Senior lighting and industrial designer, Dave Kavanagh has been working for 44 years at the 110-year-old lighting manufacturer Planet Lighting, Australia. Dave has a unique and impressive career, with an impressive design contribution to the Australian and International lighting community. Dave has been successfully navigating extensive technological changes in the industry!
Not shy of a challenge, Dave has helped bring to life some of the most ambitious custom architectural lighting projects across the globe. He’s worked on renowned projects of architects such as Renzo Piano and I. M. Pei, and helped design and deliver a suite of iconic lighting concepts from South-East Asia to the Middle East, including lighting for Larry Oltmanns Hong Kong Handover at the Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre, I.M.Pei’s Bank of China in Beijing and Caesar Pelli’s Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur.
As described by former CEO of Planet Lighting, Brett Iggulden, Dave has easily designed more light fittings for architects than any other designer in Australia. “He would literally save architects’ lives, turning their crazy concepts into working, safe and reliable light fittings.” Dave’s work is found everywhere from Australia to Dubai.
Dave also developed, improved, and expanded on a range of important and award-winning Australian medical and task lighting products. His design adaptations of the prestigious Prince Phillip Australian Design Award- winning U-arm, and his work on modernizing task lighting resulted in a range of quintessential Australian medical lighting products such as the MSE, UMH, UGP and include the important redesign of the 7 LED head for the ULED – one of the most prevalent examination lights in Australian hospitals. He designed the iconic Continental C arm, a spring-balanced desk lamp and in 1992 his Ninox Workstation Tasklight won the Luminaire Design Award of the Illuminating Engineering Society of Australia and New Zealand Award (IESANZ).
ULED Medical Light with Planet Lighting unique award-winning floating balance U-arm and fully enclosed springs.
Dave’s successful design and technical proficiency, which his colleagues agree includes his exceptional penmanship and eye for detail, is equally matched by his creative ability to adapt and navigate extraordinary technological and industry change. He saw the transition from pen and ink hand drawings to CAD, and from incandescent bulbs and fluorescent tubes to modern LEDs as well as the transition from hand machining to Computer Numerically Controlled (CNC) machining.
“Dave’s legacy is extraordinary,” says Sinclair Park, Dave’s colleague and fellow industrial designer who raised the idea for nominating him for the Award. “He even managed to become an expert in glass mould design when Planet Lighting built their own glass-blowing facility in the 1980s.”
Dave promptly designed a screening process to quickly generate shapes in plaster as patterns for sand casting, equipping Planet Lighting with semi-mass production capabilities. As a result, there was a time when every Starbucks in the world had custom glass luminaires, all of which were glass blown in Planet’s factory and company headquarters in regional Bellingen NSW. Planet Lighting subsequently became the biggest glass-blowing operation in Australia.
Dave’s use and demonstration of scientific and supporting evidence and use of emerging technologies married well with his unhindered propensity to “tell it like it is” to his customers and architect partners.
Dave recalls a successful job tender “a half-inch thick” for Australia’s Parliament House. “They wanted 400 lamps with a hot and inefficient 100-watt globe. So I showed them a light head with 13 watts that had even better light output, and for good measure demonstrated that the entire cost of the light fittings could be recovered in reduced power consumption and lowered air conditioning costs over 18 months.”
DG “Boat” chandeliers to commemorate the Hong Kong handover. Each chandelier is 8.4 meters in length with strips of slumped glass. Each weighs 500 kilograms and is suspended 30 meters in the air.
DG “Boat” chandeliers to commemorate the Hong Kong handover. Each weighs 500 kilograms and is suspended 30 metres in the air. Also showing Dave’s engineering plans for the construction.
Dave graduated with a Diploma in Design from the National Art School, Division of Design in 1975. After college, he was invited by Paul Schremmer and Associates, a leading Sydney design consultancy where he began his first professional role. In April 1977, and less than 2 years out of college, he was hired by the iconic Australian lighting manufacturer Planet Lighting after an interview with then-CEO of Planet, Brett Iggulden. While his current employer thought he was too young, Brett was impressed enough by his interview to put him on a 9-month contract. Now, 44 years on and one of Planet’s oldest and most accomplished staff members, Dave jokingly admits: “I’m still waiting for my probation period to end.”
