Lighting Journal November/ December 22

Professional best practice from the Institution of Lighting Professionals

November/ December 2022

PAYING RESPECTS How lighting rose to the occasion for Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral SAVING PLACE Using light festivals to reshape perceptions of the public realm COME THE NIGHT Reconsidering vulnerability at night, and how to design to mitigate it

The publication for all lighting professionals

asdlighting.com/smartwatch

Lights, camera, action.

What is SmartWatch? SmartWatch is an intelligent system that combines our street & amenity luminaires with integrated security cameras, ready for any application or Smart City / IoT solutions Discover how Smartwatch can monitor emissions, clean air zones, traffic flow and management as well as public safety or cycle lane use.

Scan now to discover more

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

3

Contents

06 COME THE NIGHT

32 FESTIVAL FUN

12 PAYING RESPECTS

36 SAVING PLACE

18 ROYAL REFLECTIONS

42 EARTH AND SKY

When considering vulnerability at night, designing by numbers is not the answer. It is vital lighting designers assess how people perceive safety at three levels – contextual, social and individual – as Arup’s ground-breaking ‘Night-time Vulnerability Assessment’ tool aims to achieve. Richard Morris reports

The mourning period and funeral for Queen Elizabeth II brought the nation to a standstill in September. ILP members across the country played an important role in ensuring the complex and often last-minute logistics behind the scenes went off without a hitch

The Illuminated River public art installation played a key part in commemorating the life and reign of Queen Elizabeth II during the mourning period and September’s ‘Reflections’ flotilla on The Thames

As we head into our first post-pandemic winter, light festivals, thankfully, have been starting to return. As well as being a great spectacle and boosting local economies, light festivals can help communities to create a sense of place, identity, education and engagement.

Designer Eleanna Kapokaki looks at what makes a successful light festival

12

How can you use light festivals as a vehicle for community engagement, education, promotion of new artists and to raise awareness of light in place-making within the urban realm? Using LewesLight 2020 as a case study, Graham Festenstein investigates

18

Sweden’s Lights in Alingsås popular light festival returned this autumn, running from September to the beginning of this month, and showcasing some stunning light art installations

20 BUYING EXPERIENCE 44 SACRED SPACE The world of retail was significantly changed by the pandemic, pushing it further into the online space.

For physical retail to compete successfully, the focus needs to be on the shopping experience as much as the physical commodity. Lighting is a key component of that change, as Sanjit Bahra shows in the recent refurbishment of the Princess Square shopping centre

26 FOOTBALL FOCUSED

The 2022 FIFA World Cup kicks off in Qatar later this month. The tournament as a whole may have been dogged by controversy, but that doesn’t mean we should overlook some of the innovative approaches used both for stadium design and emergency lighting

28

NOT ‘MINOR’ STRUCTURES

Ageing or poorly maintained ‘minor structures’ infrastructure, especially street lighting, risks being the Achilles heel of smart cities. Essentially, if you can’t trust what you’re hanging your expensive kit on, can you trust this revolution at all? But it doesn’t have to be this way, writes Trystan Williams

32

The Serpentine Pavilion ‘Black Chapel’ was a focal point for reflection in the heart of London over the summer – with a lighting scheme to match

BRIEF 46 AHISTORY OF TIME

From crude manual time clocks to sophisticated satellite-based control devices, the pace of change of the time clocks used within street lighting has been breath-taking, especially in the second half of the twentieth century. Seán Noone traces the timeline

44

‘I SEE THE ROLE 50 AS CHAMPION OF IS SLOWLY TECHNICAL INFORMATION’ 54‘SEXISM CHANGING’

Longstanding ILP volunteer and lighting design manager Guy Harding is the ILP’s new Technical Manager, stepping into the ‘very big to fill’ shoes of Peter Harrison

52 TALENT WILL OUT

Throughout 2022, Lighting Journal has been celebrating inspirational women working within lighting. So, what has this year shown us? Kelly Smith and David Gilbey investigate

ARCSOURCE™

For our final ‘inspirational women in lighting’ profile, Lorraine Calcott explains how privileged she feels to be working in the industry, but that there is still more to do to promote equality, especially at senior levels

56 GOOD TO TALK

The ILP is partnering with LiGHT 22 and [d]arc to showcase two days of thought-provoking discussion about light and lighting, including ‘How to be brilliant’

COVER PICTURE

Safely illuminated at night, ‘The Queue’ patiently waits to pay respects to HM Queen Elizabeth II as she lies in state in September, with Tower Bridge behind bathed in royal purple and gold. Turn to page 12 to find out how lighting professionals rose to the occasion during the mourning period and funeral to ensure that the complex and often last-minute logistics behind the scenes went off without a hitch. Image from Shutterstock

KEEP IT IN THE FAMILY www.theilp.org.uk

anolislighting.com

Are you ready for the upcoming RoHS changes?

In 2023, most fl flu uorescent PL and T5 lamps, commonly used in sign and bollard illumination, will be removed from the market.

Use INDO’s retrofi fitt LED lamp for a quick, simple & low cost upgrade solution. Over 100,000 have been installed in UK traffi ffic c applications.

Get ahead of the upcoming changes by contacting us to find out more. Email - hello@indolighting.com

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

5

Editor’s letter Volume 87 No 10 November/ December 2022 President Fiona Horgan Chief Executive Justin Blades Editor Nic Paton BA (Hons) MA Email: nic.cormorantmedia@outlook.com

Lighting Journal’s content is chosen and evaluated by volunteers on our reader panel, peer review group and a small representative group which holds focus meetings responsible for the strategic direction of the publication.

If you would like to volunteer to be involved, please contact the editor. We also welcome reader letters to the editor.

Graphic & Layout Design George Eason Email: george@matrixprint.com Advertising Manager Emma Barrett Email: ebarrett@matrixprint.com Published by Matrix Print Consultants Ltd on behalf of Institution of Lighting Professionals Regent House, Regent Place, Rugby CV21 2PN Telephone: 01788 576492 E-mail: info@theilp.org.uk Website: www.theilp.org.uk Produced by Matrix Print Consultants Ltd Unit C,Northfield Point, Cunliffe Drive, Kettering, Northants NN16 9QJ Tel: 01536 527297 Email: gary@matrixprint.com Website: www.matrixprint.com

T

he death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in September was one of those rare occasions where we can say with some confidence that the nation came together. Lighting may not have been as visible as the pageantry and massed bands in making the mourning period and funeral processions memorable but, for its work behind the scenes, the role of lighting professionals – many ILP members among them – also needs to be celebrated.

As we report from page 12, lighting professionals rose to the occasion – often under intense time pressure or under the spotlight of the world’s media – to ensure that the right infrastructure was in place, that the public and world leaders were kept safe, and that the complex logistical challenges thrown up by the ten-day mourning period went off without a hitch.

Whether it was rushing to install solar lighting outside the Palace of Westminster, ensuring ‘The Queue’ for The Queen’s lying-in-state could see and be seen, sourcing last-minute crowd-control infrastructure, or simply volunteering to work as a marshal for the lying-instate in Scotland, ILP members more than adequately paid their respects to the late Queen.

At a local level, lighting professionals were closely involved in the many illuminated displays and events that took place up and down the country. Lighting, too, played a key role in the ‘Reflections’ flotilla on the Thames, as we show on page 18, and the Illuminated River public art installation marked her passing in style. FM Conway street lighting service manager Gary Thorne described meeting the challenges posed as ‘a prouder moment I have never had’. That holds true for the wider lighting profession, which should rightly be proud of even its unsung contribution.

With dark evenings and winter now firmly upon us, I was pleased in this edition to be able to bring together a mini focus on light festivals. I was pleased, first, because who doesn’t like being able to bring a bit of ‘wow’ to an otherwise cold and gloomy season? The fact we can now get back together outside at such events marks, to my mind at least, another welcome step on the return to post-Covid ‘normality’.

As importantly, however, as both Eleanna Kapokaki and Graham Festenstein explain in this edition (from pages 32 and 36 respectively), light festivals can help to generate and even mould a sense of place; they can act as a springboard for future lighting talent; they can inspire and educate schoolchildren and communities alike (which in turn can also of course lead to future lighting talent). As Graham Festenstein aptly writes, a well-planned, considered and delivered light festival ‘has the potential to deliver much more than just a spectacle of exciting, bright and beautiful visual experiences, or installations’. And this time, of course, the role of the lighting professional is very much not unsung. I hope we’ll see many more light festivals making their mark during the coming months.

Finally, I’d like to extend a personal welcome to Guy Harding as the ILP’s new Technical Manager (page 50). As an extremely dedicated and longstanding volunteer with the ILP, Guy is of course already well-known to many ILP members. His elevation to the permanent ILP team is very welcome, however. He will, I am sure, bring to the role boundless energy, enthusiasm and authority even if, as he freely conceded to me when we spoke, Peter Harrison’s shoes will be ‘very big to fill’. Technical Manager, rightly, is a pivotal role for the ILP, not least for the Institution’s five-year future strategy, and I am sure he is going to do it proud.

Welcome, Guy.

Nic Paton Editor

© ILP 2022

The views or statements expressed in these pages do not necessarily accord with those of The Institution of Lighting Professionals or the Lighting Journal’s editor. Photocopying of Lighting Journal items for private use is permitted, but not for commercial purposes or economic gain. Reprints of material published in these pages is available for a fee, on application to the editor.

SUBSCRIPTIONS

ILP members receive Lighting Journal every month as part of their membership. You can join the ILP online, through www.theilp.org.uk. Alternatively, to subscribe or order copies please email Diane Sterne at diane@theilp.org.uk. The ILP also provides a Lighting Journal subscription service to many libraries, universities, research establishments, non-governmental organisations, and local and national governments.

ILLUMINATING INTERIORS WARMING COLOURS & ADJUSTABLE WHITES

AMBIANE™ AP

anolislighting.com

www.theilp.org.uk

6

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

COME THE NIGHT

When considering vulnerability at night, designing by numbers is not the answer. It is vital lighting designers assess how people perceive safety in night-time spaces at three levels – contextual, social and individual – as Arup’s ground-breaking ‘Night-time Vulnerability Assessment’ tool aims to achieve

By Richard Morris

O

ur perception and experience of the urban environment forms over the course of our lives. Our unconscious knowledge of the urban environment is built up of a diverse range of influences from our personal memories, both positive and negative, sensory stimulation, and our state of mind, to name a few.

When we consider the impact of the transition from day to night and, within that, the application of lighting in our urban environment, we are adding another layer of complexity to our experience that affects how we think and feel about a space.

With so many factors contributing to our perceptions of the space around us, both

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Vulnerability and lighting at night pursuit of design guide illumination targets is the only performance requirement stipulated for a project to presume that everyone will feel safe. At Arup we don’t believe or practice this. Indeed, we wrote in our book Urban Lighting For People that ‘compliance cannot replace experience’ [1]. So, does compliance really translate into a positive experience of night-time?

Research has found that lighting at night is one of the most important built environment factors to contribute towards perceptions of safety in cities.

We know that people are less likely to frequent areas where they feel unsafe. This significantly impacts people’s mobility habits and feelings of personal amenity – compounding economic and social impacts for communities.

Lighting our urban spaces at night urgently needs design responses that are beyond meeting minimal compliance for street lighting. Just adding brighter lighting does little to change the equation and often negatively impacts these spaces, creating high contrast and stark no-go zones.

Alongside urban planning, urban design, and security, a lighting masterplan is required from the early stages of a project to allow venues and spaces to seamlessly transition from a vibrant hub during the daytime into a dynamic and safe space after the sun goes down.

MOVING FROM A COMPLIANCE-BASED APPROACH

consciously and subconsciously, there can be a dramatic difference in the way we experience our urban environments between day and at night.

What can be viewed as a vibrant public park during the day, can easily change into an eerier, foreboding place after sunset.

Yet, our cities are often not designed to accommodate these differences, as day turns into night and on through to dawn. The most memorable public spaces are experience-driven and evoke emotion through the sensory stimulation of light, sound, colour, texture and scent.

It is through these multi-sensory experiences that we develop our understanding of,

and connections to, particular places. In creating spaces for everyone to enjoy and feel safe, the consideration and design of nighttime experiences are just as important as designing for the daytime.

UNDERSTANDING PERCEPTIONS OF SAFETY

So, are urban environments designed to enhance our perception of safety? Too often, the night-time experience is reduced to a simple on/off approach with little consideration to the different activities, users, built forms and connecting pathways through and around the space.

Unfortunately, we often observe that the

How, then, do we move from a compliance-based approach? In response to these thoughts and observations, Arup conducted extensive research in partnership with Monash University’s XYX Lab and PLAN International to better understand how lighting affects perceptions of safety for women and girls in Melbourne, Australia [2].

In essence, our research thought about how to capture the lived experience and how to use this to inform our design.

We leveraged crowdsourced data from the ‘Free to Be’ Campaign by XYX Lab and PLAN International. Free to Be has been implemented in Delhi (India), Kampala (Uganda), Lima (Peru), Madrid (Spain) and Sydney (Australia).

Reports from each city are available to download containing details about the comments and information women, especially younger women, gave on the safety of locations in their cities as well as their recommendations on how to make them safer.

The campaign was the largest of its kind in Australia, based upon over 900 safe and unsafe night-time experiences from women and girls in Melbourne. Arup reached out directly to researchers – to see if we could offer expertise in collecting corresponding www.theilp.org.uk

7

8

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Vulnerability and lighting at night

quantitative data in order to create a more nuanced insight as to what contributed to this perception of safety – to contribute to improving night-time design and lighting in our public spaces.

The outcome was that lighting was considered to be the most important built environment design factor to contribute towards perceptions of an unsafe night-time experience. Once safe and unsafe areas had been identified, we measured and analysed every possible performance characteristic of the lighting. Together these defined a unique lighting signature that benchmarks the ‘safe’ spaces and enables comparison with the ‘unsafe’ spaces.

A graphic illustration of the three layers of the Night-Time Vulnerability Index

RESEARCH CONCLUSIONS

What did the research conclude? The research highlighted the importance of designing for and adapting cities to ensure that we are equally valuing everyone’s experiences. This work has fundamentally changed our design approach to enhance urban night-time experiences.

The findings from the research allows city shapers to directly address key values of: • • • •

Spatial equity in design; Gender equality; Social and economic resilience; The UN’s ‘Sustainable Development Goals’; and • The night-time economy.

The conclusions of the research are summarised below: 1. Brighter does not mean safer. Our research found a correlation between unsafe perceptions of space and higher brightness levels of light.

Once illuminance levels reach a certain level it starts to feel unsafe, so throwing more light at the problem is unlikely to solve it. More likely is increased glare and contrast if it is not done in a considered way. www.theilp.org.uk

2. Layering and context. The way light interacts with surfaces and colours in the built environment is crucial in affecting how people perceive brightness, and is strongly correlated to feelings of safety and comfort.

The research findings suggest that a context-specific, multi-layered urban design approach with a considered lighting strategy is conducive to safe experiences.

3. Quality, not quantity. The quality of the light output is more important than illumination levels once a low level of illumination is reached.

