But the challenge of maintaining a presence within a larger firm is not limited to in-house scenarios. Lighting design groups also must maintain a level of recognition and respect from clients, outside peers such as architects, and fellow lighting designers practicing in more traditional design firm setups.
Fighting the misconceptions about what type of work and the quality of that work produced from a design group within an MEP firm is an ongoing struggle. Plumpton notes that although he has been practicing lighting design for some time, he still hears the typical surprised comments: “I didn’t know Flack + Kurtz had a lighting design group,” or “Yeah, but it isn’t really lighting design.”
A group whose focus is on design also needs to have a richer marketing approach. “We have to convey our work differently than our engineering colleagues,” Plumpton says. Often how a firm receives a project commission is all about business relationships. Who do you know? Who do you want to work with? For all of the design groups it certainly has helped to receive industry awards and have their work published in lighting industry publications. Not only does this provide a reference point for clients but it also helps create a sense of legitimacy within the larger engineering firm structure and with architects and lighting colleagues. Generally, the vast majority of clients appreciate this approach, and there is something to be said for working with one firm and its various divisions to deliver a fully integrated and effective project solution.
REACHING OUT TO STUDENTS An often overlooked benefit of being a design group in an MEP firm is the benefit it has in recruiting new designers. “It’s easy to reach out to lighting programs like Penn State and Nebraska,” Plumpton says. “These architecture/engineering programs are already aware of an office like Flack + Kurtz.”
LIGHTING IN UNEXPECTED PLACES A firm that people might be surprised to learn has a robust lighting group, and has for more than 40 years, is JB&B. As is the case with many engineering offices, in the early days of lighting there was usually one “go-to” lighting guy in an office. At JB&B, that person was Bill Richardson, who worked with early lighting greats such as Jules Horton and Richard Kelly. Over time, as people like Richardson were being asked more lighting-related questions on a regular basis and lighting design was becoming a more clearly defined part of projects, it made sense for lighting to emerge as its own consultancy within a firm.
At firms like JB&B and Cosentini Associates, the lighting group has been able to flourish thanks in large part to the dedicated efforts of a few individuals. At JB&B, Mehl inherited that role from Richardson and has worked at the firm for more than 20 years. At Cosentini, Stephen Margulies directed the lighting group for 25 years, enabling a great level of consistency in terms of how lighting was incorporated into all aspects of the firm’s projects.
And the same is true at Arup. Engineer and design expert Bob Venning in Arup’s London office was the firm’s “lighting guy” for more than 40 years. In the mid-1990s there was a move to formalize the lighting group, which has since led to the present configuration of lighting teams in the London, New York, San Francisco, Amsterdam, and Melbourne offices. While each group is semi-autonomous, responsible for soliciting its own work, there is extensive dialogue between the offices and often two offices will work together to see a project through to completion.
This comes in handy with the global nature of practice and when dealing with the complexity of codes, and is another area in which a design group in an engineering firm can shine. As the scope of services continues to expand, there has been some debate as to who is supposed to perform the egress calculations—the lighting designer or the electrical engineer? There are now more criteria to incorporate into a project, such as energy codes and LEED considerations. The fact that a designer at an engineering firm can navigate both the design and the technical issues is a plus. “Since I first started practicing, I’ve always done my own calculations,” Mehl says. “It cuts down on project bureaucracy.”
AN INTEGRATED APPROACH Being around engineers enables designers to have a familiarity with all aspects of a project. Even if an issue is outside their scope of work, they are familiar enough with the project that they can step in and answer questions at project meetings. “It makes the design process so much easier,” Mehl says. “Especially when you are designing something like a control system. You know how the lighting is impacting the daylighting controls and the shading controls and so on.” It also leads to a shared sense of project responsibility. “It gets rid of the ‘someone else will take care of it’ mentality,” Mehl says.
Still, Mehl admits that the stigma of an engineering firm being able to perform lighting design work can get in the way. It’s hard to erase the perception in the minds of clients and outside colleagues that an MEP firm can do more than just technical lighting. Margulies echoes the point. “There has always been a misconception that you can’t get a good design out of an engineering firm,” he says. “You have to work hard to change their minds.”