A thinker and entrepreneurial spirit, Dave heralds from a family of engineers and inventors. “My eldest brother is an electrical engineer, and my older brother was a boat builder who became a hot air balloon manufacturer.” Dave describes himself as coming from a family of “have-a-goes” where it’s ok and even important to make mistakes. He even began his own Medical equipment company, Phoebus Design, while working in tandem at Planet in the 1980s. For 8 years he was an important supplier to Australian Medical Equipment, designing and manufacturing intermittent pressure therapy equipment designed to forcibly drain postoperative lymph fluid.
Dave’s passion for design and its importance in society is palpable. “Lighting is something which touches everyone, every day,” says Dave. “The performance of the most mundane tasks to the most demanding, particularly in medical task lighting is intensely rewarding to me, knowing the products on which I work contribute deeply to such tasks.”
Bank of China HQ, Beijing Architect: I. M. Pei Lighting Consultant: William Artists International. LTD.
“Wheel” Aerial sculpture & chandelier foyer centerpiece 12 meters in diameter and hanging below the 48-meter high ceiling. The wheel, constructed of steel and weighing 350 kilograms, had to be assembled fully and disassembled in pieces for transport in 20m shipping containers. “I had to generate a map of which part of the wheel went into the container first so the first piece that came out could be carried to the back of the assembly area – it was important they came out in the right order!” – Dave Kavanagh
Bank of China, showing wheel aerial sculpture & chandelier also featuring 30 meter steel beam grow lights suspended over bamboo planters.
The wheel, constructed of steel and weighing 350 kilograms, had to be assembled fully and disassembled in pieces for transport in 20-meter shipping containers from Planet Lighting, Australia.
Dave’s interest in design also seems inseparable from his personal interest in both social conscience and design consequence. As a result, he gained the friendship and acquaintances of many academics and pursued interests with like-minded people equally curious about sociology. He was the Public Officer for the establishment of the Bellingen Institute, a think tank endeavor of Honorary Associate at the University of Sydney, Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies and Adjunct Associate Professor, Dr. Richard Hil.
Dave’s design thinking overlapped and complemented educators promoting the importance of socially and ecologically responsible design. He was invited to guest lecture in the Kansas City’s Art Institute for students of the influential design educator Victor Papanek. “I remember my own final year thesis: Outside and Inside: Morality in Design which was kind of a shock to my lecturers who felt that the topic was a bad idea. I’ve always felt there’s no such thing as a bad idea – it only becomes a bad idea when you don’t express it.”
Dave’s deeply personal drive for social enquiry and social justice has also found him volunteering with his local community. In 2007 Dave worked closely with former Australian father of the year Steve Biddulph and candidate professor and Lecturer in Law, Beth Gibbings in the installation of the SIEV X National Memorial. The memorial consists of a series of 353 pole beams which were erected lakeside in Canberra and are engraved with commemorative artworks from over 200 schools and community groups across the country. The important monument commemorates the 353 people, including children, who drowned when the SIEV X boat sank on its perilous voyage from Indonesia to Australia in 2001. Most of the poles remain nameless as the victims were unidentified. “That’s what the ‘X’ in ‘Suspected Illegal Entry Vehicle X (SIEV X)’ stands for, that is, representing the unknown victims,” says Dave.
The memorial is one of Australia’s largest and most extensive installation and collaborative efforts and spans 400 square meters of the peninsula along Canberra’s Lake Burley Griffin. It remains a solemn symbol and reminder to both the government and public on the plight of refugees and a persistent indicator of the still unanswered questions ordinary citizens have with regards to the circumstances surrounding the tragic event.
The SIEV X installation’s arduous process to becoming a permanent display lakeside and nearby Parliament House has become its own emotional journey for Dave and his peers. Originally, the poles were only temporarily “held up” by 600 people during a televised procession in 2006. Dave helped in the certification and engineering effort to establish their permanent installation in the Australian capital. “I met Beth and Steve through the Rural Australians for Refugees organization,” of which Dave is still a formal member. The memorial continues standing today 15 years on. “It still chokes me up when I see those poles.”
Dave Kavanagh continues to innovate at Planet Lighting today and is a valued member of the community.
Dubai Metro – Red and Green Lines Consultant: Gulf Line International Trading Co Multiple custom lighting fixtures were designed including the “Water Wave” and the “Flying Carpet.” The “Water Wave” decorative light fixture in Burjuman Station consists of a wave-like dynamic effect created via LED edge-lit clear glass and is controlled via DMX. The custom-made fixture is made up of 21 pieces of 1-inch thick glass and each piece is made up of three segments. The wave is 40 meters long and 10 meters wide.