Our research has found the ability to visually distinguish planting from a person, or the colours that someone is wearing, is just as important to feelings of safety as being able to see the face of an approaching person.

These issues can all be individually addressed within design solutions by specifying the right technical requirements in the light source.

4. Inclusivity and equality. Our research, together with the data from the Free to Be campaign, highlighted that current design practices are not meeting the needs of the full spectrum of society.

In summary, our research into how light shapes perceptions of safety for women and girls has shown that, at present, we are not considering urban night-time experiences within a holistic or systematic design process.

In response, Arup developed a methodology that can be easily adopted to empower, amplify and implement the needs of lived experiences, especially narratives that have previously been omitted in the design of our cities.

NIGHT-TIME VULNERABILITY TOOL

How then, can we evaluate people’s perceptions of safety? We have called this unique methodology the ‘Night-time Vulnerability Assessment’ or NVA. It is an evidence-based process to measure the social, physical and atmospheric

Introducing our Nightingale lantern Traditional appearance, modern-day performance and exceptional quality. Available with a choice of three LED optics including our patented Varoptic® module, and various aesthetic options.

More lanterns coming soon...

sales@pudseydiamond.com I www.pudseydiamond.com I 01264 336677

10

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Vulnerability and lighting at night qualities that work together to affect our perceptions of safety after dark.

It has been developed from our research and brings together criminology, risk and resilience, urban design, architecture, lighting, advanced digital data collection and analysis of existing site conditions.

The NVA comprises three parts: • Part A – site context. This crucial part appraises people’s perceptions of the existing external space focusing on the difference between daytime and nighttime experience. Data and opinions are gathered from various sources such as client night-walks, community engagement workshops, ‘CPTED’ (Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design) and crime statistics.

• Part B – physical site characteristics.

This appraises the visual experience in terms of materiality, transparency, reflectance, ‘specularity’ (or the visual appearance of specular reflections) and scale to describe a specific visual signature that describes how the physical environment affects people’s feelings of vulnerability at key locations identified

by Part A. • Part C – technical lighting assessment. This appraises the technical

performance of the lighting at each location using the typical metrics connected with compliance-led design, for example horizontal/vertical illuminance and uniformity. It also measures characteristics more associated with a considered design approach, for example facial illuminance, ambient luminance, colour temperature, colour rendering index and contrast ratios.

The findings of all three parts together inform the night-time vulnerability of the space and identify whether lighting has a part to play in measures to improve the perceptions of safety and what the priorities should be.

The outcome provides a consistent, evidence-based decision-making rationale to guide a lighting design strategy for anything from modest improvements to a full-scale lighting masterplan.

While the research work began in Melbourne, Arup recognised that this work was globally important and funded dissemination of the NVA tool to its lighting studios around the world.

As a result, our lighting teams across the UK have learned and applied the tool at sites, including Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester and Leeds City Square.

SUMMARY

In summary, this unique methodology identifies and recommends practical design changes to urban spaces where people are predicted to feel least safe. It does this by assessing how people perceive safety in night-time spaces at three levels – contextual, social and individual.

The assessment weaves the technical component of lighting design, prospect and refuge theory, incident statistics and CPTED with human experience through digital data capture and analysis to improve user perceptions of the night-time journey.

The NVA is intended to sit alongside night-time community engagement programmes to better inform how light and the urban environment shapes perceptions of safety, embedding evidence-based technical design solutions to meet community needs.

We believe this a truly holistic approach that starts with community voices and human experiences as a driver, to provide spaces that consider night-time journeys which are inherently inclusive and perceived as safe.

Richard Morris is a lighting designer with Arup

[1] ‘Urban Lighting for People: Evidence-Based Lighting Design for the Built Environment’, Navaz Davoudian, RIBA Books, 2019, https://www.ribabooks.com/urban-lighting-for-peopleevidence-based-lighting-design-for-the-built-environment_9781859468210) [2] ‘Lighting Cities: Creating Safer Spaces for Women and Girls’, Monash University, https://www.monash.edu/ mada/research/lighting-cities

www.theilp.org.uk

INTRODUCING THE ALL NEW

Holophane’s most comprehensive streetlighting solution to date.

Footpaths residential roads main roads highways

Footpaths Residential Roads Main Roads Highways

Contact us: info@holophane.co.uk www.holophane.co.uk

12

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

PAYING RESPECTS The mourning period and funeral for Queen Elizabeth II brought the nation to a standstill in September. ILP members across the country played an important role in ensuring the complex and often last-minute logistics behind the scenes went off without a hitch

By Nic Paton

T

he aerial shots of the motorcade sweeping through stunning, sunlit Scottish countryside. The slow descent down the ramp at RAF Northolt. ‘The Queue’ for the lying in state.

The gun carriage, marching and music of the processions. The hands-over-the-eyes moment as the bearer party went up the steps at Windsor. The final, lone piper.

We all have our memories of the sudden death, mourning period and funeral of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in September.

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

The death of Queen Elizabeth II For many lighting professionals and the ILP members, however, there is also intense pride at having been able to play a part, even just a small one, in helping the huge logistical challenges that accompanied this national coming-together to go off without a hitch.

From madly replacing street lighting outside the Palace of Westminster under the eyes of the world’s media through to making sure the queuing public were properly illuminated. From stewarding and marshalling through to pulling strings to provide last-minute crowd barriers, ILP members rose to the occasion in often challenging circumstances.

Operation London Bridge – the plan for what was to happen when The Queen died – may have been in place since the 1970s, while Operation Feather, the plan for the management of the lying-in-state queue in London, had been well-rehearsed for decades.

Yet it is almost impossible to plan for every eventuality, and that is where lighting professionals and ILP members went above and beyond in responding to an unprecedented period. Here are some of their stories.

Westminster that has these columns.

‘To get the solar lights to fit there is a special spigot you must cut off, put it on the ground, cut the bottom off, then remanufacture that on to what is going to be the solar one, create a bracket and then put it all back – in 20 minutes. And they did it; I was so proud of them.

‘I’ve done a personal letter of thanks to my team for that day, which I have also asked to go on their records through our HR department. A prouder moment I have never had in my managerial career.’

‘WE NEEDED TO ENSURE THE ROUTE OF “THE QUEUE” WAS WELL LIT’

Perry Hazell, business manager, Asset Management Services, Southwark Council and the ILP’s Junior Vice President ‘We had to take into consideration any dark areas along the route of “The Queue”, especially around areas such as Bankside and London Bridge, as there was now such a

large congregation of people within an already busy part of the riverfront.

‘With a lot of standing around comes boredom, with boredom comes misbehaving. I was convinced we would have issues with antisocial behaviour along the route.

We had installed additional toilet facilities along the route of the queue, to ensure people were using these and not dark corners; we ensured lighting was working and in place along with additional lighting.

‘There were key areas where temporary lighting was deployed. Some as task lighting, especially around Southwark Park, the start of the queue and some as supplementary lighting to ensure visitors felt safe and comfortable during the middle of the night.

‘We had 24-hour support from our Borough Emergency Control Centre (BECC).

These were responsible for overall management of Operation Feather along with bringing in the necessary resources.

‘There were additional checks along the

‘A PROUDER MOMENT I HAVE NEVER HAD IN MY MANAGERIAL CAREER’

Gary Thorne CEng, street lighting service manager at FM Conway ‘We had to install solar lighting literally outside the Palace of Westminster, where The Queen was lying in state, because we had lost the power supply down there. Obviously, digging up Abingdon Street, where two-anda-half million people were queuing, was not going to happen.

‘I had to utilise my friends’ network and we managed to get hold of four fittings over two days to get light into the area for the queuing crowds; otherwise it would have been pitch black. They were solar lanterns with an extra solar sail on the back so we got maximum sunlight in to make sure they had charge all night.

‘It worked, but it was very tight. It was on the Thursday before the funeral; there were already people in the queue and the work also had to be done above the disabled access area and above the main canopy where everyone was being security checked.

‘The eyes of the world were on my operatives, who were doing the work. There were tens of thousands of people watching everything they were doing. Including the BBC, Sky, ITV and the rest of the world’s media, who were all camped around.

‘We had to use the security services to relocate all the people in the queues; it was a huge undertaking. Two lights ended up taking five-and-a-half hours, 40 minutes to do the lights and the rest was to do with the security. The columns were 140mm diameter Large Grey Wornum columns; it is only

Gary Thorne. ‘The eyes of the world were on my opera­tives.’ Right: Perry Hazell. ‘There was a real sense of togetherness.’

www.theilp.org.uk

13

14

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

The death of Queen Elizabeth II

river ensuring all lifesaving equipment, such as life buoys were present and functional along the route. All of which is business as usual within our planned preventative maintenance programme.

‘Although Operation Feather only landed on my plate a few days after her majesty’s death, we had no idea of the magnitude of the task. Because of such a quick turnaround and the emergency-like fashion in which it was organised, we did have subsequent issues with contractors.

‘As an example, a quick deployment of cameras on to lamp columns had not been agreed by our department and we subsequently saw some of our assets drilled and used without our permissions. These issues are key for improvement and ensuring we build that resilience in to any other similar large event or emergency.

‘I am so proud of the way the team rose to the occasion. I am also proud, with both residents and visitors, of the lack of actual issues we had, especially with anti-social behaviour (ASB).

‘Considering the number of additional

people we had in and around the borough there were no real issues with ASB. Everyone arrived with a great attitude and there was a real sense of togetherness and respect shown by all. We should be proud as a nation.’

‘AS SOON AS WE MENTIONED IT WAS FOR THE QUEEN’S FUNERAL ALL THE STOPS WERE PULLED OUT’

Bidhen Brahmbhatt, director, Solaris Lighting ‘We are a very small lighting company. We specialise in bespoke lighting, mostly architectural and some external lighting. Network Rail is one of our clients and whenever they get stuck, and the big boys are too busy to go and assist them, they’ll come and call us.

‘Out of the blue on the Monday before the funeral, I got a call from my contact at Network Rail asking, “can you help us with some barriers?”. My first thought was, “we’re not a barrier supplier, we’re a lighting supplier”. Of course, we use barriers on jobs to secure an area from commuters and so on but it is not our speciality by any stretch.

‘But my contact said “look, we’ve tried everyone, and all our sources are dried up”. I said I’d try and when did he need them by? He needed them at Victoria Station in 48 hours!

‘I made a few calls and, luckily, one of my contractors had some in their warehouse.

When I said it was for The Queen’s funeral then of course things started moving rapidly and they got them there just in time.

‘When you work with good people, whether it’s a contractor or supplier, everything just falls into place. And as soon as we mentioned it was for the Queen’s funeral and her lying-in-state, all the stops were pulled out.

‘What we did was only small. But we wanted to help and be a part of it. It was tiny in the scheme of things, but we’re proud we were able to do something.

‘I also volunteer with the Metropolitan Police and on the day of the funeral I was on duty for nine hours near the Houses of Parliament. Because there were roadblocks everywhere a lot people simply couldn’t get near to the funeral procession route, so we were deployed to make sure the public was

The barriers, at Victoria Station, sourced against the clock by Bidhen Brahmbhatt. Right: Lindsey McPhillips, who volunteered as a marshal for the lying-in-state in Edinburgh (as she explains overleaf)

www.theilp.org.uk

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Heritage Lighting Solutions

Now with Tunable White technology and increased connectivity Classic styling meets modern technology with our upgraded Heritage Lighting range. Now featuring Tunable White technology and increased connectivity options – including Bluetooth wireless control – to deliver a flexible, dynamic solution for night-time illumination.

Often imitated, never bettered. Learn more at dwwindsor.com.

Bluetooth Control

Tunable White LED www.theilp.org.uk

15

16

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

The death of Queen Elizabeth II safe; to be there if anyone needed any help or assistance and to tell people where they could go to watch it on the big screens. I was very proud to have been able to have done my bit.’

‘I CLOCKED UP 58,916 STEPS AS A MARSHAL FOR THE LYING-IN-STATE’

Lindsey McPhillips, senior street lighting engineer, Street Lighting Operations, City of Edinburgh Council ‘I decided to volunteer when I saw a request come through from a colleague in our transport team. I thought, “whatever I’ll being doing I’ll be part of this once in a lifetime opportunity of making history”.

‘I worked the Sunday, Monday and Tuesday of the period The Queen lay in state in Edinburgh, from approximately 12p to 6pm, supervising the marshals around the west end of Princes Street to Castle Terrace, Haymarket, and to Dean Bridge.

‘In all, I clocked up 58,916 steps and walked 23.1 miles over the three days. I continually walked between the points where the marshals were making sure they were OK, that there were no major issues, making sure people had enough water and kept them going on biscuits and sweets. At the same time, I was keeping an eye out for any members of the public who looked like they needed some help.

‘We all provided lots of directions to the Meadows, to hotels and persuaded people to stay away from the Royal Mile when it was busy. We guided people to the best tram stops, as we knew when the trams had stopped at Shandwick Place and when they started running the full route again.

‘We had one marshal help an elderly lady who had walked miles with a frame and told us she couldn’t go on any further; this marshal took her to the nearest hotel and ordered her a taxi to take her home.

‘We had another lady who had lost her wallet with all her money and bus tickets but only realised when she reached Queensferry Street, although she thought it had been lost in St Giles Cathedral at security check. We provided her with guidance on what she should do next to try and retrieve it.

‘One young boy had got disoriented in the crowds on the way home from school, so one of our marshals led him to the tram stop at Shandwick Place, we stayed with him until he was on the tram. Most of the public left us with a smile on their face and were extremely grateful of the guidance they received from every member of our team.

‘I’m definitely proud of what we achieved as a team and, if I was asked to do it again, I’d jump at the chance; I loved every minute.’

www.theilp.org.uk

‘I ENDED UP DOING LIGHTING DESIGN IN “THE QUEUE”’ It is estimated more than 250,000 people queued to see The Queen lying-in-state at Westminster Hall. One of them was Ellie Coombs (above), managing director at lighting design firm Nulty, who recalls the once-in-a-lifetime experience.

‘My time in the queue was reminiscent of the charity “London Night Hike” for Maggie’s Night, which many people from the lighting industry took part in over a number of years (shout out to them all).

‘The experience had the same sense of camaraderie and atmosphere. The whole process took me seven hours and I was lucky enough to be able to pick my moment as I live on the route of the queue and so could join it at an opportune moment. I hadn’t planned to do it and it was a last-minute decision.

‘Queuing at the time I did gave me a chance to see how London changes over time. I travelled from busy Southbank in the early evening to silent Westminster in the early hours of the morning.

‘I started queuing just as the sun was

LOCAL REMEMBRANCE

Lighting professionals up and down the country were involved in local commemorations to The Queen, including lighting monuments and façades and creating light displays.

One example of this was in Northampton, where the Northampton Lift Tower,

setting over The Thames, which allowed me to properly take in the Illuminated River installation and also get a glimpse of E S Devlin’s new “Come Home Again” illuminated sculpture outside the Tate Modern.

‘My conversations with other people in the queue were fairly diverse – I even did a bit of lighting design for one couple who were in the middle of a big renovation! One of the main topics of conversation was the queue itself.

