DO THE DISCIPLINE OF ARCHITECTURE AND THE DISCIPLINE OF LIGHTING COMMUNICATE SUFFICIENTLY TO BEGIN FINDING SOLUTIONS FOR THESE SUSTAINABLE ISSUES? JS: We find, in terms of the environmental issues, clients will just pay lip service to it. The reality is that we have the material and construction being shipped in from the other side of the planet. All of these things are just a whole lot of nonsense. The thing that still surprises me, when you look to North America and other parts of the world, is that there are some architects who are absolutely doing a fantastic job working with daylight and natural lighting in buildings, and how that is delivered, and then there are other architects who don’t have a clue. I’m sure we’ve all worked with architects on both sides of that, but what I think the lighting design profession needs to really push harder in is using daylighting. We try very hard to involve ourselves in all these daylighting issues and the clients tend not to be interested, questioning if they have to pay more money, and then thinking it’s something they can get the engineers to do. If the architect doesn’t have the education in daylighting then the building is not going to come out right. We’re trying very hard to push the natural impact, but it obviously depends on where you are on the planet; in certain parts of the world you don’t want to have the sun coming in.
We work a fair amount in the Middle East, and just in general terms of trying to educate the clients it’s really tough. In Dubai, for instance, they are one of the largest users of oil-per-barrel-per-head-of-population in the world. Trying to get them to see that there are opportunities to actually harvest the energy of the sun, and actually provide power to at least avoid burning oil, is really tough. At the moment they don’t seem to care. There’s a lack of wanting to be a member of the lifeboat; we’re trying, but we’re getting bloody faces.
ML: There is a market transformation that I do think is happening, and that is driven substantially by LEED. We were just invited to look at a building in Dubai that wants to be the first LEED residential building. It’s a different kind of snob appeal. LEED has done some really interesting things. It’s not changing the course of building yet, outside of the U.S., but in the U.S. every single building we’re touching is affected by it.
DO YOU THINK LIGHTING BENEFITS FROM LEED? ML: There is an element of it that does. I don’t see this to be fashion, I see it as our responsibility to help save the planet because we actually know things. We’ve integrated the way we’ve thought about them. It really puts us in a position where we have to exert leadership whether we like it or not, and stop pretending that we are in an industry that is always reactive.
TW: You’re talking about getting your client to try and understand you, but a manufacturer would never do that to you. When you talk about influence, clients don’t know or care how a product is manufactured, but you can care and the manufacturer will be fighting for what it is you care about. I think designers have to realize where their influence is, talking about it in a real way, and just start demanding it.
LT: It can’t just be product related, and so long as people understand it that way, then you get this consumer approach—just don’t buy more. In Dubai I walked away having had only one conversation—I said, it’s just too much. In China I’m finding a very different experience, and I think that partly because—and these are gross simplifications—it’s not a well-lit country. It’s a really poorly lit country, it’s positively dark, as it was in East Germany, as it is in Cuba. Lighting was not an important distribution point for energy, so in working with China what we’re saying is, we’re going to use the fewest pieces of equipment we can, and we’re going to ask you to help us with the servicing. In a weird way we’re getting very positive responses because they are saying, “You mean you’re going to use less, so it’s going to cost us less in equipment, but you’re asking us if we can have slightly reflective walls.” Yes, we can do that, and they like it. It has been a very different experience. If what is starting to happen in China—this idea of what good lighting is—comes back up to the western model we’re utterly lost, because then it’s consumption.
SO: It’s an interesting segue back to: Does lighting benefit the LEED certification process? I think the answer is yes and no. Architects opt for the design choices that give them points and not necessarily what creates a better environment, and at the same time there is still something that is trendy about the design that is beyond what is required from a daylighting standpoint or from an architectural standpoint. In the right hands though, you can create great buildings with LEED. It’s harder to do great building with less. LEED is only measuring data, but there’s nothing about the design.
ML: Absolutely right, it’s a quantifier. It makes it easy for Americans to buy into it. Its real benefit has been to encourage a collaborative process, so you can raise all of these issues at the beginning of the design process.
HOW DO YOU AVOID THE PITFALL OF DESIGNING TO A SCORECARD? SO: At a certain point a person has to judge the project with their eyes, and not the trophies.
SY: I’m not a proponent for a lot of legislation, but it does seem that every time we clamp-down on energy consumption we seem to be doing much more creative things.
ML: It encourages creativity.
SO: The only problem is that technologies are not moving as fast.
TW: How the lighting experts are viewed outside the lighting world suggests that the lighting authorities aren’t really authorities the way they are in other industries. The signage guys have more influence.
SO: I think we have as much power as we want to have, the choice is that we’re not taking it.
ML: Sustainability is just a fundamental attribute to any good building.