Designer Dave Kavanagh shared with us some thoughts on design philosophy, practice and the context of his career with Planet Lighting:
“Joining Planet Lighting in Bellingen New South Wales Australia in April 1977 as the sole Staff Industrial Designer for an agreed tenure of 9 months to design and develop an extended-reach task lamp, I was not too worried about being without experienced designers to mentor and assist me, as it was for such a short duration. Forty-five and a half years later I find myself still in the same job but having experienced massive changes to my work tools and the type of work I have undertaken, including running a small design/manufacturing business in my spare time.
Many designers have experienced the leap from the drawing board to the CAD monitor and I can assure you it can be quite intimidating at first. CAD arrived in my professional life at the age of forty-five, just four years after I first began working on large custom light fittings.
The first large custom fitting was feature-lighting in the Australian Darwin Parliament House. This quickly developed into an explosion of work including feature lighting in the main hall of The Hong Kong Exhibition and Convention Centre for the Hong Kong handover in 1997 and the (then) world’s largest building/s the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur in 1998, the head office of the Bank of China in Beijing in 2000 and some very large glass fittings in the Dubai Metro UAE. Some of these projects weighed many tonnes and called for engineering certification, including taking a Bellingen crew for installation on-site. We even employed a London-based crew of riggers for one of our higher/heavier fittings. These are just some of the highlights, there being many smaller, less prestigious, jobs along the way and since.
The CEO of Planet Lighting throughout this time was Brett Iggulden OAM who was solely responsible for securing and managing these jobs for our company, a very small business in a very small town in coastal New South Wales Australia. Even though I was integral to the process, it never ceased to delight me that, for instance, for a few years any Starbucks Café anywhere in the world included light fittings using hand-blown glass blown in Bellingen in our own glassworks. This engenders a level of pride in our company workforce that is second to none.
I have always held high moral standards as an important baseline for design work of all kinds and often struggle internally with issues surrounding my work, if not directly impacted by it.
The design process I find most effective uses a recursive progression: two steps forward, one step back and so on until after a few iterations I take many steps back to review the design progression and evaluate the results to ensure the project is heading in a healthy direction before proceeding any further, avoiding “vertical” thinking in the design. This re-evaluation applies to all aspects of a project or product and includes all stakeholders and has worked well for me over many years.
Perhaps the most important mindset to nurture for me as a designer has been that there is no such thing as a stupid question … ever. Question everything and everyone, and always have a reason for your choices and decisions.
Once a brief or work order is accepted, it becomes a personal responsibility for eternity. At no time is a job handed over with no further responsibility or “ownership” by the industrial designer, production designer or engineer. This demands a passionate embrace of the work and its consequences.
Finally, this award was an unexpected bonus in a long and as-yet incomplete journey which has been an enormous amount of fun and I unreservedly thank all those who have contributed to my success in this career.” Dave Kavanagh
Dave Kavanagh/ Courtesy of Planet Lighting
The “Flying Carpet” lighting fixture, one of six, was installed in different stations of Dubai Metro. The fixture is 27 metres in length, 2.5 metres wide and comprises 140 individual glass assemblies. Each glass piece weighs 70 kilograms and the total fixture weighs 11.5 tons.
About Planet Lighting: The Planet Lighting design tradition heralds back to the early 1900s when founder WA Iggulden set up Bentley Mfg Co in Melbourne to produce building tools for patented designs. Since the 1930s Planet has been manufacturing lights, including the iconic Australian classic, the Studio K desk lamp. Over the years, our facilities have expanded to include handblown artisan glassblowing facilities, a high-tech LED laboratory and state-of-the-art CNC equipment to ensure high-quality in-house capability and a comprehensive approach to lighting manufacturing.
Today, we are one of the leading Australian suppliers of Medical & Surgical lights, LED and custom lighting solutions and are uniquely placed to provide the expertise and know-how required to work with lighting designers and specifiers to realize creative custom lighting ideas and concepts.
With a career of over 50 years in Lighting Product Design, Tony Lawrence has been working since April 1969 at Concord Lighting part of the Sylvania Lighting group. He has been designing products that brought accent lighting to the high streets, art galleries, museums, hotels, and more… He has also set design briefs and evaluated projects for degree students of St Martins School of Art London’s students and at the University of Sussex.
