50|PROTAGONISTA SPECIALIST IN URBAN LIGHTING Mark Major trained and practised as an architect prior to focusing on the unique relationship between light and architecture. He has worked on a wide range of award-winning lighting projects including the Millennium Dome, 30 St. Mary Axe, Beijing International Airport, the refurbishment of Royal Festival Hall and the re-lighting of the interior of St. Paul’s Cathedral. He is a specialist in the field of urban lighting and was named as a key city advisor by Monocle in 2013. Mark acted as the Lighting Design Advisor to the Olympic Delivery Authority for London 2012 and was appointed to the Mayor of London’s Special Assistance team for the Outer London Fund in the same year. With an active interest in architectural and lighting education Mark has lectured extensively in the UK, Europe, Scandinavia, U.S. and Australia. He was the co-creator of an educational project ‘Made of Light – the Art of Light and Architecture’. Mark is a corporate member of the Royal Institute of British Architects and the International Association of Lighting Designers and a Fellow of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland. He was created a Royal Designer for Industry in 2012. special projects. It takes a long time with a large project to break it down and properly understand the challenges you are facing so that you can respond to them. On the practical side, working at a distance while delivering the same quality as you would on a more local project is something we work hard to achieve. We have never opened offices overseas, because as a creative design studio we feel that being able to retain control of the design and maintain our high level of attention to detail outweighs the disadvantages of being at a distance. In addition to architectural Lighting Design, your study has also opted, in recent years, in brand strategy, urban planning and product design. Why this diversification? I would not term it diversification, but rather recognition that there were distinct areas of work already operating within our practice. Urban work has been a strong part of our portfolio for many years, so we decided to formalise our specialisation in this, and have people that really focus on this work. Our work in branding is a response to the market as well as a natural extension of the work we were doing. Increasingly, large corporations come to us to ask us how we can help to reinforce their brand and their image at night, not just through lighting their product but also through creating an identity for them. As for product design, we never set out to design products for lighting but we recognised that we were ending up designing them anyway for projects. It is not a major focus for us, but now when we identify opportunities for certain products, we try and realise them on an industrial scale by working in partnership with manufacturers. What is the ideal relationship between the independent Lighting Designer and industry? In one word: partnership. We and the way in which we work with artificial and natural light. It has provided a focus and the means to open up conversations with other disciplines that work with light, particularly the scientific community, which is fantastic. One of your latest projects is the connection between the stations of King’s Cross and St. Pancras, London Underground. The goal was to create a memorable and immersive experience. Have you succeeded? Often these types of spaces, being underground and transitional, are very bad experiences in light. They can feel very hostile, with just enough light to see by, but they are rarely impressive, inspiring or beautiful. However - these ‘forgotten’ spaces, where there is no daylight, can provide a very strong opportunity for us as light artists. For the project at King’s Cross, it was the client, Argent, who wanted to illuminate this space in a special way. They understood how important good lighting is to this type of public space, forming as it does the gateway into and out of their development. Their brief gave rise to the idea for creating a more dynamic and interactive solution, resulting in the creation of the LED art wall. Artists can be invited to develop different installations at different times to relate to or inform the movement of people. What is really interesting though, is that because it is such an unusual treatment for this type of space, and has created a genuinely memorable experience for people, the tunnel has effectively become an underground extension of the public space of London. Of the hundreds of Lighting Design projects that you have done around the world, can you explain which have raised major challenges and why. There are a number of creative and practical challenges that have come through many of our projects. On the creative side, we have been fortunate enough to have worked on some very large scale projects. The sheer size of these can be daunting. You look at the drawings, and the buildings and wonder where to begin. From big airports in places like Madrid, Beijing, Shenzhen, Terminal 5 at Heathrow, to the Millennium Dome, to former industrial sites such as Zollverein, through to religious buildings such as St. Paul’s Cathedral or the Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi – these are all very big scale, very