‘We chatted about the fabulous institution that is British queuing, the psychology of queueing and I had an interesting interview with the guy who actually designed the queue. We all felt he did a great job and designed it perfectly, up until it reached Victoria Tower Gardens, the north side of the memorial.

‘Having been completely focused on queueing, I neglected to think about what I would do when I actually arrived. The person in front of me curtsied at the Royal coffin, which completely threw me. Was I supposed to curtsey? Would I actually be able to execute a curtsey after all of that queuing? In the end, all I could manage was an awkward bob.

‘One of the most memorable moments of the experience was being opposite St Paul’s just as the two-minute silence took place at 8pm. It was amazing to see London just stop and to hear the bells of St Paul’s at that moment.’

• Turn to page 18 to fin d out more about how the Illuminated River responded to the death of The Queen.

opened by The Queen 40 years previously (in 1982), was illuminated as a mark of respect and remembrance.

The tower was lit in royal purple with a combination of Robe Lighting IP-rated fixtures and lasers supplied by MLE Pyrotechnics on the evening of the funeral.

ARCHITECTURAL LIGHTING

URBAN LIGHTING

VALINTA The ultimate platform for lighting designers

VALINTA CURVE

VALINTA GROOVE

VALINTA SCOPE

Talk to our team sales@urbis-schreder.com to find out how we can help you create vibrant and sustainable places that people love to live in MINI

MIDI

MAXI

www.ur bis-sch re de r.com

18

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

ROYAL REFLECTIONS

The Illuminated River public art installation played a key part in commemorating the life and reign of Queen Elizabeth II during the mourning period and September’s ‘Reflections’ flotilla on The Thames

By Nic Paton

L

ondon’s Illuminated River was at the heart of the capital’s mourning period and commemoration of the life and reign of Queen Elizabeth II. First, the 3.2-mile-long public art project, which encompasses nine bridges in central London running from London to Lambeth, initially went dark as a mark of respect on the day of the announcement of the death of The Queen.

Then, during the mourning period, a special edition of purple and gold colour sequences was run, originally created by Illuminated River artist Leo Villareal for this summer’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations.

Instead of switching off at 2am, as it normally does, Illuminated River ran throughout the night, from sunset to sunrise, as a

sign of respect and gently accompanying mourners queuing to pay their respects to our late Queen.

Furthermore, from sunset on Saturday 24 September through to early morning on Sunday 25 September, the bridges were threaded with tones of purple and silver in tribute to create a synchronised flow of subtly moving LED lights, as part of the ‘Reflections’ flotilla.

THAMES FLOTILLA

The Totally Thames ‘Reflections’ event was a flotilla of 150 boats that sailed down The Thames in memory of Queen Elizabeth II and to celebrate the accession of King Charles III, led by the Queen’s row barge ‘Gloriana’.

‘It was extraordinary,’ Richard Dye, finance director of The Illuminated River Foundation tells Lighting Journal.

‘We started off at Albert Bridge, at the Cadogan Pier. The Gloriana was moored right next to our boat, with many of the previous Doggett’s Race winners standing ready to row the Royal barge — resplendent in their cardinal red outfits with silver badges.

It was quite spectacular to see them.

‘The lighting, too, was fabulous. There were a number of boats draped with garlands of light. Even the small rowing boats had lights on them. It was wonderful,’ he explains.

Tower Bridge, at the end of the procession, was bathed in purple light, complementing the Illuminated River bridges which formed

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

19

The death of Queen Elizabeth II a centrepiece of the occasion. ‘Coming under the bridges was a real highlight. There were huge numbers of people on the bridges and riverbank,’ Richard explains.

‘There was a lot of waving and cheering.

Tower Bridge was lifted for The Gloriana to come through, and that was spectacular, especially when they put the oars up,’ he adds.

FAST RESPONSE

Coincidentally, the intention had always been to re-run the scheme commissioned and created by Villareal for the Jubilee.

The Reflections flotilla had originally been planned as a celebratory, post-Jubilee event until, sadly, it got overtaken by events.

‘Even though Operation London Bridge had been in existence for decades, the team still had to act fast in making sure everything worked smoothly’ he says. Fortunately, with Leo’s team being in the US, we had the time difference in our favour and Jonathan Gittins and the team at Atelier 10 were amazing,’ Richard adds.

‘It was an opportunity to share a very special sequence of Illuminated River during the national mourning period.

The feedback we had was that people hugely appreciated the gesture. There was such a level of emotion and atmosphere that we were just glad to be able to add to the occasion,’ Richard adds.

As well as remembering Queen Elizabeth, all participating crews in the Reflections event were raising funds for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. This was to support the construction of a new lifeboat station at Waterloo Bridge.

Above: The Gloriana (complete with illuminated oars) at Tower Bridge for the ‘Reflections’ flotilla. Photographs by Darren Smallman. Below: Westminster Bridge displaying the special purple and gold colour sequence. Photograph by Paul Crawley

THE ARCHITECTURE OF LIGHT www.theilp.org.uk

anolislighting.com

20

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Retail lighting

BUYING EXPERIENCE The world of retail was significantly changed by the pandemic, pushing it further into the online space. For physical retail to compete successfully, the focus needs to be on the shopping experience as much as the physical commodity. Lighting is a key component of that change, as shown in the recent refurbishment of the Princess Square shopping centre in Bracknell

By Sanjit Bahra

T

he Lexicon shopping centre in Bracknell, Berkshire, is a retail destination that has successfully integrated the surrounding nature into the shopping experience. Fully accessible, external connection points link the various outlets. It is very timber-led and tasteful in its design, with a strong theme of the surrounding flora.

Back in 2019, its owners decided the original part of the centre was in need of a bit of refresh and called in architects Piper Whitlock who, in turn, turned to us at DesignPlusLight for a new lighting vision.

The brief and design challenge was to redesign the central atrium, which comprised a dated eighties pyramidal skylight, to entice new shops into the centre. Piper Whitlock were keen to reimagine the atrium as a forest canopy, with creative use of lighting, as a nod to the surrounding woodland and existing natural theme.

We love unique spaces that require bespoke lighting solutions. What we had here was not so much just a retail space but the possibility of a public space, where you could create something really inviting, something special, somewhere that people could come together and congregate.

For me, this was especially important emerging from the long isolation of the

pandemic. We wanted to create a safe public realm where families could meet, congregate and share in the most primal of human needs – to socialise and commune together.

Piper Whitlock designed a new timber framework in wave forms, cascading from the central atrium, flanked by perforated stainless steel panels depicting the flora of the nearby woodland. For the lighting, we were conscious this internal cladding was going to occlude a lot of daylight which, again, made the lighting solution even more important.

COLOUR-CHANGING STRIPLIGHTS

We wanted to bring daylight in as much as we could and also felt this was an opportunity to channel connections to nature – especially due to the materiality of the space. I wanted to make sure there was a memorable ‘wow’ factor when you came into the space.

Our solution? Colour-change. Colour-changing lighting is my bête noire; in order for it to work it needs to be tastefully restrained and intentional in all its application. Otherwise it’s just Christmas and Diwali 365 days of the year… and that’s just visually exhausting.

We wanted to ensure any coloured lighting did not overspill into the general space.

There’s nothing worse than having tea with www.theilp.org.uk

21

22

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Retail lighting

Main image on previous page, this page and overleaf: Princess Square in Bracknell, showing the relit timber-framed central atrium and floral motifs. Photographs by Stuart Bailey and Sanjit Bahra

nanna whilst being bathed in a ghastly green or red hue.

So, with my creative director, Damon Cook, we carefully uplit the timber fillets with warm-white LED striplight so that you could see the lattice work receding into the heavens.

Carefully concealed colour-changing LED striplights were detailed into the timber framework and directed outwards to illuminate the woodland meshwork. The white LED striplights uplight each timber slat to give the framework a delicate sculptural quality as it hovers within the space.

For the perimeter area, we also concealed colour-change striplights, which we could then project on to the meshwork and give that area a bit of iridescence and colour. One important consideration was that we knew we were using colour on a surface that didn’t absorb as much light and so wouldn’t overpower the space.

We conducted several light trials on samples to confirm the exact matt finish so that the perforations created a silhouette of leaf patterns and provided very little bounceback light into the general space.

More generally, we wanted to showcase the integrity of the timber structure, irrespective of the colour. The lighting mock ups were an incredibly important part of the design process, not only to allow us to develop and refine the concept, but to also enthuse the client and assure them of our design vision.

The success of the scheme was also in the detailing process and integrating this across all disciplines. The end result was beautifully seamless and entirely due to successful collaboration with each of the project disciplines – you simply cannot create lighting in isolation. www.theilp.org.uk

CREATING A NATURAL FEEL

The Lexicon centre has a natural theme depicting leaves of specific English trees in the surrounding forest. These leaf patterns were detailed into the stainless-steel mesh panels to evoke a woodland canopy, with the central feature depicting the trunk and branches of a tree.

The general lighting was provided by directional spotlights carefully concealed into a perimeter slot. No downlight was visible so that all eyes were on the lit atrium. We then added projectors with specially customised ‘GOBO’ filters depicting the same leaf patterns in the meshwork to create dappled leaf patterns on the floor below.

The effect is that you feel like you are underneath some sort of magic faraway tree or Narnia experience. If you look up, you can see at the very top – because we intentionally lit it – a little piece of stainless steel that has perforated mesh.

To me, it is very evocative of, in a way, the structure and perspective of the German artist Josef Albers’ ‘homage to the square’.

We wanted to make it feel like daylight was shining through the perforations with the leaf motif, and then down to create dappled leaf shadows on the floor. The customised GOBO leaf patterns also exactly match the leaf patterns that are in the marketing and the design language for Bracknell.

For the rest of the centre, the priority was not to over-light the spaces. Of course you have to meet lux levels and the engineering specifications for public walkways. However, it is also important to remember that this is not the only light in the space; the shop lights are nearly always on too, so there is a lot of bounce-back light.

Even without any corridor lighting, these sorts of retail spaces can be extremely bright

– so one has to balance these elements carefully.

We always make sure the walkway spaces are very softly lit; designed to the absolute minimum lux levels required, because we knew in reality there is a great deal more light in the space. This also ensures that there is a sense of transition between the corridors, leading you to a sense of arrival and drama at the central atrium The experience of the pandemic and successive lockdowns of course profoundly changed how we shop and, crucially, what many of us now expect from the physical retail shopping experience. The emphasis is now very much on the word ‘experience’.

FOCUS ON EXPERIENCE

It is no longer just about the retail outlet. In fact, shops are just windows now to showcase the brand. The new shopping experience is about connection. People want to

24

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Retail lighting connect through visiting a shared space. You might also happen to pick something up while you’re there, but actually, the shopping is both incidental and integral to the experience within the space. I personally feel we need to think beyond just ‘going to the mall to hang out’.

Customers are demanding and fickle – so you need to offer them something truly engaging and varied so that not only do they stay (and spend money) but also come back… repeatedly. That takes a multifaceted and integrated approach.

Lighting is a key part of creating a varying ambience, atmosphere, and experience.

This is where the idea, the vision, for Princess Square has suddenly become even more relevant. People can hug and touch each other in a lofty space, that is now ‘safe’ from a Covid, germ-spreading perspective, which is something we used to take for granted.

In the future, people are going to want to go to spaces where you can park your car, spend the whole day there, have something to do other than just shop; it’s either outdoors or airy enough so you can feel safe, irrespective of the next ‘ailment’ that may come along.

The payback from such a design is a no-brainer, in my mind. The lighting in the space allows you to create visual variety, to customise the space to suit holidays or special events; it allows you to feel in harmony and connected with your surroundings.

Finally, at a practical level, we are also now working on part II of the project, illuminating the new extended outdoor space, The Deck, which should be open from next summer.

This area encompasses a covered walkway with a latticework ceiling where events, shows and concerts will be held, and where there will be an ice-skating rink in the winter. Once again, it is all about drawing people in to have an experience and enjoy being with each other.

KEY LEARNINGS

In terms of my takeaways, my learning, from this project, it is about recognising the importance of connection, of creating spaces where people can experience and engage with each other – which is a fundamental human need.

Buying something nowadays in a retail space is almost an incidental experience, as everything can all be done online. Brands are there to showcase who they are, feature their prominent items, whilst still enticing you to linger and take in all of their marketing — lighting is such a key aspect of the commerce of the retail experience.

When you are a brand – be it hotel or retail – and you are trying to entice people in; you had better be sure that what you present www.theilp.org.uk

them visually works. Not just the materiality but also how it works visually, lighting-wise.

You need to make people feel calm and safe.

People don’t walk into spaces and make intellectual judgements; they just make emotional snap-decisions. Lighting is key in determining the human, psychological response to a space.

I think therefore the real success in the design of a space is for you to enter an environment and have an ‘aaah’ moment – where your physical and somatic nervous system relaxes. That’s how you make an emotional connection to that space. So in reality, as lighting designers, we are in the business of manipulating the human response to your commercial space. It’s both a science and an art.

We live in very tumultuous times, where people are very anxious about the space and people around them. The atrium at Princess Square gives you a sense of freedom and space around you. The design is almost ecclesiastical; you are directed from a corridor into this lofty space.

There is a sense of elation as the eye is directed though a cascading structure and further up towards the heavens. There is so much visual beauty and attention in that moment. That, to me, is a successful design – one that we are very proud and thankful to be a part of.

Sanjit Bahra is principal at DesignPlus Light

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Examplary running head

Connected

Highways

Urban Control

Connecting Spaces The Urban Node 324 Cellular simply plugs-in to a standard Zhaga socket and connects over the latest cellular networks designed for the Internet of Things (IoT) NB-IoT and LTE-M. These networks offer far greater signal penetration than regular 4G, so they can connect streetlights in any setting With no network to deploy and scaling from a single luminaire to full authority wide deployments, the plug-and-play solution brings carbon and energy saving benefits to your intelligent lighting projects and new builds.

Get in touch today at

urban-control.com www.theilp.org.uk

25

26

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

L L A B T FOO

The 2022 FIFA World Cup kicks off in Qatar later this month. The tournament as a whole may have been dogged by controversy, but that doesn’t mean we should overlook some of the innovative approaches used both for stadium design and emergency lighting

By Nic Paton

E

ngland’s glorious, if ultimately unsuccessful, run to the finals of the Euro 2020 Championship last year means there are high hopes for Gareth Southgate’s team in Qatar, when the World Cup kicks off later this month. Wales, under manager Rob Page, will equally be hoping to cause a few upsets after also qualifying for the tournament, which starts on 20 November.

The fact the 2022 FIFA World Cup is being held in Qatar at all has, of course, been controversial. This has encompassed

everything from how the country’s bid was won through to the logic of holding a football tournament in such a hot country and, not least, the estimated thousands of deaths of migrant workers brought in to construct the nine new and three renovated stadiums divided across seven host cities [1].

MODULAR DESIGN

There are nevertheless some positives to be found about the tournament from a building perspective. The Ras Abu Aboud Stadium in Doha, for example, has been built to be zero-carbon emitting and climate controlled. Constructed entirely from shipping containers, the innovative, 40,000-seat venue will be entirely dismantled and repurposed after the tournament has concluded.