Tony was trained as an Electrical/Mechanical Engineer and knew little of lighting. He joined Concord at the age of 21 as he wanted to live in London and was soon taken up with the subject of the combination of Product Design and Lighting Design Technology. He was fortunate enough to join at a time when the emphasis was very much on Design as championed by the artist founder, Bernard Stern, and working in the studio of Professor Robert Heritage of the Royal College of Art. It still gives him satisfaction to see those products he has designed being used to enhance beautiful objects or spaces.
Tony has won numerous prizes with Concord’s innovative range of LED luminaires starting with the Red Dot Award in 1996 for the Torus 100 Low volt spotlight range, followed by the FX Interior Design Awards in 1999 for the Torus 35W CDMT spotlight. In recent years, the Beacon Muse won 4 lighting industry awards mandating a ‘clean sweep’ and expert endorsement for high performance and beautiful products. The Stadium spotlight in 2010 won the prestigious Red Dot award. This was followed in 2013 when Concord Glace won the Best Interior Luminaire at the Lighting Design Awards and been a finalist at the Lux Awards and the FX Awards, whilst 2014 saw industry recognition of Concord’s Officelyte with new intelligent Sylsmart technology.
Tony has been involved in the design of all Lighting products from Concord by Sylvania, being the center of innovation and development; his contribution to the lighting industry is prodigious!
Meet Tony Lawrence
Craig A. Bernecker’s lighting career now spans nearly four decades and during that time he has had the opportunity to play a significant role in the development of two highly regarded lighting education programs, one at Penn State University and one at Parsons School of Design, The New School. Craig’s contribution to Lighting Education is tremendous, as an Educational Facilitator for the LIGHTFAIR International, Professor of Lighting Design and Director at Parsons School of Design, The New School, New York and Founder of The Lighting Education Institute as well as his involvement in professional societies such as the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IES), the International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD) and the International Commission on Illumination (CIE).
Craig shared with us his involvement in lighting design to understand his career:
Craig A. Bernecker: After leaving college with an undergraduate degree in psychology, I chose to pursue a very different career by entering the Master’s Program in Architectural Engineering at Penn State University. Unknown to me was the fact that the lighting faculty member there, John Flynn, was conducting research on the psychology of light. I got into lighting because my background in psychology led me to serve as his graduate assistant. And my master’s thesis work in lighting, The Potential for Design Applications of Luminance Data, turned out to be awarded transaction status when presented at the 1979 IES Conference and published in the Journal of the Illuminating Engineering Society. It also introduced the first computer-generated photorealistic rendering of the lighting effects in a space.
The influence of John Flynn on my career was not over yet, however, as after graduation I took a position with a large architectural engineering firm in Philadelphia, and was asked by Flynn to co-teach graduate architecture students at the University of Pennsylvania. Thus my teaching career began.
After designing lighting systems for all of the A&E firm’s projects for two years, I was hired by a west coast manufacturer, primarily based on the strength of my thesis, to run their applications department and conduct research. Shortly after arriving there, I learned of the illness and ultimately the passing of John Flynn, which began a road to return to Penn State to continue the lighting program there. One of the carryovers from the west coast manufacturer to Penn State was research I conducted on indirect lighting systems and brightness perception. This led to a second major publication, The Effect of Source Luminance on the Perception of Environmental Brightness, and to an effort by a number of manufacturers to convert totally indirect lighting systems to direct-indirect lighting systems.
Penn State Lighting Program
Craig A. Bernecker: While at Penn State, I was able to expand the lighting program in the Department of Architectural Engineering from 2-1/2 courses to eight courses, and created stability by bringing a second lighting faculty position to the program, which led to the hiring of Rick Mistrick, who remains a mainstay of the program. I was also able to garner funding from the Besal Foundation to provide a significant number of lighting scholarships for our students. During my twenty years at Penn State, we placed well over 200 professionals into the lighting industry, with notable graduates like Chip Israel (Lighting Design Alliance), Rick Mistrick (Penn State), Kevin Houser (Oregon State), Clarence Waters (Nebraska), Bob Davis (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory), Dorene Maniccia (Design Lights Consortium), Jim Baney and Emily Klingensmith (Schuler Shook), Andrea Hartranft (Hartranft Lighting Design), Karen Murphy (HDR), Mary Ann Hay (Syska Hennessy), Ron Kurtz (Dark Light), Dave Pfund and Joe Zaharewicz (The Lighting Quotient), Dave Ranieri (Acuity Brands), and countless others I have missed, who hold significant positions in the lighting industry.
