46|PROTAGONISTA Close your eyes and think about light. What comes to your mind? I remember hearing James Turrell speak many years ago, and him saying: “We dream in light”. When you consider it, this is actually true. When we dream it is not dark, even though our eyes are closed. The image in our minds is a lit image. So when I close my eyes and think for a moment about light, I see the final lit image of a project. That is how I visualise what I am going to do. How would you define shade? Total darkness is the absence of light. Shade can be described as a degree of darkness or a degree of light – so in a sense it is the relationship between the two. What is the ideal relation between lighting and architecture? For me, the ideal state is one of total integration. Without light not only would we not be able to see the architecture but, more importantly, we would not be able to experience the architecture. So in fact, one cannot really exist without the other, and actually it is when you try to separate them that problems arise. You studied Architecture and started working in this field. When did you discover Lighting Design and decided to pursue it? I was studying architecture in Edinburgh in the mid 1980’s. I enjoyed painting, sketching and obviously architecture, and an understanding of light is something that is common to all of those activities. However, at that stage I was not aware the architectural lighting design was something you could pursue as a discipline. Not many people were doing it then in the UK. In 1984, I met the person who would later become my great partner: Jonathan Speirs; and through him I was introduced to lighting design. In an interview, you affirmed that your best personal experience with light is related to natural light. Can artificial lighting create the same effect that natural light? What relationship should exist between the two for optimal results? It is possible - with a lot of skill - to emulate natural light through artificial means, but the more pertinent question is why one would want to do so? Of course there are situations where it may be useful or appropriate, but what is more important is that we understand that the day and the night are two different states with respect to lighting design. For each state we have a different way of thinking, seeing, and a different level of interpretation. Natural light comes from a single source: the sun. It appears to move around us, and the light changes due to the time of day or the seasons of the year; but we cannot directly control this, only the effect of it so we have to work with it. With artificial light, we have many choices. We can decide how many sources, what they are like, how intense they will be, what colour they will be and so on. We, as designers, decide how we will distribute the light, how it will interact with materials. We are much more in control. With artificial light we are not creating the building around the Sun, we are creating the light around the building – and the people that experience it. To optimise the relationship, it is crucial that we understand both of these conditions. Then, and only then, is it possible to successfully bring them together. In 1993 you founded Speirs + Major with Jonathan Speirs. How has your career evolved since you started until now? In 1993 Jonathan Speirs and I formed an association between our two individual companies that in 1996 formally became Speirs + Major. Over the years the studio has developed, working on an ever widening range of different projects in many different countries. I believe our evolution has been driven by the way we think about light, about darkness, about colour, about texture, form, surface, space, all of the things that are at the heart of what we do. Of course, we care about the technical detail, and we worry about the way we execute the projects, but our ideas and our creative response to projects is what sets us apart. We also focus on building strong relationships with our clients and their architects. Many of us who work at Speirs + Major trained as architects and this gives us a common language and understanding, which in turn enables a relaxed and creative dialogue. LED technology has revolutionized Lighting Design. Do you think it’s a fad? Is this technology really essential? It’s certainly not a fad. Given the level of investment worldwide in LED, this is a technology that is here to stay. It represents a change in the paradigm of lighting. Years ago we burned things such as oil, animal fat or wax, and later gas, to make artificial light. With the advent of electricity, we could use this to make light. Now, we still use electricity, but we have a range of sources to make light, including the latest advance - LED. It does not mean all those other ways of making light are finished. Obviously we use them less, but even today we use candles. I don’t think LED will replace all technologies – a good analogy would be vinyl in the musical world, which has not been completely replaced by digital downloads. Indeed vinyl has an increasingly important place in the world of audio. That said, LED does offer many advantages in terms of efficiency, longevity, as well as its physical size and the possibilities it offers optically. You