This novel construction did, however, create something of a headache when it came to specifying and installing the emergency lighting for the stadium, as Rene Joppi, managing director at emergency lighting company Mackwell explains.

‘We used a modular, island-based installation system so that different containers can be connected without interrupting or interfering with the emergency lighting in the next container and so on,’ he says.

Mackwell was involved right from when plans for the stadium began in 2020, alongside its partner Archilum Lighting, based in nearby Dubai. Together, Archilum and Mackwell designed and created all the emergency lighting layouts for the stadium as well as its product specification.

FOCUSED

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Emergency lighting

In all, Mackwell provided more than 4,000 different luminaires for the project, ranging across eight different product families. These encompassed emergency luminaires to exit signs, with all installations equipped with interfaces to other building management systems, so ensuring the facility management teams would not have to manually test any emergency lighting throughout the entire building. All the installations were finalised and completed in the first quarter of this year, so well ahead of November’s kick off.

‘The second biggest challenge was that in Qatar it is of course hot. All the completed infrastructure elements are now climate controlled but at the beginning of the project – a year ago – there was no air-conditioning working,’ Rene tells Lighting Journal.

‘Therefore, the emergency lighting products were exposed to some very high temperatures. That put quite some strain on the batteries and on the emergency luminaires,’ he adds.

One solution that helped was Mackwell’s ‘SmartCharge’ battery charging system. This ensures compliance by constantly current-charging the battery for the initial 24-hour period before relaxing to a lower duty cycle, based on a 10% charge rate to 90% rest rate. In effect, this means the battery is not charging for nine minutes out of

every ten. ‘Using SmartCharge reduces the temperatures of luminaires in their standby mode by 10-15degC, which was absolutely critical in this environment to help us to achieve the lifetime we need for this application,’ says Rene.

IMPORTANCE OF PLANNING

With the tournament now less than a month away, what, then had he learned from the experience?

‘The most important thing we learnt is that, in a stadium project like this, especially if it is modular like this is, you have got to have the planning done properly upfront to make sure the installation is completed in the right way,’ Rene emphasises.

‘The corridors are all very big and wide, as

you can imagine, and so the planning had to be done very, very carefully to make sure the right areas are lit in case of emergency. The feedback, however, has been great.

‘The other thing has been recognising just how much more stringent the Middle East’s regulations are for emergency lighting compliance, and so much better enforced than in Europe. Malls, shops, stadiums – they do not open unless the emergency lighting is tested and signed off by a fire safety professional, even though there are often huge commercial pressures to get things done,’ Rene continues.

‘You have about a ten times higher lux requirement on the exit routes, 10.8 versus 1 lux in the UK or Europe. All the products also have to be third-party approved, kitemarked-approved in this case, otherwise you cannot sell them.

‘It makes it more difficult for the contractor, but it delivers the highest level of safety and compliance that you can get. This is something I think the industry, including manufacturers, could learn from the Middle East,’ Rene adds.

Of course, we all have to hope that the only ‘emergency’ triggered during the tournament will be an urgent need – whether in England or Wales – to rush out and celebrate.

[1] ‘Revealed: 6,500 migrant workers have died in Qatar since World Cup awarded’, The Guardian, February 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/feb/23/ revealed-migrant-worker-deaths-qatar-fifa-world-cup-2022

www.theilp.org.uk

27

28

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Smart cities Ageing or poorly maintained ‘minor structures’ infrastructure, especially street lighting, risks being the Achilles heel of smart cities.

Essentially, if you can’t trust what you’re hanging your expensive kit on, can you trust this revolution at all? But it doesn’t have to be this way

By Trystan Williams

O

ur public spaces are broken. More people live in closer proximity than ever; it’s causing friction and ‘smart city’ devices are increasingly viewed as the antidote.

As Theo Blackwell, chief digital officer for London, argues in his article ‘How the Humble Lamppost Means Smarter Streets’, street lighting has long been a backbone in civic infrastructure and ‘by fostering international collaboration between industry and cities’ [1]. The smart city movement, he adds, ‘seeks to develop affordable, integrated, commercial-scale smart city solutions’ which can alleviate growing pains sustained by a growing city.

Smart cities bet on environmental sensors, CCTV, digital signage, 5G repeaters and public announcement systems to base public realm decisions on real-time, local data.

Environmental policy is a recent high-profile beneficiary, using data from NO2/CO2 monitors to quantify local concerns, but this is just the beginning.

Couple this with the potential for public messaging, traffic enforcement, parking monitoring and general surveillance and what you have is a valuable piece of real estate. To specify the installation of capable equipment, and to keep these in working order, may now seem a sensible investment.

of it. Invariably, the aim is to improve the lives of residents and visitors, and sound planning allows this to be extended to all constituencies, facilitating the buy-in, ownership and broad use previously noted.

The concept of smart cities, after all, is not new. For millennia, city leaders have striven to encourage urban growth by mitigating against the problems it invariably creates.

The aqueducts of Rome, for example, hastened its expansion by improving sanitation at a time of rapid growth. Yet, had these been built on compromised foundations, it might have had the opposite effect. It’s all in the planning with large-scale projects – and who are we to question the Romans?

To achieve the desired effect, smart city functions must be automated, real time, reliable and detailed. When operational, such functions (for example traffic or pollution monitoring) are to be relied upon by public and private clients alike. The finished solution should not impede existing functions but should seamlessly complement them.

This solution should be structurally sound but above all should possess capacity to accommodate additions or upgrades to

equipment. One thing is guaranteed, however: a solution is only as good as its support.

That is why a once mundane item of street furniture, the ‘humble’ lamppost, is now rapidly becoming the key backbone of our growing cities (as the graphic below illustrates). This is something that has become increasingly recognised – and whose ramifications are becoming an increasingly important topic of conversation within the lighting community.

Smart city devices are employed en masse to detect trends and develop algorithms.

That means data must be plentiful. They must of course be installed somewhere; usually somewhere specific to measure a particular variable in a particular location. Yet space (especially urban space) is short and in high demand.

THE STRUCTURAL DILEMMA

The dilemma is widely addressed by installing on existing structures. This is an economical and convenient option. But have such structures been adequately designed for this? Have they degraded since installation (almost certainly)? Is this ‘solution’

UNDERSTANDING ‘SMART’

Companies such as IOT Analytics, a provider of market insights and strategic business intelligence for the ‘Internet of Things’ (IOT), champion the virtues of ‘holistic design’ when building-in smart city systems.

This recognises the crucial importance of building such a pivotal system on solid foundations.

Consideration for the public also, naturally, comes high up their agenda – and we must indeed create healthy buy-in from all stakeholders.

However, this requires thought, and lots www.theilp.org.uk

29

30

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Smart cities safe? Urban development is a politicised topic, which can nudge these structural factors to the side. In a document released in 2017 from the European Innovation Partnership on Smart Cities and Communities (EIP-SCC) and SharingCities, the virtues of smart cities were championed [2].

Research derived from ‘The Humble Lamppost’ project was elaborated upon, with the document candidly declaring that the: ‘lamppost estate should be considered more as a regularly-spaced network of elevated posts rather than just poles to hang lightbulbs on’ [3].

This, however, ignores the fact that the ‘estate’, despite the best efforts of lighting professionals, may often be hampered by asset management, maintenance, resource and budgetary constraints – hence the need for the ILP’s well-regarded GN22 asset management toolkit [4]. Not to mention that, all too often, the structural conversation around whether a possibly elderly lighting column is actually suited to modern demands is only addressed as a side thought.

It doesn’t have to be this way, however. In Utrecht, for example, the fourth largest city in the Netherlands (with a population circa.

350,000), smart city initiatives contribute to achieving the city’s ambitious 2030 climate neutral targets under what was known as the ‘IRIS’ project [5].

During an audience hosted by Arthur Klink, senior adviser to the Utrecht Local Authority, it was clear that infrastructure condition and quality was a primary concern. Manufacturers were privy to (and key advisors on) the consultation; the authority knew what it wanted but crucially, it also knew what it needed.

A 2016 article by academic Daan Van Put embodied this holistic methodology endorsed by Utrecht: ‘In city centres public space is already loaded with objects like street lights, traffic lights, road signs, parking

Utrecht in the Netherlands has been a testbed for smart city innovations. Right: a Roman aqueduct, the ‘smart’ technology of its day

meters and billboards,’ he argued [6].

‘Municipalities try to minimize the addition of even more public objects, making them hesitant about adding many more charging stations. Because of these issues it seems to be interesting to look at new ways of installing and exploiting charging stations so that municipalities are able to provide all charging stations that are required in the near future. A promising new idea for installing public charging stations is to combine them with already existing municipal grid connections.’

Issues were identified and addressed at the outset, and the fruits of this labour are currently being realised. A column supplier to Utrecht (incidentally – full disclosure – also our supplier, Nedal) recently completed the development of a self-contained, in-column EV unit designed on the basis of prior consultation.

This will contribute to the city’s smart movement and highlights how consultation, planning and collaboration are inexpensive steps to developing a beneficial scheme for all stakeholders.

Yet, while Utrecht is a great positive example of how things can be done, against this backdrop of an ageing and often poorly maintained street furniture and street lighting infrastructure, the dilemma therefore remains: where on earth do we put all this

‘smart’ kit? We’re asking more and more of our infrastructure, and something needs to give. City planners should consider what is needed from their infrastructure and what they envisage will be necessary in future before designing their infrastructure accordingly.

UNPICKING ‘FUTURE PROOFING’

Consultation with manufacturers, building in spare capacity and ‘future proofing’ is the way to achieve this. This of course is a formality in many aspects of construction but ‘minor structures’, such as streetlights, often slip through the net.

This mindset needs to change. Such structures, installed near pedestrians and traffic, will be expected to support increasing number of devices, and system functionality will become increasingly indispensable. Can we afford not to future proof?

The development of smart city technology and devices is accelerating, making it difficult to define what ‘future-proofed’ infrastructure should entail.

Will equipment get lighter and smaller?

Or as functionality and reliance expands will the sheer quantity of devices offset this weight saving? We are simply unsure of the form future technology will take, but if recent technologies are anything to go by, change in this area can be expected.

UNDERWATER...UNDER CONTROL www.theilp.org.uk

ARCSOURCE™ SUBMERSIBLE

anolislighting.com

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Smart cities Infrastructure is not ‘fit and forget’ – it degrades and over time will become progressively less suited to its current or intended functions. It is therefore necessary to record, update and notify relevant departments and personnel of changes to capacity, whether induced by degradation or the addition of attachments, to avoid miscalculation, maximise value extraction from the column’s full capacity and minimise street clutter.

We all understand the need to add equipment. In fact, as an industry we actively encourage it – after all, extracting additional use from our products increases value to our customers.

The circle to be squared, however, remains a structural one. How do we collaborate to extract that value whilst maintaining the safety of the installation?

IMPORTANCE OF TESTING

At Aluminium Lighting Company, we prioritise non-destructive testing, working with companies such as Electrical Testing Limited to ensure that condition data is available, understandable and actionable. We know we’re not the only organisation to do this but, combined with capacity built at the outset, this approach allows city planners to access and have confidence in sound infrastructure built upon sound, quantifiable data.

That foundation also means smart city installations can then be designed, implemented and the greatest value extracted without concern for unintended structural consequences.

Often, of course, existing columns will already possess additional capacity and therefore there is no need for a new column.

The key is knowing this is the case. It is, however, also prudent to assess whether this spare capacity has been offset by the degradation of the column over time, the addition of unsanctioned equipment or perhaps an unlogged vehicle collision.

Each will affect the column in different ways and, where non-destructive testing is not a precursor to the addition of new equipment, excess fatigue can develop, so curtailing the design life of the structure, with potentially catastrophic results.

Ultimately, it’s a matter of safely maximising value from minimal space, and this is achieved through the specification and how it is policed.

On the one hand, designers may specify a future-proofed, heavier-duty column specifically intended for additional equipment. On the other, in the real world, compromises may be sought by contractors (or whoever) to reduce price and gain a competitive advantage, compromises that may end up eliminating the spare capacity initially designed in.

This is understandable where budgets are tight but this short sightedness needs to change.

Multifunction or ‘componentised’ poles are beginning to emerge as a viable solution, particularly on inner-city sites. Our partner in Australia, Urban Aluminium, has had recent success with a componentised ‘raise and lower’ column combining functionality with ease of maintenance.

Such columns have large outwardly stepped sections at the bottom that can accommodate control panels and cut-outs.

Venting is included to cool components and expel harmful gasses.

Holistic design, manufacturer consultation, generally putting more thought into the equipment we use shouldn’t be a tickbox exercise. It should be the vehicle through which communities can be engaged and stereotypes demolished – and a functional, valuable smart city environment developed for the benefit of all.

SUMMARY

To that end – and in summary – to make smart cities a reality, I’d argue it is beholden

on lighting professionals to engage with institutions such as IOT Analytics, the EIPSCC and SharingCities, along with key decision makers such as digital officers.

We should share with these groups our collective, longstanding knowledge of our products and their capabilities but also learn what it is they want from our products going forward. We also need to learn, benefit from and more widely disseminate the leadership of organisations such as the ILP and, for example, its GN12 smart lighting column guidance [7].

Without this engagement, we within lighting (as a community) are destined too often to accept mediocre smart city solutions, at great cost to the taxpayer.

Don’t get me wrong, the technology may be great and exciting and shiny and new. But if the structural foundations underpinning it are crumbling (perhaps literally) we’re not doing anyone any favours, least of all lighting.

Trystan Williams is market analyst at Aluminium Lighting Company

[1] ‘How the “humble lamppost” means smarter streets — through London’s big collaboration with fellow European cities’, Smart London, July 2018, https://smartlondon.medium.com/ the-humble-lamppost-means-smarter-streets-through-london-s-big-collaboration-with-fellow-european-f3f25975c93e [2] ‘The Marketplace of the European Innovation Partnership on Smart Cities and Communities (EIP-SCC)’, https://smart-cities-marketplace.ec.europa.eu/sites/default/files/EIP_Brochure.pdf [3] ‘Humble Lamppost’, European Commission, https://smart-citiesmarketplace.ec.europa.eu/action-clusters-and-initiatives/action-clusters/integrated-infrastructures-and-processes/humble [4] ‘GN22 Asset-management toolkit: minor structures’ (ATOMS), The ILP, https://theilp.org.uk/publication/guidance-note-22-asset-management-toolkit-minor-structures-atoms/ [5] ‘IRIS Utrecht’, European Commission, https://smart-cities-marketplace. ec.europa.eu/projects-and-sites/projects/iris/iris-utrecht [6] ‘Alternative Connections for Public EV Charging Points: using existing municipal grid connections and objects for the installation of public EV charging points’, Daan van Put, 2016 Utrecht University and EV Consult [7] GN12 ‘The smart lighting column’, The ILP, https://theilp.org.uk/publication/guidance-note-12-the-smartlighting-column/

www.theilp.org.uk

31

32

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

FESTIV

As we head into our first post-pandemic winter, light festivals, thankfully, have been starting to return. As well as being a great spectacle and boosting local economies, light festivals can help communities to create a sense of place, identity, education and engagement. Designer Eleanna Kapokaki looks at what makes a successful light festival

By Eleanna Kapokaki

L

ight has always attracted people because of the curiosity it inspires.