I also got involved in distance learning in its formative stages during my tenure at Penn State, in particular serving on the university steering committee for Penn State’s World Campus and serving as a Faculty Fellow in Distance Education. As a part of my work in this arena, I developed a course that I taught jointly between Penn State and Tennessee State University students using early distance learning technologies. Focusing on creating diversity using these technologies, this led to several publications, An inter-institutional approach to distance learning and diversity, and Distance learning in architectural engineering: An inter-institutional case study.
My research at Penn State included collaboration with Dr. George Brainard, where we published the first study (Biological Effects of Architectural Lighting and Their Associated Energy Utilization) demonstrating that the physiological effects of lighting could be influenced by architectural lighting systems rather than solely through the use of therapeutic devices.
During my time at Penn State, I also authored five chapters in the IES intermediate education course (ED150), as well as many other articles published in a variety of journals.
The Lighting Education Institute
Craig A. Bernecker: Ultimately my work in distance learning and restrictions on the ability to reach a wide range of people led me to leave Penn State and pursue distance learning on my own by forming The Lighting Education Institute (LEI). I continue to deliver professional lighting education through LEI, including offering an annual Lighting Certification (NCQLP) review course with the Illuminating Engineering Society and serving as Educational Facilitator, responsible for planning the conference program at LIGHTFAIR each year. I also annually teach the two-day intermediate lighting course annually at LIGHTFAIR.
Parsons School of Design Lighting Program
Craig A. Bernecker: A few years after starting the Lighting Education Institute, I was asked to travel to Parsons to teach one of their lighting courses. Over a year or so, this quickly morphed to four courses and a full-time position in the lighting program beginning in 2006.
At Parsons, I contributed to revising the curriculum in the two-year MFA Lighting Design program, and, in particular, helped establish a stronger fundamentals base for the lighting design students. We also developed an interdisciplinary emphasis, establishing both a dual degree program to award a Masters of Architecture and MFA Lighting Design simultaneously, and a double major granting an MFA in Lighting and Interior Design, led by my colleague Derek Porter.
An additional curricular initiative relatively early in my tenure was to create an elective course offering, Lighting Technologies in the Developing World, exploring the large part of the world that does not have access to electric lighting either due to poverty or lack of access to electric power. We generated significant interest among our students in exploring the developing world, including design issues, technologies, and implementation. As a result, I was able to deliver twenty-four solar-powered lighting systems, identified through a series of these course offerings, to a remote village in Senegal, and presented both our students’ work and my experience in several venues – IALD Enlighten Americas, PLDC, and IES.
In 2014, I was awarded an educational grant by the Illuminating Engineering Society to seed the development of a one-week intensive lighting design studio, intended to bring practicing professionals back into the design studio to refresh, reinvigorate, and learn new design techniques. The studio has been quite successful, drawing attendees from around the world. One international attendee wrote on Facebook, “to one of the most amazing experiences I’ve had along my journey with light,” and “If it existed… the 10 courses to take before you die, surely this one would be at the top of my list.”
We recently added a Daylighting Intensive Design Studio to pair with the regular intensive, taking advantage of the heliodon and diffuse sky simulator of our Light and Energy Lab. The studios are run back-to-back in consecutive weeks so participants can schedule either one or both together.
In the fourteen plus years since I’ve been at Parsons, we’ve been able to create a unique research program within a design school. Focused on evidence-based design, to get our design students to conduct experimental research as their final thesis projects. Over the last four years, we have presented and published more than a dozen of their projects as technical papers at the IES Annual Conferences. Students learn how to do a good research so they can more critically evaluate cutting-edge information potentially informing their future design decisions.
A significant accomplishment of the research program involves two studies to finally expand the psychology of light work of John Flynn by exploring the influence of color temperature on subjective responses to lighted environments. These two studies, The Influence of Chromaticity on Subjective Impressions in Lighted Environments, and, The Influence of Color Temperature along with Illuminance on Subjective Impressions in Lighting, were presented and published in 2017 and 2019.
