constantly trying to find ways to diversify ourselves and pro- pose added values that go outside of the proposed ‘Lighting Design Only’ paradigm. We are becoming more and more involved on the complete visual aspect, with Video, Graphics, Content and Scenography becom- ing a part of our scope of works.” Ziad Fattouh, Delta Lighting Solutions (UAE): “Competition has strongly increased in the UAE markets with more and more breakaway designers coming out of es- tablished firms in order to start their own operations. These start ups usually work on much lower fees and have begun to take work. It will be interesting to see if they will able to provide the service needed to complete projects to a high standard.” Leni Schwendinger (USA): “We have changed our business model. I am be- ing much more selective about accepting projects and purposefully engaging fewer jobs. We have cut down on staff and admin. The goal is to do the work where we can contribute the most expertise and artful- ness and enjoy the project, client and design team.” Paul Traynor, Light Bureau (UK): “Com- pared with the previous year, 2012 was a slow start but seems to have come back well in the last two quarters. 2013 looks like it will start with a very full order book and we’re continuing to expand.” Tapio Rosenius, Lighting Design Collective (Spain): “The state of the market in Spain remains as bad or is maybe worse than 2011. Many companies are however now fo- cusing more towards international projects and we are benefiting from this. The archi-
tects now have large projects where our international experience is appreciated.” Paul Gregory, Focus Lighting (USA): “For us it is all about creativity. As the market changes, we see an increased appreciation for good design from our clients and their patrons.“ JK Yai, Chroma 33 (Taiwan): “I am seeing more people getting burned from using LEDs, mainly because of its lack of indus- try standard and the great possibility of getting poor quality LED products. Clients nowadays are not as crazy as a couple of years ago in using LEDs which is a very good sign. I truly hope the LED industry can come to their senses and stop using the general public as their guinea pigs to test their ever developing products. The LED industry only know and care about lumens per watt which mean little to us. Kevan Shaw (UK): “Outside London there is a lot less work of any scale in the UK. We have bid on a lot of foreign projects this year none of which have started.” Mark Elliott, PointOfView (Australia): “There are the same issues as last year - un- reasonably short project time lines, huge pressure on fees and low project budgets meaning we spend more time budget plan- ning and value engnieering than designing. The market is picking up however; forward planning is easier with clients planning ahead further.”
Nick Hoggett, dpa (UK): “2012 has been a good year for us with projects maturing and then progressing, a number of new Clients emerging with multiple projects and a lot of really nice projects finishing. Conclud- ing projects that have worked really well is the most gratifying part of our work and this year we have received lots of award nominations and awards which the team greatly value. We are very optimistic about the future both for work in the UK and internationally. We have decided to launch some additional specialised services, includ- ing expert advice in connection with ‘Rights of Light’. Our ambitions for an additional
office overseas is also maturing and hope- fully during 2013 this will be formalised and announced.” Paul Pamboukian (South Africa): “We find that our business improved considerably in 2012 and we look forward to another good year in 2013. LED technology has cast a dubious light on the industry as a whole. LEDs have flooded the market and much time is spent sifting through quantities of product in search of products that have real light-value. The challenges related to energy saving and green technologies have resulted in new ways of looking at light and the architectural environment. We are back in a learning curve but we find it exciting and tremendously challenging.” Gerd Pfarré (Germany): “Running an independent practice is not as easy as it used to be. Conditions are getting tough, many designers are hired by manufacturers. Fortunately the public awareness for quality lighting design is constantly increasing, and lighting education is moving in the right direction.” Kapil Surlakar, LIGHT@WORK (India): “The recognition for the profession in India is growing. There is a strong need for regu- lating this growth. We have all kinds of developments in the field of lighting since the manufacturing industry status for the same has been upgraded from Small scale Industry to a full fledged industry status. This has opened the market and brought in multinational investments. This has also however brought in unqualified lighting designers who make it that much more dif- ficult to establish or maintain credibility for the profession in general.” Dan Heap (France): “The market is a very tricky place these days, more and more consultancies seem to be chasing the same work and everything is cost driven regard- less of quality or experience. This is bad for our industry as it de-values good design and will ultimately lead to either poor schemes or businesses going under as they make less profit.”
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