Light also makes us feel comfortable by increasing visibility and providing information and wayfinding.

The role of light festivals as a social or cultural phenomenon, a source of knowledge and inspiration, has become a key

conversation in both the industry and academia in recent years.

Alongside this, the use of light as ‘art’ is increasingly being recognised by cities and municipalities as an important economic and cultural incentive, as a way to generate ‘smart tourism’ and community engagement with the public realm. This has become

even more important since the pandemic and the need for more outdoors-based activities and socialising.

Artistic lighting installations are phenomenological visual experiences; they use cutting-edge technologies and the creativity of artists to involve and interact with the public – to immerse their audience – rather than simply be ‘art’ that is out of reach, viewed from a distance or in a gallery.

Public spaces are transformed into, effectively, ‘salons’ of society, spaces where people meet to interact, with body and mind, regardless of age, gender, education, culture or economic status.

BENCHMARKING FEASIBILITY

But light festivals can of course be expensive and time-consuming to establish and run; they require an investment of time, money and commitment.

Is there therefore a high-quality

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Light festivals

methodology that municipalities can use to check the feasibility of a local lighting festival? Is there a way that cities can benchmark or evaluate proposals for light festivals so as to strengthen possibly low touristic interest in, or community engagement with, their urban spaces?

An important (and relatively self-evident) first step for the creation of a lighting festival in an area is simply ensuring there is a prior awareness of light, of the art and power of lighting, and its artistic steps. This can be created through educational programmes for schools, universities and municipal bodies, colleges and artistic workshops.

However, light festivals, as we have highlighted, can contribute to a sense of belonging among citizens, a sense of community and municipal identity, and of participation in the public realm.

At a practical level, this is often seen through the participation of local students and colleges, combining artworks with interactive activities and workshops related to the festival, the employment of temporary local employees and even possibly permanent staff. Light festivals can also be a boon for local food vendors or retail outlets.

EMBEDDING CIVIC PRIDE

By studying light artists who pioneered the field (László Moholy-Nagy, James Turrell and Dan Flavin, for example) but also various festivals around the world, it is clear that, even if artists determine the overall artistic vision, the involvement of local people right from the outset is critical.

Not only can this save on costs and outlay but it is a key way to inspire pride in, and therefore engagement with, the light festival. Light can act as a catalyst for shaping civic pride, pride in place.

Along with ensuring knowledge and responsibilities are given to the locals, the primary planning of the programme of the festival is perhaps the most important initial planning element to get pinned down. A

Some spectacular light festivals around the world. Main image: Lumiere London. Top: Amsterdam Light Festival. Above: Berlin Festival of Lights

well-structured and engaging programme will underpin the whole course – and success – of the festival.

What then makes for a successful light festival programme? Obviously, every festival is going to be different and will reflect its own priorities and community, but broadly, considering these points will help: • Invite both well-known and less wellknown designers and light artists to exhibit so as to create a mix of installations from established and up-and-coming artists. Again, prioritising some local, community or student artworks can be a good idea here.

• Prioritise proactive marketing, communication and advertising – physical, online or on social media. This can also of course be an opportunity to consider sponsorship or advertising options.

• Consider the role and input of local or community volunteers, especially the involvement of any schools or colleges, or interactive workshops, perhaps.

• Liaise closely with lighting designers (either local practices or lighting

• • •

•

•

professionals who are simply interested in being involved) as to what is doable around technology but also any limitations or restrictions (for example planning, height or electricity/power) you may need to work around.

Within this, consider how to integrate and involve both small and large domestic or local lighting firms.

Equally, consider how to integrate and combine both traditional and new technologies and materials.

Establish a panel or committee to robustly and transparently select and evaluate the best – and most inclusive – design projects and designers that will participate in the festival.

Ensure within this that there are opportunities to showcase new artists, that they are given a chance to shine in a new location.

Carefully plan out your route and locations, including for visibility, safety and crowd management as well as their role as community focal points, and their commercial potential (for food and other vendors and so forth). www.theilp.org.uk

33

34

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Light festivals

Lumiere London (showing Westminster Abbey). Right: ‘Untitled’ by light art pioneer Dan Flavin in Santa Maria Annunciata in Chiesa Rossa Church in Milan. Below: ‘Skyspace’ by James Turrell

• Create, carefully manage (and stick to!) your budget, including building in provision for over-runs or unexpected extra costs.

• If you can, do a test-run week in advance to iron out any problems and give everyone confidence that the event will be a success.

INTERACTIVE WORKSHOPS

Very important to the creation of a successful light festival is the use of interactive workshops.

You can, for example, complement your lighting installations and light art with, say, mini daily workshops or interactive debates, or keynote speakers. This all helps to create a sense that there is something for everyone at your event. They can also maintain interest – and footfall – during the daytime, when your installations are, of course, less visually compelling.

You could have a complementary focus or theme to these additional activities, maybe music or gastronomy; or health and wellbeing; dance art and sculpture; sustainability; or technologies of the future. Or just go with the flow! They key is that, even if lighting is at the core, it is not just about lighting.

FOOD AND CATERING

Catering is not only a basic need for the visitors but can also help to foster interest in local and traditional cuisines and artisan makers.

This then helps to connect the festival to the local economy, strengthen local markets and engagement and boosts the community.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Yes, a light festival is a physical event and, especially post pandemic, an opportunity for communities physically to get back together.

But social media activity also needs to be a key part of the promotional run-up, the event itself, and the post-event ‘narrative’. www.theilp.org.uk

Narratives can be generated through the photographs, videos and stories of each attendee, on their personal social media accounts, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter and so on. But it is also important to have your own lively and vibrant social media channels – if you have someone on your planning team willing to do it (and with the right skills), great, otherwise you may need to consider allocating some of your budget to this.

Consider, too, if there are especially visual ‘hotspots’ around the site of the festival that people can congregate at for social media updates or whether it’s better just to allow a bit of a free-for-all and so, potentially, very different perspectives.

USE OF DRONES

Drone’s eye technology, if is properly organised, can benefit the whole festival area, creating stunning visuals that, again, can light up social media.

Drones are now of course, increasingly, also now being considered as part of the ‘light’ show themselves, and able to provide dynamic and breath-taking scenes that can really complement the light art.

Obviously, you’ll need someone who knows what they’re doing in terms of operating drones, not least from a health and safety perspective. But drones can these days be used to amazing effect.

SUMMARY

Light festivals, in short, can over time prove to be not just economically viable but extremely profitable for municipalities – profitable culturally, artistically, in terms of community cohesion and engagement, and even, hopefully, financially too.

They can be a great way to help with urban regeneration and place making, both for host cities and, more widely, potentially for their host countries.

Depending on the scale and reach of your

festival, visitors can increase the revenue of businesses such as accommodations, restaurants, and airlines. A successful, well-run light festival can bring with it real digital as well as physical impact; it will create a ‘bright’ global image of the city on the world map.

Motivated and led by great, dynamic light art, light festivals can send a powerful message of change, of identity and purpose.

They can enhance the night-time urban fabric, transforming spaces and, critically, community and public perception of spaces.

They can showcase what lighting can do, the artistic as well as technological side of lighting, plus the positive potential future of the place. They can make the environment come alive.

In conclusion, light festivals can be used to solve multifaceted problems. Yes, light festivals are about fun and entertainment, but in the right hands they can also be a key catalyst to renewing and regenerating the urban fabric and enhancing community cohesion, engagement, identity and place.

Eleanna Kapokaki is an interior and lighting architect based in Greece and is a lighting design graduate from the Hellenic Open University, under professors Thanos Balafoutis and Nikolaos Kourniatis

Image shows our retrofit gear trays in Newbury Town Centre, installed within DW Windsor Strand and Schréder Albany lanterns.

Waste not, want not Sky high energy prices, the circular economy - whatever your driver - if you’re still running SON lamps and your existing lanterns are in good condition, now is the time to upgrade.

Cost-effective and quick-to-install, you can rely on our IP65 retrofit gear trays and IP66 replacement bowls to breathe new life into otherwise sound installations.

Want to learn more? For further information on our retrofit solutions, contact hello@acrospire.co

acrospire.co

12

YEAR

WARRANTY

36

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

SAVING PLACE

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Light festivals From this page through to page 40, images from LewesLight 2020. Main image: ‘There is no planet B’.

This is a commentary on single-use plastics by lighting designer and artist Martina Alagna. All photographs

by James McCauley

E

leanna Kapokaki’s discussion, from page 32, on the priorities you need to consider for producing a curated festival of light art shares much of the approach taken by the LewesLight Festival in East Sussex.

In particular, her focus on the importance of community engagement, education, the promotion of new artists, and the need to raise awareness of light as a vehicle for place-making within the urban realm all echo what we strive to achieve with LewesLight.

In this article, therefore, I have set out to frame this discussion in a real-world example, using the LewesLight Festival that took place in early 2020 as an example and some of its installations as case studies to show how these can be made to work in a live situation.

To recap, the event took place in February/March 2020 with a backdrop of three major storms and a looming pandemic, as Lighting Journal reported at the time (‘Environmental assessment’, June 2020, vol 85 no 6).

The poor weather affected audience numbers, which did not reach the previous year’s high, and the festival only just scraped under the wire before the national lockdown. However, the quality of installations hit a new peak, as did engagement with students and community organisations.

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

How can you use light festivals as a vehicle for community engagement, education, promotion of new artists and to raise awareness of light in place-making within the urban realm? Using LewesLight 2020 as a case study, Graham Festenstein investigates

By Graham Festenstein

Light festivals are unique in their ability to engage with a community, partly because of the emotive nature of the medium but also because they can bring people together within a specific timeframe, when it is dark, for a social experience.

As in previous years, the 2020 festival had a theme. In contrast to past editions, which had narrative based on the history of the town, for that year it was one of the environment, of exploring sea level rise due to climate change, pollution and, crucially, the impact of artificial light on the environment.

To facilitate this from a design perspective, the festival also had two supplementary themes of water and moonlight.

Lewes sits on a tidal river only a few miles from the south coast; at the millennium the town suffered severe flooding, so making this a sensitive community issue. It is also highly probable that the town will suffer flooding again over the coming decades as a result of sea level rise. The festival collaborated with the Environment Agency to help raise awareness of these concerns within the community.

DARK SKIES AND EDUCATION

Lewes is located within the dark skies reserve of the South Downs National Park.

‘Remembering our Place’ by Lee Painter, Christie Amery and the team from BDP Lighting

The festival has always promoted the principles of responsible environmental lighting and 2020 was no exception, using the moonlight theme to encourage designers and artists to work with minimal light levels.

As a community-based event, education has always been at the heart of LewesLight and, in 2020, the festival was able to embed education into the design of a number installations covering a wide range of ages and academic level.

For school-aged children, including those with special needs, artists and designers delivered two series of workshops culminating with installations. One worked with a local environmental charity and the Environment Agency on sea-level rise and the other with a special needs school exploring ideas around the moon.

For undergraduate students, the festival collaborated with Brighton University School of Art and Rose Bruford College, embedding students to work with artists and designers. Students from Guildford School of Acting at Surrey University were also engaged working with the technical team.

The festival collaborated with postgraduate students from the UCL Light and Lighting MSc, again providing opportunities for students to work closely with artists and designers as they developed their work.

As well as those in education, the festival has a clear aspiration to provide opportunities for new and young artists and to provide mentorship and professional support. It is about promoting contributions and collaborations between artists and other disciplines, including engineers and designers.

The festival also has relationships with a www.theilp.org.uk

37

38

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Light festivals

Left: ‘Running Parallel’ by Jeanne Blisset Robertson. Above: ‘Polar Bears’ by Nicki Gunson. Below: ‘Water Wall’. This was a dynamic piece by artist Maggie Lambert in collaboration with Emily Lowry with original music by Jonathan Meacock

number of community organisations and groups, including the town and district councils. These community collaborators contribute in a number of ways. They provide funding, volunteers, venues and equipment. They also directly contribute to the content of installations through workshops (such as lantern making), producing music or the making of other decorative elements to supplement artists’ work.

The festival also worked with local schools, a charity working with disabled adults, a local women’s choir, environmental groups, and church groups.

CELEBRATION OF COLLABORATION

As well as the support from local visual artists, LewesLight has always been supported by other local arts professionals. This includes musicians, composers, makers and poets through collaborations with the installation designers.

One of the most integrated projects within the 2020 festival concerned the collaboration with the Environment Agency, the Lewes Railway Land Wildlife Trust and local schools exploring climate change and flooding.

LewesLight team member, community artist and sculptor Michelle Dufaur devised and ran workshops with secondary school children culminating in an installation by Michelle, ‘Ripples’, and a projection piece devised and produced by the children facilitated by graphic designer Chris Prewett.

Running parallel with this was an installation, ‘Water Wall’, by artists Maggie Lambert and Emily Lowery, with original music composed by Jonathan Meacock.

Another projection piece informed by the risk of sea level rise was produced by lighting designer Sunny Sribanditmongkol, ‘Tide 2020’.

Working with Lewes resident and www.theilp.org.uk

acclaimed poet Grace Nichols, inspired by her poem ‘Moon’s Letter to Earth’, Sunny’s installation explored the changing tides on the façade of the South Malling Church with additional contributions by members of the church congregation.

Other water-inspired works included ‘Running Parallel’, a piece by artist Jeanne Bliss Robertson. This was an underwater recording showing the change of sunlight as it cuts through the water of a large local duck pond throughout the day. It was projected on to a screen rising out of the water of the adjacent public Lido, providing a fascinating and beautiful alternative perspective to an otherwise unseen world only metres away.

‘There is no planet B’ was a piece by lighting designer and artist Martina Alagna – who as we show in the next article has also been a contributor to this year’s Lights in Alingsås light festival in Sweden.

Her work commented on the pollution of the oceans by single-use plastics, using hundreds of floating bottles glowing eerily under UV light under the watchful presence of a large inflatable globe.

The second major educational project was a collaboration with Manor Green College in

Ifield, Crawley. Manor Green is a school for special needs students aged 11-19. Working with the school’s head of art Vanessa Dell, lighting designer Margareth Sunjoto and East Sussex-based Shadow Cabinet, puppetry was prepared and delivered during workshops, resulting in two projection pieces inspired by the moon.

A shadow puppet show was presented by the children and turned into a short film for projection at the festival by film maker Mick Hawksworth. Then, a piece devised by Margareth was accompanied by music composed by professional soprano Ruth Kerr and performed by local women’s choir, The Paddock Singers.

Other moon-inspired installations included ‘Lunar Cycle’, a piece by Eleni Shiarlis exploring the phasing of the moon; a dynamic multi-media work using light, music and water.

Another remarkable piece was ‘Remembering our Place’, by Lee Painter and Christie Amery together with a team from BDP Lighting. A beautiful ethereal figure with a moon heart was surrounded by the refection of ripples to a soundtrack of a poem written especially for the piece by Christie.

Did you know.....

Charles Endirect Ltd, invented the CET earthing system?