Another part of the research program is being conducted for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Next Generation Lighting Systems program. As a result, there are currently thirteen different connected lighting systems installed on the New School/Parsons campus that serves as a “living laboratory,” where students are engaged in evaluating these systems to better inform their effectiveness. The ongoing work of the assessment of these systems following the stages of the overall building design and construction process from specification to post-occupancy evaluation has been presented in a variety of venues, from LIGHTFAIR to LEDucation to both the IES and IALD conferences.
Our most recent research is focused on the integration of germicidal ultraviolet radiation (GUV) into architectural lighting systems. We are evaluating the potential for GUV to be safely integrated into architectural lighting systems to kill bacteria and deactivate viruses, including SARS-CoV2. We will test both the efficacy of GUV to treat upper room air to keep our environments safe over the long term and develop a protocol for the assessment of such systems as more manufacturers produce products that will require evaluation to ensure they are safe.
Most recently, I have developed a lighting certificate program in cooperation with The New School’s online distance learning initiative. Consisting of three five-week courses and entirely virtual, this certificate program will address a growing need for lighting education outside of full degree programs.
Service to the Lighting Profession
Craig A. Bernecker: A large part of my service to the lighting profession has been through the Illuminating Engineering Society. I have had the opportunity to serve in three major positions, Vice President of Technical and Research Activities, Vice President of Educational Activities, and President, including serving one year as Senior Vice President before serving as President, as well as one year as Immediate Past President, the year following. Within that arc of service, I was able to implement several changes. One was to create a new publication, a Technical Memorandum, to address cutting-edge issues in a timely fashion, another to establish a task force to develop a new classification system for exterior luminaires, and yet another to revamp the annual conference that had been lagging in attendance and quality. I also reorganized several committees and the overall committee structure in each position.
The IES recognized my service with the Distinguished Service Award in 2017, and my overall contributions to the profession by naming me a fellow in 1991.
I have served two terms on the IALD Board of Directors, but also have provided service in a different way, specifically to develop and deliver a series of workshops on solid-state lighting (LED’s), as it was becoming a more accepted technology and helping designers to understand it better.
I have been involved in the International Commission on Illumination (CIE) in the past, and again most recently, having been appointed as the United States representative to Division 3: Interior Environment.
Consulting and Other Services
Craig A. Bernecker: I have regularly attempted to stay current with design practice by engaging in design opportunities throughout my career as a lighting educator. My projects have included pro bono design work for a church in my community, to design for a historical township building. I was also called in to re-design a newly installed lighting system in a residence that purportedly contained the largest collection of modern art in the U.S.
A part of my consulting work over the years has been to serve as an expert witness in several cases. Over time these have included automobile accidents, personal injuries due to poor lighting, and even a murder case. My most recent expert witness work was a major multi-billion dollar trademark infringement case where the judge cited my testimony as one of the major factors influencing his decision.
Crossing back over to more of a service role, I was appointed by the U.S. Department of Energy as co-chair of the technical committee that evaluated and ultimately awarded the $10,000,000 prize for the Bright Tomorrow Competition, also known as the L Prize, of the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act.
I find it important to be involved in these kinds of activities in order to bring an understanding of design practice, as well as cutting-edge information back into the classroom for my students’ benefit. And if I’ve accomplished anything deserving of this award, it is the students who as practicing professionals have contributed to the lighting profession in a myriad of ways, raising the importance of lighting as a critical design element in our built environments.
Los Angeles, CA – The prestigious LIT Lighting Design Awards is pleased to announce the recipient of the 2021 Spotlight prize is “LUCI Association” (Lighting Urban Community International).
The Spotlight Prize has been introduced in 2020 to reward and put the “spotlight” on an organization, association, project, or initiative that carries out remarkable work for its community and has a major contribution to the Lighting Industry.
Created in 2002 at the initiative of the City of Lyon (France), today, LUCI is a non-profit organisation bringing together over 70 member towns and cities worldwide that use light as a tool for social, cultural and economic development. It also includes over 50 associated members from the lighting industry, design agencies and research institutes.
“We are really delighted and honoured to receive the LIT 2021 Spotlight Prize. At LUCI, we strongly believe in city-to-city collaboration, exchange, learning and co-creation to improve urban lighting and quality of life in cities. As LUCI is about to turn 20 years young, this comes at a perfect time to recognize the Association’s contribution to the global urban lighting community!” said Mark Burton-Page, General Director of LUCI.
