This summer marks the start of a new chapter in the history of the association. Alongside the regular changes that occur when Council members have served their terms and are replaced by newly elected Directors, there are also changes in some of the leadership roles.

Please see the press release for detailed information.

We wish everybody a nice summer and look forward to seeing you at one or more of the forthcoming meetings or events, and to reporting to you on the next steps in the progress of the association.

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Khah Leang Choon, winning speaker of Vox Juventa 2009

This year's PLDA Vox Juventa conference will take place on 29. October, 2010 on the occasion of the Light Symposium 2010 in Stockholm/Sweden.

After a successful first Light Symposium at the University of Technology, Business and Design in Wismar/Germany in 2008, the second Light Symposium will be held on 27. – 30. October, 2010 at The Royal Institute of Technology KTH in Stockholm/Sweden. This year’s title of the symposium is “Natural Light - Daylight and artificial lighting for mankind”.

Please see here for the Call for Papers with detailed information about the conditions for entries and the themes and topics. If you would like to contribute a paper and if you are no older than 30, please submit your proposal for a paper in no more than 200 words by 29. August, 2010.

We look forward to receiving your proposals!

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The Professional Lighting Designers’ Association, PLDA recently held elections for positions on the PLDA Council. Dr. Georgios Paissidis, PLDA/GR took over the office of President Elect as of April 2010, with Prof. Dr. Heinrich Kramer, FPLDA/D taking over from Mario Rechsteiner, PLDA/CH as Director for Standards of Practice, and James Wallace becoming the new Director for International Development.

As President Elect, Dr. Georgios Paissidis will support Dr. Martin Lupton’s presidency for a further year before becoming President himself. Dr. Paissidis believes strongly in enhancing PLDA relationships to other non-lighting related scientific institutions with a view to clarifying the lighting designer’s misunderstood professional identity and moving the image of the profession beyond purely beauty-minded design.

Prof. Dr. Heinrich Kramer is a Founding Member of PLDA (then known as the European Lighting Designers’ Association, ELDA), and has an in-depth knowledge of the industry and the profession.

James Wallace is based in Australia. He looks forward to “the challenge of initiating contact and assisting potential recruits from all countries with a view to successfully supporting them to become future professional members and leaders”. 

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The Professional Lighting Designers’ Association, PLDA was founded in October 1994 in Frankfurt under the name of European Lighting Designers’ Association, ELDA. Along the way the name added a + sign (ELDA+) to reflect the growing international nature of the Association.  In 2006 this growing group of international members raised the issue of changing the name and following a six-month period of collecting and evaluating ideas, the membership voted to change the name to the Professional Lighting Designers’ Association (PLDA).

The global lighting community adopted the change fast and smoothly, and PLDA has continued to develop and grow. At the last count (end of November 2009) members numbered 764 in over 57 countries around the world.

So what has the association achieved in the first fifteen years?
Read more...

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A part of the PLDA global Lightmapping program, LightMappingNYC provided the New York City lighting design community with a forum to consider the current, past and future conditions of their urban environment at night.  Organized in partnership with Designers Lighting Forum of New York City and Illuminating Engineering Society New York Section and sponsored by iGuzzini North America, it included a tour of a significant new lighting installation, interactive group walks in the city at night, and a group discussion / reception. Downloadable PDFs of LightWalk presentations are available below, refer to http://www.iesnyc.org/LightmappingNYC for detailed program information. 

Presenter: Glenn Shrum PLDA, IALD / PLDA US Coordinator
Location: The High Line
An introduction to PLDA LightWalks using images taken during November 11, 2009 LightMapping NYC walking tour of project by Jason Neches of L’Observatoire International. Link to presentation.

LightWalk Leader: Julian Kline / Meatpacking District Initiative
Location: Meatpacking District
A tour throughout the Meatpacking District and surrounding areas focusing on the architectural lighting that highlights new and historic buildings. Link to presentation.