Since then, we have gone on to design and manufacture some of the most innovative and durable products used in streetlighting, highways and infrastructure projects.

We offer products ranging from CETs to our CELtek Central Management System which controls luminaires and connected products across the motorways of the UK. We consciously invest in new technologies, training, and development to ensure we continue to expand and develop our product range, and provide the excellent technical expertise and customer service you expect from Charles Endirect.

We would like to thank all our customers for their continued support and offer our best wishes for a prosperous and successful 2023.

If you would like to know more about our products and services, please visit our website or contact us direct.

T: +44(0)1963 828 400 E: info@charlesendirect.com

CharlesEndirect.com Wessex Way, Wincanton Business Park, Wincanton, Somerset BA9 9RR Reg no 1855059 England

40

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Light festivals Other installations were provided by Tim Minter, Arjun Mistry, Kate Chapman, Catherine Grimaldi and Gallit Shaltiel, poet Heather Shann, a team from Studio Fractal, Nikki Gunson, Miranda Davis and Matthew Button. Photographs of all of the these and the other works discussed here can be seen on the LewesLight website: at www. leweslight.uk

CONCLUSIONS

So, what does all this tell us more widely about light festivals? Other festivals sometimes describe themselves as having the aim of ‘taking over’ a city and turning it into a huge art gallery; in many ways LewesLight is the antithesis of this approach.

It is core to the ethos of the festival that it is something that is born from the heart of the community, that it is site-specific and celebrates the spaces and places it inhabits.

As a design-led arts festival, it has always been a fundamental aim of the event that it takes everyday places and shows them in a surprising and extraordinary way, but in such a way people can connect with on a personal level.

As a community event, the festival

acknowledges the wide and diverse range of visitors and participants’ expectations; it is important to us that the event is accessible to all, both as a visual experience and as an intellectual one but also one with artistic integrity and with no compromise on quality.

Ultimately, to my mind, LewesLight demonstrates how a lighting festival – any light festival – has the potential to deliver much more than just a spectacle of exciting, bright and beautiful visual experiences, or installations that are touted around from place to place with little connection to the venue they end up in.

A lighting festival can deliver for both visitors and residents, and community and tourism. As importantly, it can provide economic benefit and aid community cohesion, especially for sectors of the community with little in the way of arts provision or opportunities for engagement of this kind. And long may that continue.

Graham Festenstein CEng MILP MSLL is owner of Graham Festenstein Lighting Design and the ILP’s Vice President – Architectural

Top: Sunny Sribanditmongkol’s ‘Tide 2020’. This was accompanied by Grace Nichols reading of her poem ‘Moon’s Letter to Earth’.

Above: ‘Over the Moon and Far Away’ by Matthew Button and Miranda Davis. Right: ‘Lunar Cycle’ by Eleni Shiarlis

www.theilp.org.uk

FESTIVAL CREDITS:

LewesLight 2020 had significant support from the lighting industry, in particular: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Commercial Lighting Systems Light Projects iGuzzini White Light Architainment EL Wirecraft Mode Lighting LED Linear Rosco Casambi East Sussex Highways Design Consultancy Partners Nulty+ BDP Lighting Studio 29 Karen Van Creveld

Fabrication and technical support was provided by Russell Beck Studio. Festival photography was by James McCauley (including all images accompanying this article) www.mccauleyphotos.com The LewesLight team comprised Graham Festenstein, Pat Beck, Michelle Dufaur, Russell Beck, and Bronagh Liddicoat.

LewesLight 2020 was supported by the Arts Council England, Lewes Town Council, The Rowland Family Foundation and The Sachs Trust Fund at Sussex Community Foundation.

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

THE LARGEST RANGE

R

OF PROFESSIONAL SOLAR

OUTDOOR & GARDEN LIGHTING

Innovate

Educate

Illuminate

MORE

WITH PIR MOTION SENSOR

DESIGNED FOR UK WEATHER

ILLUMINATE 365 DAYS A YEAR

GRADUAL DIMMING SEQUENCES LI-ION BATTERIES

SOL-ICON

OLYMPIA

ECCENTRICA

GUARDA

LITECHARGA

Professional Solar Lighting by Lumena Lights

PANAMA PIR

FIND OUT

BOLLARD LIGHTS IN THE U.K.

LAST ALL NIGHT

WILDLIFE FRIENDLY WARM WHITE OPTIONS

IMPRESSIVE OUTPUTS

EXPECTED 8-10 YR BATTERY LIFE

SUSTAINABLE RADIATA TIMBER PATH LIGHTS SOLAR & MAINS 240V

01327 871161 sales@lumenalights.com

Visit Our Showroom Mon-Fri. 9-5 Lumena Lights Ltd, Centre 33, Long March, Daventry, Northamptonshire, NN11 4NR

www.lumenalights.com

in

RADIATA SLEEPER (240V)

MORE

RADIATA EDISOL (SOLAR)

Discuss your Projects with our Team

FIND OUT

RADIATA RANGE

www.theilp.org.uk

41

42

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

EARTH AND SKY

Sweden’s popular Lights in Alingsås light festival ran from September to the beginning of this month, and showcased some stunning light art installations

By Nic Paton

T

he Lights in Alingsås light festival has run in in the city of Alingsås, near Gothenburg in the west of Sweden, every September now since the turn of the millennium.

The annual event goes back to 1998, when students from Ljuscentrum at the University of Gothenburg came to Alingsås to experiment with architectural lighting in public spaces.

The following year they did the same thing and were joined by students from Jönköping University, which is located in the south of the country.

The municipality of Alingsås entered into an agreement with the Professional Lighting Designers Association in 2000 to run an annual event and, since 2018, Alingsås Energi has been the owner of the project. It is run in collaboration with the International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD).

The theme and lighting trail for each festival are determined in advance by Alingsås Energi, with the installations and artworks generated during a one-week workshop, where lighting designers and students work together day and night.

The small fact of a global pandemic did

mean things had to change a bit with, in 2021, the workshop having to be a more limited affair, confined to students from two schools in Sweden, KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and Jönköping University This year, however, things were totally back to normal, with the workshop students and managers coming from 25 different countries.

Visitors and residents were able to enjoy the festival for five weeks, with a trail of installations winding for roughly 3km through the city, with Lights in Alingsås

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Light festivals

Lights in Alingsås light festival 2022. Clockwise from main image: ‘The Bridge to Plantaget’, two views of ‘Lugnet’, ‘Udden’, two views of ‘Waterside Grove and the Labyrinth’, and ‘Embrace the Elements’. All photographs by Patrik Gunnar Helin

finally set to conclude this Saturday (5 November).

Looking at a few of the installations, at the Södra Ringgatan Tunnel, Scottish light artist Kay Flounders has used an interplay of colours materials and shadows to encourage passers-by to slow down and enjoy the embrace of light. Shadows are important in the installation, as is structure.

MELTING GLACIERS

For ‘Waterside Grove and the Labyrinth’, German and Hong Kong artist Meike Goessling has conveyed a feeling of melting glaciers, highlighting of course the climate emergency.

As the organisers put it: ‘The installation should be seen from a distance, close up and from inside. The visitor is invited to enter the labyrinth to see how the stones, which look normal from a distance, turn into gems.’ The use of shadows also played with visitors’ perceptions from different viewpoints.

For ‘Udden’ by Dutch artists Ellen Goulmy and Berry Van Egten, trees have been illuminated at regular intervals, which then fade into the dark.

Linea Light Group’s Martina Alagna created the installation ‘The Bridge to Plantaget’, a four-minute trail designed to encourage visitors to slow down and experience a

quiet yet playful journey through nature.

For ‘Lugnet’, Jonathan Plumpton, a US light artist, applied reflective strips to a bridge, with the subsequent ‘waterfall’ illuminated to resemble falling raindrops.

As the organisers explained: ‘The garden summer house is illuminated to make it seem bigger and visitors are invited to beat the drum found inside. The disco ball in the ceiling has warm, autumnal colours.’

For those unable to get to Sweden in person, you can check out the festival’s website at https://www.lightsinalingsas.se/en/ www.theilp.org.uk

43

44

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

SACRED SPACE

T

he Serpentine Gallery’s Serpentine Pavilion ‘Black Chapel’ was an installation that ran from June until the middle of last month as part of a wider two-year research project, ‘The Question of Clay’, investigating the making, labour and production of clay.

To that end, the structure encompassed a diverse range of references, everything from the bottle kilns of Stoke-on-Trent through to the beehive kilns of the western United States, San Pietro and the Roman

tempiettos, as well as traditional African structures, such as the Musgum mud huts of Cameroon, and the Kasubi Tombs of Kampala, Uganda.

As the Serpentine itself adds: ‘The pavilion’s circularity and volume echo the sacred forms of Hungarian round churches and the ring shouts, voodoo circles and “roda de capoeira” witnessed in the sacred practices of the African diaspora.’

The Black Chapel was designed by Chicago-based artist Theaster Gates and made

The Serpentine Pavilion ‘Black Chapel’ was a focal point of reflection and contemplation in the heart of London over the summer – with a lighting scheme to match

By Nic Paton real with the architectural support of Adjaye Associates and financial support from Goldman Sachs.

Conceived as a space for gathering, meditation and participation, with an emphasis on sacred music, Black Chapel worked as a platform for a programme of live music, arts and workshops that ran throughout the summer, offering the public a chance to reflect and connect.

CONTEMPLATIVE SPACE

Zumtobel was the sponsor of the lighting scheme for this year’s pavilion, with the illumination being provided by AECOM. As associate director Katja Leszczynska explains, the scheme needed to be carefully planned and specified so as to ensure it totally complemented the contemplative and reflective nature of the space.

‘The space was intentionally simple and monochrome, made of blackened timber. All the surfaces – walls, floor and roof – were black inside and outside.

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Architectural lighting

The Serpentine Gallery’s ‘Black Chapel’, with a lighting scheme by AECOM

The proposed lighting therefore followed the same principles,’ she tells Lighting Journal.

The large entrances and central oculus provided a connection to the outside space.

‘During the day natural light was reaching the central space and also the daylight pattern was meandering through the space as the day progressed. In the evening, we had additional lighting to complement the architecture,’ Katya adds.

How this was achieved was by a combination of blending in the lighting and ensure it was not acting as a distraction, she emphasises. ‘The pendants in the main space were positioned in radial arrangement so that they did not disturb the views of the oculus, the views of the sky,’ Katya says.

‘The external lighting was then well-integrated within the architectural detail. We had bench-integrated linear lighting illuminating the external paths. There were also uplighters to highlight the bell, which was an important element of this year’s pavilion,’ she adds.

FOCUS ON SUSTAINABILITY

As is now the case in so many areas of lighting, sustainability was a key part of the design conversation.

‘In this year’s pavilion we used lighting control to minimise the use of electrical lighting,’ Katya says. ‘Pre-set lighting scenes responded to the time of the day and could be additionally adjusted. This enabled the gallery to select predefined scenes for each type of the event or time of the day.

‘That way we also made sure that artificial light was only used as additional source to the daylight,’ she adds.

In terms of products, for the internal space – the general and bar lighting – Zumtobel’s VIVO II-P M FOOD suspended pendants in black finish were used.

For the external space, the group’s asymmetric strip was recessed into the bench detail. Projectors for the bell were provided

by Thorn Contrast, integrated within the bench, with all lights 3000K. All controlled

by Zumtobel’s LITECOM Lighting Controls system.

Finally, what were the main challenges and learning points from this sort of project?

‘The short timescale of the project was a design and logistic challenge,’ explains Katya. ‘We have only few weeks to design the lighting and order the materials.

‘Other than that, one challenge was the long suspension cables, which were designed to avoid movement of the lights. The pavilion was 10m high and the pendants had to be suspended to 4m above the ground,’ she adds.

www.theilp.org.uk

45

46

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME From crude manual time clocks to sophisticated satellite-based control devices, the pace of change of the time clocks used within street lighting has been breath-taking, especially in the second half of the twentieth century

By Seán Noone

D

espite the headline, this article isn’t going to be about the famous Stephen Hawking book on theoretical cosmology.

Rather, through a look at various time zones and measures of time, I intend to outline how our understanding of how we measure time has evolved and changed and, from that, led to how time clocks are used today, including within street lighting.

DIFFERENT TYPES OF TIME

1. Railway Time. The growing use of railways in the 1800s brought with it some innovation in timekeeping.

With the railways giving people the ability to travel at speed across vast areas, even continents, for the first time,

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Lighting history

Figure 1. World time zone map

travellers faced the problem of having different times when they arrived at different stations. This was causing confusion in large countries, such as the United States of America.

A single standardised time was therefore necessary, and in 1840 the Great Western Railway introduced what we today call today ‘standardised time’.

Standardised time is not perfect, as there are problems with defining the second, because of the Earth’s rotation not being constant.

Our planet is affected by tidal friction, by seasons varying, and a host of other unpredictable events.

2. Daylight Saving Time. Wars create many problems, and the measuring of time was one of the problems faced by governments during World War One. To preserve fuel that was used to produce electricity, Germany and Austria began ‘Daylight Saving Time’, or setting the clocks one hour forward from spring to autumn, on 11 April, 1916.

This (as we all well know, having lived with it ever since) enabled regions to gain more daylight hours in the evening.

As well as saving on energy, it also allowed for more productivity from factories.

Britain and European countries quickly followed Germany and Austria’s lead, with the United States also introducing it when it entered the war.

3. Co-ordinated Universal Time (Universal Time). Coordinated Universal

Time (or Universal Time) is the modern version of Greenwich Mean Time.

The phrase was coined in the 1930s.

It is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time.

The coordination of time and frequency transmissions around the world began on 1 January, 1960 4. Solar Time. Solar time, as the name suggests, is a measurement of the Earth’s rotation relative to our sun. The calculation is based on the passage of time based on the position of the sun in the sky at any particular time.

The fundamental unit of solar time is the day, based on the synodic rotation period.

There are two types of solar time.

Apparent Solar Time (or sundial time) and Mean Solar Time (or clock time).

Solar time may differ from actual clock time by as much as plus or minus 45 minutes at a given time of year.

This scheme was converted to electric street lighting in 1903 and switched on and off by a crude time clock.

Peter Henlein, a locksmith from Nuremburg in Germany, is credited with the invention of both modern-day clocks and time clocks, and he was also the originator of the entire clock-making industry that has served us well to the present day.

In later years the first automatic streetlight control was introduced, and it was a mechanical time clock. Those time clocks had to be regularly wound and adjusted for

DIFFERENT ZONES OF TIME

As a general point of information, there are 24 time zones in the world, with another three having been created as a result of the international dateline. Some time zones are only 30 to 45 minutes apart, and you can see them in figure 1 above.

TIME CLOCKS IN STREET LIGHTING

The first street lighting in England was installed at the Victoria Embarkment. Its electrical power was supplied from Gramme Generators in the year 1878.

The famous German locksmith Peter Henlein

www.theilp.org.uk

47

48

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Lighting history THE FUTURE OF STREET LIGHTING (AND ALL) TIME CLOCKS

lighting up times every number of set weeks.

A major advancement was then the calendar time clock, which showed the days of the week, the month, phases of the moon and sometimes other phenomena in addition to hours, minutes, and seconds.

