Report Summary of Trip to USA on April the 20th until May the 1th 2009

The trip, first to Los Angeles and then to New York was overall very successful: it was inspiring and gave plenty of new and interesting perspectives concerning the importance of professional lighting design in the urban environment. The differences and similarities in how to manufacture lighting design in the two major cities on the east and west coast was very interesting. I met many engaged, competent and well experienced people, recommended by Alison Ritter, Gad Giladi and Jan Ejhed from Professional Lighting Designers Association (PLDA). Those whom I met are leaders of organizations that have been established for many years (HLB Lighting Design since 1968), and they have commissions all over the United States as well as in other parts of the world. They have a broad clientele and offer practically every service there is within lighting design, including educational. At the Lighting Research Centre in Troy I discovered not only exceptional ways of exploration and education, but also incredible development and offering of unique products. Prior to each meeting I had questions prepared, concerning educating lighting designers and architects, about the work process about projects, the need for further research, development of masterplans, guidelines and regulations regarding energy and lights and so on. Due to my preparations I believe I have gained good comprehension, covering the past, present and the future, of the development in the American lighting design. Every single one of the meetings was marked significantly by the eminent American generosity, which I found to be the greatest profit obtained from the trip. Although it should be mentioned that I am also very content with my studies and the big diversity in lighting and urban environments that I documented, both the ones found on my own as well as the ones recommended by PLDA.  Everything is put together in a great collection of notes and pictures.

As an architect working with urban planning, visiting the United States for the first time, these two gigantic cities made a huge impression on me. I dedicated the majority of the trip on making an inventory and explore the structure of the cities, the architecture and the everyday life of the population. At the meetings I got introduced to the processes of planning lighting, got to discuss possibilities and difficulties and make comparisons between different parts of the United States and Sweden. Since Lighting Design with all that it includes has existed longer in the United States than in Sweden I believe that there are a lot of things to learn from there. Thus the choices of cities to visit for the studies seem very obvious. To name one interesting reflection when it comes to differences between New York and Los Angeles it seems that the use of high pressure sodium in urban environments generally was less frequent in Los Angeles than in New York. The reason to this difference between California and New York could be a result of the different administrational requirements regarding lighting and resource distribution.

Common street view in Hollywood, Los Angeles         

Common street view in Manhattan, New York

When in Los Angeles, Chip Israel from Lighting Design Alliance, showed, among other things, the very complex on-going project in Down Town LA where lighting is and has been a very important ingredient in the process of creating a safer and durable urban district. I was also introduced to the company’s new office where the lighting at the working spaces consisted of 100% daylight and many other unique technical solutions created in order to minimize the use of energy. In addition to this he showed other fantastic lighting projects at Rodeo Drive and Long Beach. Below there are pictures of lighting environments created by Lighting Design Alliance.

Thank you all, for your great generosity and all that made the trip successful,

Mari Tastare

Gothenburg the 15th of June 2009

Long Beach

Hollywood Boulevard

Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills

San Pedro

It required a lot of time to travel around in Los Angeles  which unfortunately restricted my possibilities to go to all of the interesting places that I had been recommended to see. Although, I did have time to make an invention of the lighting at many places such as big parts of Down Town LA, Santa Monica Beach, Pico Boulevard and also Hollywood with the Pacific Design Centre, among other things. All of these places often had remarkable architecture and a lot of the buildings had interesting lighting design to them, both inwardly as well as on the outside.

Navigation and moving around was notably much easier in New York, especially in Manhattan, than in Los Angeles. In the few days spent there I got to see practically all the things I had planned out, among them there is Bryant Park, Battery Park and Met Life Tower. In addition to this I also saw things that initially wasn’t on the agenda, for instance there was Grand Central Station where, just the previous day, all the old light-bulbs had been exchanged to new low energy light sources.

Central Station

Bryant Park

In new York I had a very interesting and inspiring discussion with Barbara Horton, HLB Lighting Design about the lighting designers role in the United States and how it has developed during the last 40 years, differences and similarities in the present conditions and givens within lighting design on the United States East and West coast and in Sweden and also about the developing of masterplans. In Manhattan I saw several projects created by HLB Lighting Design, for example the lighting on the façade of the Met Life Tower (see picture) and parts of the surroundings along Broadway.

I took a daytrip to Troy by train along the Hudson River. In Troy, by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Lighting Research Centre I met, among others, Mark Rea and Daniel Frering. Mr Frering showed me what research is going on at the institute and it was in small words very impressing. Some of the many things we discussed was the need for research, methods in measurement in order to evaluate light and energy use and also the use of high pressure sodium and Light Emitting Diode (LED) in urban environments.