LightWalk Leader: Francis Milloy RIBA, ARIAS, PLDA / Terreform
Location: Midtown West
A dark, revealing spacetime trail between the Hudson River and Times Square. Link to presentation.

LightWalk Leader: Wayne Norbeck AIA / Gluckman Mayner Architects
Location: Times Square
Looking for darkness in Times Square. Link to presentation.

LightWalk Leader: Stephen Horner IES / Tillett Lighting Design
Location: Brooklyn Bridge and DUMBO underpass
A nighttime walk across the Brooklyn Bridge invites the opportunity for reflection & discussion on the nighttime-city, civic identity, infrastructure and lighting’s contributions. Link to presentation.

LightWalk Leaders: Leni Schwendinger, Brian McGrath, Ute Besenecker / Leni Schwendinger Light Projects et al
Location: Old St Patrick’s Cathedral
Discover ‘Shades of Night’ by exploring and documenting the light changes in Manhattan around Old St Patrick’s Cathedral throughout the night. Link to presentation. 
Lightwalk leader, Leni Schwendinger also invites you to view NIGHT CITY, her video inspired by the Professional Lighting Designer Association’s “Lightmapping” events. View the Video. 

LightWalk Leader: Nathalie Rozot / Nathalie Rozot Planning & Design
Virtual Location: The Bronx @ New York City
second lights @ second life, light walk (& flight) Your avatars will explore the virtual lights of a virtual NYC - natural and artificial. Global participation is encouraged, and flying may be required. Link to presentation.

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Award for Lifetime Achievement
… went to Bill Lam. 'Quality not quantity' was Lam's battle cry: 'I wanted the emphasis on quality, judgment and common sense rather than numbers.' As a result of his crusade, the light levels once recommended by the standards committee have been reconsidered and lighting design, no longer compelled to fulfill what Lam would term 'ridiculously high requirements,' has evolved into the kind of design we have today. Bill Lam was critical in changing the way we now 'perceive' our environment. His books ‘Perception and Lighting as Formgivers for Architecture’ and ‘Sunlighting as Formgiver for Architecture’ have become definitive references for many students of architecture and lighting designers alike.

Award for Best New Project
… went to Speirs & Major Associates for The Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi. This project incorporates supreme lighting insight and skills. While it respects the building's inherent cultural and religious aspects, it can be celebrated as the best of its kind in aesthetic, meaningful and spiritually overwhelming architectural lighting.

Award for Best Daylighting Project
… went to Bruder Klaus Kapelle in Wachendorf, Eifel, Germany designed by Peter Zumthor. The tiny chapel is based on a very simple but extremely clever and unique idea using daylight as a shaper of the interior space. The atmosphere generated inside the building supports the spiritual and meditative purpose of the space.

Award for Research and Education
… went to Prof. Jan Ejhed for installing and heading the Masters programme in Architectural Lighting Design at KTH in Haninge, Stockholm, Sweden, and for his untiring efforts to install a PhD programme at the same university.

Award at Large
… went to the LUCI organisation for making more efforts to improve urban lighting by interacting more seriously with PLDA to bring together decision-makers at municipal government level with professional lighting designers. LUCI members are beginning to understand that being a "city of light" is not confined to staging festivals, but indeed involves creating better lighting schemes and strategies for inhabitants.

Award for Best Partner in Industry
… went to WE-EF. Starting as a typically technical lighting manufacturer, WE-EF became a partner for architectural lighting designers within a very short period of time. WE-EF was the first company to support PLDA (then ELDA) in the association’s workshop programme, thus setting an example in the lighting industry.

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PLDA is delighted to present you the PLDA Education Map which can now be viewed here.

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The Architectural Lighting Fundamentals, ALF are now available for download!
Please go to 'Education'

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PLDA team up with the Scottish Design Awards to introduce a new category - Best Lighting Design. Judged by a panel of PLDA experts the category has been established specifically to reward lighting designers.