The next evolution was the development of time clocks for controlling gas street lighting.

Gas street lighting was of course common before electrical street lighting and is still a popular means of lighting in heritage areas, for example Phoenix Park in Dublin (pictured above).

Gas streetlight time clocks were impressive pieces at the time. They include a spring that is wound and engineered to turn a valve to allow gas to reach the streetlight mantle.

The timer mechanism adjusted time settings every month in the early years until what is known today as the solar dial was invented, which adjusted time daily. These were the first daily automatic controls of street lighting as far as we know.

MODERN SOLAR/ASTRO TIME CLOCKS FOR STREET LIGHTING

As we’ve already highlighted, Solar Time is a calculation of the passage of time based on the position of the sun in the sky, and is different from watch- or clock-based time, with two types: Apparent Solar Time (sundial time) and Mean Solar Time (clock time).

Solar or Astro time clocks are ideal for dusk-to-dawn or part-night control of all types of outdoor lighting, including streetlights or groups of streetlights, as they can accommodate the slight changes you get within solar time.

Solar time depends upon longitude, and it advances by four minutes each day. Therefore, a solar time clock is ideal for control of www.theilp.org.uk

display, amenity, security, staircase and street lighting, and especially grouped street lighting and sign lighting.

The solar time clock is a very advanced time clock that also incorporates a normal

Figure 2. An example of the fluctuating length of Apparent Solar Days

watch or clock time switching channel. It has a method to correct local watch or clock time to solar time, so as to correct for the true time of day according to the sun relative to the meantime.

In these conversions, each year is assumed to begin just after midnight on 31 December.

Time counts from there and the time corrections are in terms of minutes, not hours.

The equation in the solar time clock corrects the time to Mean Solar Time by adding or subtracting up to 16 minutes of correction.

It is a ‘two-channel, seven day per week’ time clock with a sunrise/sunset tracking feature on one channel and standard timeswitch settings on the second channel.

Standard switching time is used for all other types of watch or clock time switching.

Albert Einstein once wrote: ‘People like us who believe in physics know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.’

Timekeeping in the future will more than likely be controlled automatically by computers, corrected by satellite-transmitted time signals.

All analogue timekeeping clocks cannot accommodate 61 minutes (the ‘leap second’ built in to accommodate the Earth’s orbital fluctuations), but digital clocks can. Believe it or not, this extra second is important for calibrating computer clocks for the leap second.

It is clear from history that time clock development will not stand still. So far, no timekeeping mechanism has successfully accommodated all the leap-day adjustments, as the length of our days are expected to increase over this millennia.

Atomic clocks, however, remain the most accurate time and frequency standards known today. We use them as our primary standards for international time distribution services, for example to control the carrier frequency of television broadcasts and in global navigation and so on.

Future time clocks will deliver the precise time anywhere in the world using time signals received from satellites. Similar to our new modern watches and clocks, time clocks will likely incorporate Satellite Wave GPS technology. This provides the precise time no matter where you are in the world once you can receive a satellite signal.

A further innovation is the design and laboratory testing of ‘Optical Precision Time Transfer Instruments’.

These compact devices enable real-time terrestrial-to-space clock corrections to be possible. By using existing satellite laser-ranging facilities, this is exciting and will deliver even more precise timekeeping into the future once developed.

Finally, just think about today’s smart phones, iPads and computers. They have a time clock speed in GHz, whereas in the early 1980s it was MHz. If we go back to the 1950s, it was KHz. That illustrates the pace of change.

Right now, too, you can purchase a time clock no bigger that a grain of rice plus its supporting electronics – and it can all fit into the watch on your wrist. That pace of change is unlikely to slow anytime soon.

Seán Noone BSc DBA is chairman and managing director of Westire Technology

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Zhaga Book 18 Photocells & Accessories

Zhaga Book 18 Photocells Type-A Control Device for Zhaga Book 18 D4i Ecosystem

With Various Multilevel Dimming triggered by Westire’s Advanced Astro-Clock Algorithm

Zhaga Receptacle Mounting Bracket Kit For Wall & Pole Mounting of Zhaga Sensors & Photocells

Simplifying Zhaga Device Installation

For further details visit westire.com

UK & International Sales

North & South America

Irish Sales

HQ & Manufacturing

James Wright E: jwright@westire.com T: +44 7713 958962

Michael J Duffy E: mduffy@westire.com T: +1 847-274-6756

Fiona Gallagher E: fgallagher@westire.com T: +353 97 81209

Westire Technology Ltd, Ind. Estate, Belmullet, Co. Mayo, Ireland.

E: info@westire.com T: +353 97 81200 F: +353 97 81400 www.theilp.org.uk

49

50

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

‘I SEE THE ROLE AS VERY MUCH BEING THAT CHAMPION OF TECHNICAL INFORMATION’

Longstanding ILP volunteer and lighting design manager Guy Harding is the ILP’s new Technical Manager, stepping into the ‘very big to fill’ shoes of Peter Harrison. He tells Lighting Journal about his hopes for this pivotal role

By Nic Paton

‘I

t hasn’t fully sunk in yet,’ says Guy Harding with studied understatement.

He’s talking about his appointment in September as the ILP’s new Technical Manager, replacing Peter Harrison who retired in the summer.

It’s not a surprising thing to admit, given that when we speak he is barely a week into his new role and, as he concedes, already in the thick of dealing with member enquiries.

‘I’m already on my fifth or sixth technical enquiry since I joined, so there is always

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

51

Inside the ILP

be keen to get new volunteers on board; I’m always very clear that I don’t know it all,’ he tells Lighting Journal.

VARIED CAREER WITHIN LIGHTING

quite a flow of incoming questions or people wanting snippets from guidance notes,’ Guy says.

‘I see myself very much acting as a point of reference for technical queries and guidance. But also trying to work with Haydn [Haydn Yeo, ILP Vice President – Technical] to bring new guidance notes and publications forward, even perhaps to try to hasten the process a little bit even if we can. I’d also

CEng FILP and MSLL, Guy is well-known already to many ILP members, given that he has for years been a prominent volunteer with the Institution, notably on the membership side.

‘I’ve always been very supportive of the ILP but just wanted to give something back really. The ILP has always given a lot to me, so I felt, why not give something back?’ he explains.

‘I’ve always been very pro-education and about training new people up. I lectured on the [exterior lighting] diploma for many years, probably about 20 or more. And I only live ten miles from Rugby – in Southam – so it will be convenient to pop into Regent House if and when I need to,’ Guy adds.

Away from the ILP, Guy’s career within lighting has been varied, meaning he will be able to bring many decades of experience to the Technical Manager role.

Before joining the ILP he was most recently design manager at Designs for Lighting, a role he had held since 2020.

Before that, he worked for Sill Lighting, where from 2016 he was first technical manager and then UK manager.

Prior to those two roles, Guy was lighting development manager with Marshalls/ Woodhouse for a decade, principal engineer at Jacobs Babtie, manager at R-Tech Basingstoke and product development manager, senior development engineer and applications engineer at Urbis Schréder.

‘Peter’s shoes are a very big pair to fill,’ Guy concedes, adding: ‘If I can aspire to half of what he achieved, I’ll be doing well if I’m honest. I see the role as very much being about the ability to engage with the membership, to be that champion of technical information.

EMINERE™

‘Having said that, I do bring some different experience to the role. Peter spent most of his life in consultancy; I spent a lot of time in manufacturing. So, perhaps we can reach out to manufacturers a bit more, get their involvement a bit more on. Coming at it from that angle may be useful,’ Guy adds.

The ability to bring new thinking and perspectives to what is a pivotal role for the ILP will be critical as the Institution develops its new strategy, as ILP Engagement and Communications Manager Jess Gallacher explains.

‘As the ILP rolls out a new strategy, Guy will be ensuring that good quality technical knowledge is at the heart of our work,’ she says.

MINIATURE RAILWAYS

What, however, about the Guy Harding away from the world of lighting?

‘I’m an engineer through and through; I’m very much a hands-on engineer. I’ve got a workshop in my garage, lathe, milling machine,’ Guy enthuses.

Guy has two grown-up sons, Mark and Sam, who are also both engineers. His fiancée, Claire, works as the admin manager for a leisure centre and lives in Banbury.

What about any hobbies or pastimes? ‘I don’t want to come across as a train nerd, but I do have an interest miniature railways. Not to be confused with model railways, however. The ones I’m interested are large scale – engines, rolling stock, carriages and wagons. It’s a bit of different hobby,’ he adds.

Keeping the ILP’s technical priorities on track? Guy Harding could be just the man.

FIND OUT MORE

ILP members who want to get in touch with Guy Harding can do so by emailing guy@theilp.org.uk

OUR NEW LINE UP www.theilp.org.uk

anolislighting.com

52

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Women in lighting

TALENT WILL OUT

Throughout 2022, Lighting Journal has been showcasing and celebrating inspirational women working within lighting. So, what has this year shown us?

By Kelly Smith and David Gilbey

A

fter what has been a very busy year for many of us in lighting, the beginning of 2022 probably feels an awful long time ago now. But cast your minds back if you will to January and the first Lighting Journal of this year.

There, we were proud to announce that the ILP had teamed up with the Women in Lighting network to appoint two ‘champions’ – the two of us – to promote and celebrate inspirational women within the lighting industry, especially engineering, street lighting and manufacturing (‘An industry for all’, vol 87 no 1).

Since then, every edition of the journal this year has contained a profile of a leading woman working in our industry, with Lorraine Calcott, UK director and principal designer at it does Lighting, our final ‘profilee’, on page 54.

www.theilp.org.uk

We’ve had some brilliant and inspiring names talk about their route into the industry, how lighting continues to inspire them and what barriers they have had to overcome on their lighting ‘journey’. Names such as Elizabeth Thomas, Amanda Reece, Rebecca Hatch, Sunny Sribanditmongkol, Fiona Horgan, Lauren Lever, Lindsey McPhillips, and Kimberly Bartlett.

So, what have these articles told us about women in lighting? They have shown that women in lighting come from – and can thrive within – any part of the industry, from the very artistic, very aesthetic type of lighting, all the way through to street lighting and engineering. Women populate all of that.

‘WOMEN ARE JUST ORDINARY ENGINEERS’

The idea that women are only involved in the more aesthetic, more visually pleasing sides of lighting is flawed and, in truth, sexist; women are just ordinary engineers. There is no part of lighting that women do not get involved in.

The articles, too, high-

lighted how many men within the industry do champion and support their female colleagues, which is hugely positive. But it is not ‘job done’ by any stretch.

Women in engineering, women in street lighting and women in design or construction all face the same challenges of recognition in the workplace; equal opportunities, pay and conditions and receiving respect and acceptable behaviour.

In fact, this is probably even more so within street lighting, as the engineering world is still an extremely male-dominated environment. Architectural lighting design, by comparison, is more female represented, with an approximate 50/50 male/female balance and many talented women occupying senior positions.

There is no getting round it; there is still a glass ceiling within lighting and barriers for women to push through to get to the top.

The ILP, Lighting Journal and Women in Lighting therefore very much continue to support, showcase and celebrate all women associated with lighting, whatever channel they are working in.

We’ll leave the final word to Sharon Stammers, co-founder of Women in Lighting: ‘Women in Lighting is a network and community; it works differently for everyone linked into it and it’s become a springboard for people in different countries to do different things,’ she explains.

‘It’d like to thank all women and men alike for their continued support and invite all ILP members to take part in Women in Lighting activities,’ she adds.

After all, as the American author Margaret J Wheatley has put it: ‘There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about.’

Kelly Smith MSc BEng (Hons) MSLL is a senior engineer with DFL (Designs for Lighting) and David Gilbey is founder of lighting design consultancy d-lighting

View our range of exterior lighting, scan the QR code & discover lighting solutions for you.

Discover More

Premier Member Advertorial

Established in 1982 ASD Lighting PLC Design, Develop & Manufacture in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, UK.

Evolution not Revolution with TRT Light Guide.

Designed to help urban space designers and public lighting teams create environments that deliver a better ‘user’ experience, Light Guide technology takes away the discomfort glare and alters the perception of the environment a person is in.

Light Guide replaces the conventional light engine with a new low glare,

For more information

comfortable light source that has been specifically designed to enhance

+44 (0) 1527 521 162

user experience of the lit application and provide an effective alternative

www.trtlighting.co.uk

to indirect lighting.

INNOVATE | INTEGRATE | ILLUMINATE

ROAD & TUNNEL SYSTEMS

Premier Member Advertorial

LIGHT GUIDE

54

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

For our final ‘inspirational women in lighting’ profile, Lorraine Calcott explains how privileged she feels to be working in the industry, but that there is still more to do to promote equality, especially at senior levels

By Lorraine Calcott

architectural placement never happened, as I don’t believe I would have been as happy with my career if that had been the path I took.

WHO OR WHAT WAS YOUR INSPIRATION TO GET INTO LIGHTING?

I’ve always loved taking a project and making it completely different after dark to ensure the safety of those using it and ultimately help brighten up the world.

Who doesn’t want to make things a little more sparkly in a world with so much darkness?

TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF

My name is Lorraine Calcott and I am director and principal designer, UK, at it does Lighting.

Like many others, I didn’t know about lighting design as a profession when I left school but ended up getting a YTS placement at Thorn in Romford as a substitute for an architectural placement that I was after.

I soon got fired from that position as I was a little wilful at 16 and didn’t want to partake in an outward bounds team-building exercise. However, it whetted my appetite for the industry. When I got the opportunity to return to the same department in a temporary job five years later, I was taken back permanently.

It’s the best job in the world; I still get to learn every day, and I am so glad that

WHAT PROJECTS ARE YOU MOST PROUD OF AND WHY?

Some of my highlights are designing with artists to produce items like my ‘Stag Sphere’ project at Beaulieu in Chelmsford for Countryside.

The result was outstanding, and I am particularly proud of it. I love projects with an ecological factor; we have to find the right balance for all aspects. The Crane at Rochester is another.

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Women in lighting Likewise, my work in lighting for health and wellbeing is a huge passion of mine, which inspired me to undertake a PhD in the subject to provide clarity in what is a new and expanding area of expertise.

WHAT DO YOU FEEL IS THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE YOU HAVE OVERCOME IN YOUR CAREER?

The biggest challenge is that, as an industry, we need to promote what we do more, which is holding our industry back.

I am training end-users, planners and architects and so on to help them understand the value of using a competent lighting designer. We have a seat at the design table, but it’s still not as accepted as the others.

You would never start a project without civils, architects or landscape professionals, but lighting is still missed if the clients are uneducated. My mission before I retire is to change that.

HOW DOES LIGHT INSPIRE YOU?

As lighting designers, we can literally change how something is seen, understood and used.

We make or break brilliant architecture and spaces and can instil a feeling of safety or drama in an area.

Light transforms our lives; without it, we would not live or work in the world as we currently know it.

I have the privilege of delivering designs that change people’s lives in an understated way. How lucky am I!

WHAT DO YOU CONSIDER IS STILL A BARRIER, IF ANYTHING, FOR WOMEN IN LIGHTING/ENGINEERING?