Through the organisation of international events and conferences, and by piloting lighting projects and research initiatives, LUCI helps cities harness the potential of light to create sustainable and people-focused urban spaces.
AGM Tartu © Annika Hass TAVA – LUCI AGM Tartu © Annika Hass TAVA
What are the core missions of LUCI and how it supports cities :
© L_Oritsland – © City of Rotterdam photo EricFecken
LUCI Association activities, publications and events:
For more information on the LUCI Association please visit the LUCI website and social media accounts: Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.Katia Kolovea is a lighting enthusiast, communication strategist, and advocate of the lighting design profession. She was born and raised in Athens, Greece and the last few years have been based in London, UK
Lighting designer, communication strategist, and advocate of the lighting design profession, Katia is passionate about light, people, and the creation of engaging and immersing experiences led her to start her business Archifos. Archifos started as a blog, evolved into a personal brand, and in the last year, it has been focusing on the intersection of lighting design, experiential marketing, and engaging communications. When she is not designing interactive and immersive lighting experiences, Katia collaborates with businesses in the lighting industry to support them communicate their brand and services in a meaningful, innovative, and personalized way, online and offline. Her work as a designer has been awarded with a darc award and was honored with the 40under40 lighting award in 2019. Katia has been involved in various community-based and educational projects of the lighting industry. She loves storytelling, public speaking, and bringing the right people together. Katia is the founder of the Lighting Police, an educational platform with the mission to raise awareness about the importance of the right light to the general public. She is a team member of the global Women in Lighting Community managing all social media communications, a Judge of the LIT design awards, and recently elected as a council member of the Society of Light and Lighting.
First of all, tell us a bit about yourself. How did your fascination with lighting and technology start?
As long as I remember myself I was always mesmerized by the golden colors of sunsets. I think sunsets are something that I will never ever take for granted or get bored of experiencing. So, I had always a particular interest in daylight and the power of the sun.
However, with artificial light, I didn’t have a specific interest or observation as a child. I shall confess that I was taking it for granted, as the majority of people. I could appreciate warm and low-intensity spaces but never thought that light can influence our emotions and that would be a profession and a career I would follow in the future.
In 2014 while I was entering the final year of my Bachelor’s degree in Interior Architecture and Product Design in Athens, I was very fortunate to attend a full-day lighting conference called Urban Lightscapes. This was the first moment when I realized that lighting design is a very diverse profession where many professionals from different fields come together to create unique experiences by using light as a medium. As an Interior Architect student, I had been briefly introduced to the properties of light as an intangible component of the space and this conference triggered my interest to learn more about the profession and explore a potential career path. The next step was an internship in BMLD lighting practice in Barcelona in which I got my first practical knowledge and realize that this is exactly the profession I want to be in. I completed my internship, graduated, and started my Master’s in Architectural lighting at KTH University in Stockholm.
Alkoot-fort, Tansweer Festival in Doha, project with Hadeer Omar and Sonic Jeel
What does it mean to you to be involved with the “Women in Lighting” initiative? What are your responsibilities?
Women in lighting, created by Light Collective, supported by Forma lighting and Archifos, and, with the great engagement and contribution from the worldwide ambassadors, the media partners, supporters, and every single person who is spreading the word and participating, have achieved to create a global movement which invites people who work with light to join.
During the last 3 years, the WIL project has turned into a digital platform full of creative, inspiring, and diverse content. Content that includes, interviews, blogs, articles, social media challenges, networking local and global events, and actions that inspire all of us, as well as the future generations of our profession.
Women in Lighting is a project in my heart and has massively impacted my professional growth and journey. I am deeply grateful to Light Collective, Sharon Stammers, and Martin Lupton for their invitation, trust, guidance, and the opportunity to join this great initiative from the beginning. My mission has been to communicate our message globally on the WIL social media channels, spread the word and encourage everyone to participate, share their knowledge and find their confidence to speak up, talk about their challenges and achievements, celebrate their colleagues and friends, and raise awareness for the lighting design profession. More specifically, my responsibilities are focused on the management and curation of the visual content that we share online, creating engaging initiatives, and guiding and supporting the local ambassadors and women in lighting communities to grow and spread the word about the project.
WHERE THE RAINBOW ENDS for INSTAGRAM project with Light Electric London, photo: Jim Fenwich
Can you tell us a bit more about your brand & Online platform Archifos?