Peter Veale, director of Firefly Lighting Design, Deborah Whythe, an associate designer at Lighting Design International and Rob Honeywill, an architectural lighting expert with Maurice Brill Lighting Design Ltd, have judged the inaugural lighting category. Certain to become a recurring Scottish Design Awards favourite.

The nominations have been announced and in the running for a coveted Scottish Design Award are; Kevan Shaw Lighting Design for Aspire Zone, Aspire Tower, Speirs and Major Associates for Giorgio Armani SpA, Armani Ginza Tower, Tokyo, Japan and Speirs and Major Associates for Department of Municipalities and Agriculture, Abu Dhabi.  The Winner will be announced at the awards ceremony in May.

For further information please see here.

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PLDA design members Natalie Bell from Kevan Shaw Associates and Aniket Gore from Maurice Brill Lighting Design recently received Young Lighter of the Year Awards at the ARC show event held on 4th February. All finalists of the Young Lighter Competition received a certificate as 'Young Lighter of the Year', £300 and a copy of the new SLL Handbook from the Society of Light and Lighting.

The SLL also awards prizes to especially gifted designers in conjunction with other associations.
Natalie Bell was awarded £250 by the Worshipful Company of Lightmongers for the Best Presented Paper and Aniket Gore £250 by the Institute of Lighting Engineers, ILE for the Best Written Paper.

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On the official website of the New Zealand Government the following news can be read:

Light bulb ban ended
Energy and Resources Minister, Gerry Brownlee, has told Parliament today the ban on traditional light bulbs is being lifted. "This government has real concerns about telling people they have to move to energy efficient light bulbs by decree," he said. "It has been well signaled and will come as no surprise that the government is lifting the ban on traditional or incandescent light bulbs," said Mr Brownlee. "We are committed to energy efficiency in the home and efficient lighting has an important role to play in helping us reduce the amount of energy we use, but this Government believes it is a matter of consumer choice. People need good, credible information about the different lighting options that are available to them, and then they can decide what is right for them in their homes. Lifting the previous government's ban on incandescent light bulbs simply means we are allowing their continued sale, and I am confident the consumer trend to energy efficient bulbs will continue," said Mr Brownlee.

 

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The European Commission has sent a briefing to the European Parliament regarding the planned legislation for effectively banning all incandescent (non-directional; they’re next) and most Tungsten Halogen lamps by September 2012 – that’s less than four years down the road.

The European Parliament has until march 15 to reject the document as a whole (they apparently cannot legally demand partial amendments). If they don’t reject it, the document will be automatically adopted by the EU commission in early April and become law.

After that, the process is totally irreversible.

PLDA is fighting this ban in various ways, predominantly through Kevan Shaw, PLDA Director for Sustainability and Gad Giladi, FPLDA. We have already sent indivualised letters to each chairman, substitute and member of the ENVI (Environment, Public Health and Food Safety) committee. 

Now we need your support. We would ask you to personalise the letter with the help of the Excel list (both can be downloaded below). In this Excel list are all names of the Members of the European Parliament, the indication of their Group within the European Parliament, their postal address and their e-mail address (at least in most cases). The names are sorted by country.  

We would ask you to send the personalised letter with the two attachments to the members of the European Parliament from your respective country!

Please support us with this important issue. This should be a convincing message requesting he/she votes to reject this paper.

The text in your e-mail could be like this: 

Dear Mr./Ms. …,

Please find attached a letter in English/German/Italian/French written by Mr. Kevan Shaw, Director for Sustainability of the Professional Lighting Designers’ Association, PLDA in which he defines the Association’s standpoint on the proposed measure to phase out the incandescent lamp.

As a Lighting Designer and member of PLDA I would ask you to read this letter carefully, which I trust addresses all our concerns clearly but succinctly.

Should you have any questions, comments or should you need further information from Mr. Shaw or from the association, please do not hesitate to contact PLDA Head Office at info(at)pld-a.org. 

Kind regards,

...

Thank you very much for your support!

Downloads:
1. Addresses of the MEPs
2. European Parliament letter
3. Attachments

 

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