There are still a lot of challenges. I would say our industry isn’t promoted sufficiently at schools and colleges.

There aren’t enough proper university qualifications to take, and we don’t do enough to keep women in our profession once we have them. More often than not, women end up on the sales side as they are successful and more accepted on that side of the fence.

That I know is a broad statement but the bottom line is there is still a very long way to go for women in our profession, especially on the more engineering side of lighting.

WHAT WOULD BE YOUR MESSAGE TO YOUR YOUNGER SELF ABOUT WHAT IT’S POSSIBLE TO ACHIEVE IN LIGHTING?

The same now as it was then; there is nothing I can’t achieve. It’s just setting your aim and going for it. I would also tell myself not to be so mindful of the negative people I met along the way.

Top: The Crane at Rochester. Above: ‘Stag Sphere’ at Beaulieu, both projects that Lorraine Calcott remains immensely proud of

HOW HAS THE ILP HELPED YOU IN YOUR LIGHTING ‘JOURNEY’?

In the last few years, I have unfortunately had less time to dedicate to the ILP but previously I attended every event and I have been a true advocate of our Institution.

I have noticed some positive changes in recent years and regularly champion the ILP in my work and vigorously promote competency in everything I do.

WHAT WOULD BE YOUR MESSAGE TO OTHER WOMEN IN, OR WANTING TO GET INTO, LIGHTING?

Sexism was an issue in the early days but that is slowly changing. I still find it

frustrating to be a token woman at events and so on, and I would certainly like to see more women running key businesses in our industry to balance things. The more architectural side of lighting design has a better balance.

My message to anyone thinking about it is: don’t hesitate, just do it! Best career if you like change, challenges and creativity.

You can’t beat it, and I have never once regretted my choice to be in this fantastic profession.

Lorraine Calcott is director and principal designer, UK, at it does Lighting

www.theilp.org.uk

55

56

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL

LiGHT 22

GOOD TO TALK The ILP is partnering with LiGHT 22 and [d]arc to showcase two days of thought-provoking discussion about light and lighting, including ‘How to be brilliant’

By Nic Paton

T

he ILP’s ‘How to be brilliant’ returns later this month, as the ILP has partnered with the inaugural two-day LiGHT 22 lighting specification event.

LiGHT 22 is taking place from 22-23 November at London’s Business Design Centre in Islington.

The How to be brilliant event will take place on the afternoon of 22 November and is part of a programme of free talks, ‘[d]arc thoughts @ LiGHT 22’ curated and moderated by the [d]arc media editorial team, in collaboration with lighting control specialist Lutron.

More than 30 speakers are set to pass on their insight and expertise over the two days.

Sally Storey, founder of Lighting Design International, Mark Major, a founding partner of SpeirsMajor, and Nick Hoggett, founder of dpa lighting consultants, will discuss how the industry has grown, make predictions for the future and reflect on past projects and trends.

Edward Bartholomew of Light Justice, www.theilp.org.uk

independent designer Satu Streatfield, and Ruth-Kelly Waskett of Hoare Lee will discuss ‘The weaponisation of light’, in particular how lighting in under-privileged areas can contribute to societal inequalities

DARK SKIES DEBATE

Dark skies will also be on the agenda, with Nathalie Quadrio of Nature in Light, Raluca Dascalita of Delta Lighting Design, Inessa Demidova of Arup, and dark skies specialist Dan Oakley exploring what more lighting designers and manufacturers can do to help dark sky environments.

Simon Shuck of Inspired by Design, Darren Orrow of Into, and Mark Sutton Vane of Sutton Vane Associates will address the thorny question of specifying bespoke lighting. How popular are bespoke lighting services becoming, for example? What kind of projects call for it? What are some of the complexities and processes involved?

Light artists Jason Bruges, Frankie Boyle, and Helen Marriage of Artichoke will look at the distinction between ‘light art’ and ‘art

that uses light’. They’ll consider the question: what makes an installation a work of light art and how the medium is changing?

The panel will also address diversity within the light art world.

To register to attend just use the QR code below.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

What: LiGHT 22, including [d]arc thoughts @ LiGHT 22, two days of free talks When: Tuesday 22-Wednesday 23 November Where: Business Design Centre, Islington, London How to register:

ELD

Exterior Lighting Diploma

What our students say Very supportive, interactive and brilliant.

The best course I’ve been on and the week was the most enjoyable I’ve had in a long time.

Would highly recommend to colleagues.

The lecturers are very knowledgeable, experienced and approachable.

How to book To book a place visit www.theilp.org.uk/diploma If you have any questions please call Angela Davies at the ILP office on

01788 576492

or email angela@theilp.org.uk

LIGHTING CONSULTANTS

This directory gives details of suitably qualified, individual members of the Institution of Lighting Professionals (ILP) who offer consultancy services

HERBIE BARNIEH BEng CEng MILP

TOM BROOME

ANDREW LONGMAN

SERVICES DESIGN SOLUTION

DESIGNS FOR LIGHTING LTD

HTTPS://WWW.SDSOLUTION.CO.UK

WWW.DFL-UK.COM

BEng(Hons) IEng MCIBSE MSLL MILP

PROJECT CENTRE

1 AMERICA SQUARE, LONDON, EC3N 2LS T: 0330 135 8950, 077954 75570 HERBIE.BARNIEH@PROJECTCENTRE.CO.UK

WWW.MARSTONHOLDINGS.CO.UK/PROJECTCENTRE Efficient, innovative, and bespoke lighting design services from an award winning consultancy.

Experienced in delivering exterior lighting projects from feasibility studies to post construction.

Whether it’s highway, street, or public realm lighting, let us assist you to realise your project goals.

19-23 MARY SEACOLE ROAD, THE MILLFIELDS, PLYMOUTH, PL1 3JY T: 01752 255900 E: INFO@SDSOLUTION.CO.UK SDS offer a range of lighting design services, combining creativity, technical and practical knowledge to deliver quality lighting designs and impact assessments. From feasibility, planning, through to post-construction, we are passionate about creating exceptional environments for living, work and wildlife.

BEng (Hons) CEng MILP MIET MHEA -Managing Director

WINCHESTER SO23 7TA T: +44 (0)1962 855080 M: +44 (0)7779 327413 E: ANDREW@DFL-UK.COM Professional lighting design consultancy offering technical advice, design and management services for exterior/interior applications for highway, architectural, area, tunnel and commercial lighting.

Advisors on lighting and energy saving strategies, asset management, visual impact assessments and planning.

STEVEN BIGGS

STEPHEN HALLIDAY

ANTHONY SMITH

MILESTONE INFRASTRUCTURE

WSP

STAINTON LIGHTING DESIGN SERVICES LTD

EngTech AMILP

IEng MILP

MANCHESTER M50 3SP T: 0161 886 2532 E: STEPHEN.HALLIDAY@WSPGROUP.COM

PETERBOROUGH PE1 5XG T: 07834 506705 STEVEN.BIGGS@MILESTONEINFRA.CO.UK

MILESTONEINFRA.CO.UK

Award winning lighting design specialists, delivering innovative design, installation and maintenance solutions in highways, public realm, commercial and architectural environments.

Our HERS registered team provide design strategies, impact assessment, technical & certifier support.

BONNIE BROOKS

BA(Hons) BEng (Hons) MSc CEng MSLL MCIBSE MILP

WWW.WSPGROUP.COM

Public and private sector professional services providing design, technical support, contract and policy development for all applications of exterior lighting and power from architectural to sports, area and highways applications.

PFI technical advisor and certifier support, HERS registered personnel.

STOCKTON ON TEES TS23 1PX T: 01642 565533, E: ENQUIRIES@STAINTONLDS.CO.UK

WWW.STAINTONLDS.CO.UK

Specialist in: motorway, highway schemes, illumination of buildings, major structures, public artworks, amenity area lighting, public spaces, car parks, sports lighting, asset management, reports, plans, assistance, maintenance management, electrical design and communication network design. Registered personnel.

STEPHEN HIGHAM

NICK SMITH

SHD LIGHTING CONSULTANCY LTD

NICK SMITH ASSOCIATES LIMITED

IEng MILP

ILLUME DESIGN LTD

IEng FILP

IEng FILP MIES

CHESTERFIELD, S40 3JR T: 01246 229444 E: MAIL@NICKSMITHASSOCIATES.COM

EXETER EX4 1NF T: 07840 054601, E: INFO@ILLUME-DESIGN.CO.UK

BOLTON BL2 6SE M: 07834 490 192 E: STEVE@SHDLIGHTING.CO.UK

WWW.ILLUME-DESIGN.CO.UK

WWW.SHDLIGHTING.CO.UK

WWW.NICKSMITHASSOCIATES.CO.UK

SIMON BUSHELL

ALLAN HOWARD

ALAN TULLA

ENERVEO

WSP

ALAN TULLA LIGHTING

Professional independent lighting design consultancy providing designs for all exterior applications, including street lighting. Specialists in assisting at the planning application stage with designs, strategies, lighting impact assessments, and expert witness, with a focus on mitigating ecological and environmental impacts.

MBA DMS IEng MILP

Outdoor lighting consultancy specialising in adoptable highway and private lighting designs.

Our services include Section 38, Section 278, Car Park lighting designs, Commercial floodlighting schemes and environmental impact lighting assessment reporting. Qualified design team with 24 years’ experience in exterior lighting.

BEng(Hons) CEng FILP FSLL

PORTSMOUTH PO6 1UJ M: +44 (0)7584 313990 T: +44 (0)121 387 9892 E: SIMON.BUSHELL@ENERVEO.COM

LONDON WC2A 1AF T: 07827 306483 E: ALLAN.HOWARD@WSPGROUP.COM

WWW.ENERVEO.COM

WWW.WSPGROUP.COM

Specialist exterior lighting consultant.

Private and adopted lighting and electrical design for highways, car parks, area and sports lighting.

Lighting Impact assessments, expert witness and CPD accredited Lighting design AutoCAD and Lighting Reality training courses.

IEng FILP FSLL

WINCHESTER, SO22 4DS T: 01962 855720 M:0771 364 8786 E: ALAN@ALANTULLALIGHTING.COM

Professional artificial and daylight lighting services covering design, technical support, contract and policy development including expert advice and analysis to develop and implement energy and carbon reduction strategies. Expert witness regarding obtrusive lighting, light nuisance and environmental impact investigations. registered personnel.

WWW.ALANTULLALIGHTING.COM

LORRAINE CALCOTT

ALAN JAQUES

MICHAEL WALKER

IT DOES LIGHTING LTD

ATKINS

MCCANN LTD

Professional consultancy from the UK’s and Irelands largest external lighting contractor.

From highways and tunnels, to architectural and public spaces our electrical and lighting designers also provide impact assessments, lighting and carbon reduction strategies along with whole installation packages.

IEng FILP IALD MSLL ILA BSS

IEng FILP

THE CUBE, 13 STONE HILL, TWO MILE ASH, MILTON KEYNES, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE, MK8 8DN T: 01908 560110 E: INFORMATION@ITDOES.CO.UK

NOTTINGHAM, NG9 2HF T: +44 (0)115 9574900 M: 07834 507070 E: ALAN.JAQUES@ATKINSGLOBAL.COM

Site surveys of sports pitches, road lighting and offices.

Architectural lighting for both interior and exterior.

Visual Impact Assessments for planning applications.

Specialises in problem solving and out-of-the-ordinary projects.

IEng MILP CMS

NOTTINGHAM NG9 6DQ M: 07939 896887 E: M.WALKER@JMCCANN.CO.UK

WWW.ITDOES.CO.UK

WWW.ATKINSGLOBAL.COM

WWW.MCCANN-LTD.CO.UK

MARK CHANDLER

PATRICK REDMOND

PETER WILLIAMS

Award winning lighting design practice specialising in interior, exterior, flood and architectural lighting.

Emphasis on section 278/38, public realm, ecology receptor mitigation and supporting Councils with planning approvals, CDM2015 and SBD accredited.

Specialists in circadian spectrally specific lighting design.

EngTech AMILP

Professional consultancy providing technical advice, design and management services for exterior and interior applications including highway, architectural, area, tunnel and commercial lighting.

Advisors on energy saving strategies, asset management, visual impact assessments and planning.

HDip Bus IEng MILP AMSLL Tech IEI

MMA LIGHTING CONSULTANCY LTD

REDMOND ANALYTICAL MANAGEMENT SERVICES LTD.

READING RG10 9QN T: 0118 3215636 E: MARK@MMA-CONSULTANCY.CO.UK

WWW.MMA-CONSULTANCY.CO.UK

Exterior lighting consultant’s who specialise in all aspects of street lighting design, section 38’s, section 278’s, project management and maintenance assistance.

We also undertake lighting appraisals and environmental lighting studies

Design for all types of exterior lighting including street lighting, car parks, floodlighting, decorative lighting, and private lighting. Independent advice regarding light trespass, carbon reduction and invest to save strategies.

Asset management, data capture, inspection and testing services available.

EngTech AMILP

WILLIAMS LIGHTING CONSULTANTS LTD.

M: + 353 (0)86 2356356 E: PATRICK@REDMONDAMS.IE

BEDFORD, MK41 6AG T: 0 16 0 8 6 4 2 5 3 0 E: PETER.WILLIAMS@WLCLIGHTING.CO.UK

WWW.REDMONDAMS.IE

WWW.WLCLIGHTING.CO.UK

Independent expert lighting design services for all exterior and interior lighting applications. We provide sustainable lighting solutions and associated electrical designs. Our services include PSDP for lighting projects, network contractor auditing, and GPS site surveys for existing installations.

Specialists in the preparation of quality and effective street lighting design solutions for Section 38, Section 278 and other highway projects. We also prepare lighting designs for other exterior applications. Our focus is on delivering solutions that provide best value.

Neither Lighting Journal nor the ILP is responsible for any services supplied or agreements entered into as a result of this listing CALUMMA™

anolislighting.com

OUR NEW FAMILY

Where industry knowledge sets us apart.

Street Lighting Supplies Ltd is a dedicated specialist supplier of external, commercial, amenity and public lighting products.

The recent addition of our new Bridgend facility complements our existing depots and provides us with additional sales reach across the business. In addition, our new Hiab crane fleet enables us to deliver direct across the whole of the UK, ensuring an even greater level of customer service. Our dedicated sales teams have extensive industry and product knowledge, offering prompt and professional support. With unrivalled stocks over three locations we are your one stop shop lighting solutions partner!

TRANSPORT

Street Lighting Supplies Limited Unit 1 York Park, York Road, Bridgend, CF31 3TB, United Kingdom Email: bridgend@streetlightingsupplies.com • Web: www.streetlightingsupplies.com Office: 01656 335835 Also: Newcastle - Tel: 0191 217 0119 • sales@lightandenergydesigns.com Grangemouth - Tel: 01324 665602 • sales@streetlightingsupplies.com

PROUDLY MADE IN THE UK

SINCE 1923

A Number of our very successful E950 and E951 Luminaires are available on a maximum 20-day lead time.

Fast Track

E950 & E951 Fast Track

Request further details

01920 860600 | www.cuphosco.com | hello@cuphosco.com