Reflections by Martin Klaasen
S
ingapore finally had its first
lighting festival. One can argue
that adding decorative light art
installations would rather use up
energy then to save on it, but the idea
here was really to promote the smart
and wise use of energy through energyefficient and smart lighting systems and
send a positive environmental message
to the public.
It was therefore no surprise that
most installations used LED lighting
technology. By further encouraging
participating building owners and key
stakeholders to switch off the lights
around the bay area, the festival actually
did manage to reduce the overall use
of energy, saving more energy than
what was used for the artworks, thus
achieving a negative carbon footprint in
the process.
Our entry, The Whirlpool, being one of the
selected artworks, was specially created
for the event. With my background in
architectural lighting design, doing an
art piece like this turned out to be quite
challenge – specifically because it had
never been done before. So let me share
my experience with you…
It all started with a creative idea at the
beginning of the year when we acted
on the call for entries. We submitted
this wild idea of creating a whirlpool
effect on the water (to promote the
wise usage of water, with the whirlpool
representing the water wastage draining
away) without fully comprehending how
to actually realise it. Yes, we had some
ideas based on our initial sketches and
renderings, even a budget estimate, but
it was only when we got selected as one
of the artists, did the reality sink in! Now
we had to construct it, and creating an
artwork on water turned out to be a real
challenge.
lighting today jan-mar 2011
The lights that we had selected needed
a way to “float”, and after a lot of
deliberations about how to engineer
the installation, we decided to build a
complete floating platform that could
support all the colour changing domes,
which were laid out in a spiral pattern to
represent the whirlpool effect. We had to
further cut down our original quantity
of domes to nearly half as the impact
on the cost (quantity but also size of the
platform - about 200m2!) was getting out
of control.
The installation was built at the Marina
Bay NDP Grandstand and then tugged
with a boat to its final location in front of
One Fullerton.
interactivity with passers-by. For that, we
used face recognition software capable
of detecting whether the passerby was
a male or female including their flow
and dwell. This in turn triggered specific
lighting effects. One can understand the
complexity of the programming!
But in an event like this, time is of the
essence since the show has to go on. The
lessons learned are many… Keep it simple
for one! But most of all it amplified the
challenges that we as lighting designers
face with each and every LED installation,
specifically in regards to the reliability of
the hardware and the critical importance
of the software! All in all it was a great
experience. Read more about the festival
in this issue.
As we wanted the lights to be reflected in
the water at night, we decided to create
a little return to the platform edge so it
that could hold a body of water. Little
had we anticipated the heavy downpour
of rain that at one point of time that
nearly drowned all our lights!
The next big challenge was to provide
power and data to the platform. It looked
simple on paper, but the reality was the
hundreds of metres of cables that had to
be routed from the nearest power point
on land, through the water and on to
the platform, which had been anchored
about 10 metres out from boardwalk.
Issues of water proofing, connections
and identifying the appropriate cables
were some of the challenges.
The biggest challenge was the
programming and control of the lights.
There were unexpected delays in
delivery of the lights, which only saw the
lights arrive on site the day before the
festival opening, leaving us to scramble
installing the lights overnight with no
time to test at all! Part of our concept was
to create lighting scenes based on the
Martin Klaasen is a renowned professional lighting
designer who has in his hands 25 years of experience
in handling architectural interior and exterior projects.
He has received several International and National
lighting design awards in recognition of his work over
the years. Martin’s practice covers projects in Europe,
the Middle East and Asia-Pacific region. Martin can be
reached at [email protected].
To all readers of Lighting Today
The subjects reflected upon in this column are common
issues encountered in the lighting profession. You are
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