Let’s start with the name. Archifos is a blend of two Greek words: “Archi” and “Fos” translated as “start” and “light”. For me, everything starts from light. The light allows you to see and experience the surrounding space. The light that makes you feel and observe.
Archifos concept was born in Barcelona in 2015 while I was doing an internship in Architectural Lighting Design. Inspired by the design culture, the great museums, design talks, and various exhibitions in Barcelona, I felt the need to share this inspiration and knowledge with my friends and classmates in Greece. I decided to start a blog and turn my Instagram profile into a focused platform dedicated to building awareness about the medium of light in our lives. Within the last few years, archifos transitioned from a blog into my personal brand, and today, it is my multidisciplinary business working globally in the intersection between Lighting Design, Storytelling, and Communication services. With very few words, when I am designing, I am collaborating on projects where light and communication are linked, for example, immersive installations, fashion shows, and presentations, media facades concepts, visual content, and many more. In the Communication sector of archifos, I help businesses in the Lighting industry to communicate their messages through light to their clients and build trustful relationships focusing on storytelling, social media, global initiatives, and the power of light.
POP UP STORE PRADA project with Light Electric London, photo: Maria Lax
What is the main message you would like to send to young, emerging artists and designers? What helped you throughout your career?
Never ever give up on your dreams and big ideas, because where there is will and passion, there is always a way. Life is not about the end destination. It is all about the journey. Fell in love with the process. Celebrate the discovery, the experimentation, the fascinating but also the challenging moments, and most importantly honor the people you will meet. Lastly, dare to ask for guidance and mentorship from people you admire and inspire you. You will be surprised by how much you will grow from this process and how good it feels when you get to challenge yourself outside of this “comfort zone”.
PRIVATE PARTY, UNITED KINGDOM project with Light Electric London, photo: Maria Lax
What makes lighting magical for you?
Lighting is magical because of the way that it makes me feel every single day. It is everywhere and makes me focused, makes me dream, observe, and create. From the very first moment I open my eyes in the morning, I will encounter thousands of little moments that I will smile just because I noticed a reflection, a small rainbow, a pattern, a shadow. There is always something to explore. From a more technical and designed point of view, I found light and lighting magical as it has the power to completely transform human emotions and atmospheres of a space in a second. How amazing is that! I love calling light a Non-Verbal Language!
What are you focused on right now? Is there a new project or collaboration you can share with us?
I am working on some very exciting projects right now focusing on lighting education, the power of mentorship, and engaging the community. The one I will mention here is a very special project that started as a funny idea in London in 2019 and has been growing to a global fun community. It is called “The Lighting Police”. The mission of The Lighting Police project is to raise awareness to the general public about the importance of the right light in our lives. The main purpose is that every single person should be able to understand, spot, and experience the VALUE of the right LIGHT in the spaces we live in. This initiative is all about sparking constructive discussions, sharing educational content, and together, supporting the Lighting Industry, to grow and share its values with the world. The project has been growing and we now have a management team, a global advisory board who are contributing to the educational content as well as active contributors around the world who are spotting cases and sharing them online together with observation statements, potential solutions, funny emojis or call to action for others to provide their thoughts. If you are on Instagram or Linkedin, we encourage you to join the discussions @thelightingpolice.
We would appreciate it if you can select 5- 6 designs from the 2020 winners, that are either the most “sustainable” or “your favorites amongst all winners” or “smarts & innovative”, and let us know why.
One of my favorites as it is an art piece and gives the flexibility to the user to adjust the intensity of the light and control the atmosphere of their space.
One of my favorites because of its elegance and simplicity. I particularly like the feeling of the transparency of the glass with the cable cord and the multiple options to choose between transparent, smoke, peacock blue, and rose glass.
MOTO JOJO
One of my favorites is because of its design and size, the automated motorized adjustability, and the creativity that can provide to the designer to create a light-art installation.
Union Station Great Hall Restoration
I particularly loved the cove lighting implementation and the balanced lighting atmosphere that is created in the space where the light is exactly in the levels that need to be. This is one of the projects that I would like to experience in person on my next trip to the US.
Metropoli is one of my favorite winning projects because of the successful translation of the concept and the narrative into the space. It is great to see how different elements of the movie have become part of the ambiance and the atmosphere of the space. This warm and low-level light, the contrast, and the overall ambient lighting set this project as well on my travel visit list when I will be in Mexico.
