First Light Up2023 conference a success, with talks by experts

The Furniture & Design Isle 2023 international furniture, interior, and design fair included the LightUp! lighting conference hosted by the Latvian Designer Association and featuring well-known professional speakers with extensive experience.

The conference addressed topics associated with lighting from the viewpoint of designers, architects, lighting designers, manufacturers, distributors, as well as consumers. More than 130 people attended the event, with industry professionals, architects, designers, students of design and architecture, and people interested in design in general.

Interaction of humans and lighting: an inexhaustible phenomenon for research
Ilze Led (Ilze Leduskrasta-Buša), architectural lighting designer, Women in Lighting Ambassador, and co-author of the event, moderated the conference. Ilze has been an independent lighting designer for a number of years. At the conference, experts revealed the main aspects of how people and light interact.
‘Light and its architecture are how I feel and perceive the space of my world, and how I express my creative spirit, and it is an inexhaustible phenomenon for research,’ Ilze Led said.

Importance of daylight still underestimated
Reinis Liepiņš, architect and co-founder of architecture firm ‘Sudraba arhitektūra’, talked about the important aspects of the interplay between daylight and architecture, emphasising that this interplay is important not only for the building but also for the human within it. ‘Bringing out the daylight is one of my passions. People are tired of laser shows and I want event organisers to think about creating events in daylight. The 20th-century spotlight theatre trend is over! Providing daylight is particularly desirable in conference spaces. But I still feel that lighting designers, set designers, and directors are prejudiced about using daylight,’ Reinis Liepiņš said.

Challenge for architects: bringing light with rebuilds
Managing partner at architecture and design firm Sampling, head of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Design, and Architecture, PhD Liene Jākobsone talked about the experience of light and its importance in many different aspects of architecture: ‘In our current projects, we are trying to bring light into the building, drawing inspiration from architectural classics and examples from the past. We seek to create a lighting experience in places where it would not otherwise be possible, because buildings are different, and the genre of reconstruction has many manifestations. If you are working on a rebuild, you can’t just put a window wherever you like. You have to be creative, and that’s the job of the architect.’ During the talk, Jākobsone used images to show examples of how to light an indoor space from different sides, including the currently popular overhead lighting.

Direction of light playing a vital role in building a lighting scenario
Aigars Zelmenis, manager of the KRASSKY interior design salon, shared the story of his company, emphasising the importance of quality equipment and the importance of the direction of the flow of light in lighting projects. ‘Especially in offices and private interiors, it’s important to achieve an effect where you can’t clearly feel where the light is coming from. This is one of the intuitive criteria! Your lighting is good if you don’t know where the light comes from. And you don’t have to think about it. If you get glare all the time, then something is not exactly right. A good design process is also important for achieving an excellent end result in lighting projects,’ Zelmenis said.

Light affecting emotional state
Ināra Gauja, deputy head of the Urban Art and Design Division of the Culture Administration at the Riga City Council Education, Culture and Sports Department and manager of the project ‘Concepts for developing decorative winter holiday lighting designs in Riga urban spaces starting from 2023’, presented the complex path towards creating a concept for developing Riga’s urban environment and winter holiday decorative lighting to the conference’s audience. The speaker revealed what winter holiday decorative lighting in Riga’s urban environment must be like: ‘One of the functions of the lighting is to provide light. But it has another function, which is just as important: to affect you emotionally.’

Lighting design must represent the handwriting of its author
Didzis Apinis, LVS/STK 46 Apgaisme expert, head of the lighting division at Lucidus, and lighting professional with experience implementing projects in Latvia and the Baltic states, shared his knowledge of professional lighting designs and their most important components. The speaker discussed the fine points of setting the basic conditions for a lighting design: ‘A lighting project must include the opinions of its designer, and their vision of what the final design should look like. Ideally, you should clearly see the designer’s handwriting in your lighting. A professional lighting design is a project that has the designer’s personal touch in it, that meets standards and best practices, and that can be built without the designer’s involvement.’

Efficient lighting development takes teamwork
Sandris Linkums, technical specialist and head of DECOLight lighting studio, emphasised the importance of technical aspects in developing high-quality lighting designs: it is only properly selected solutions, the timely anticipation of weaknesses, and educating the client that can guarantee a good result. He revealed the steps for creating an integrated lighting design: ‘With integrated lighting, the lights are fully integrated into the surface, with only the functional part visible. Efficient and highly functional lighting and a wide range of features for controlling it can only be provided by a team working in concert. If you want an effective result, you need multiple stakeholders to work together: the architect, interior designer, supplier, contractor, etc.’

International speakers and a global view of lighting
International speakers also took part in the conference: co-founder of the Estonian Association of Lighting Designers (EALD)
Liina Einla and Professor Graeme Brook from the UK. Liina talked about the ‘darkness design’ and correctly balanced lighting, which is a relevant and important topic in both Estonia and Latvia. Graeme Brook, professor, head of the interior design programme at the Royal College of Art, and author of many globally successful books, discussed good and high-quality interior design with Barbara Freiberga, vice-chair of the Latvian Designer Association. The speakers covered the topics of lighting from the world’s perspective, the professor’s global experience, important aspects of lighting and global trends within it, touching on the issue of light pollution both in urban environments and in public and personal interior spaces. Barbara Freiberga emphasised light as one of the most important parameters of a person’s quality of life: ‘Light affects us in the short and long run, so the topic of correct use of light and lighting is not only relevant for professionals but also for the public at large.’

The conference concluded with a discussion with Women in Lighting ambassador Ilze Led, PhD Liene Jākobsone, architect with 30 years of experience in architecture and restoration Reinis Liepiņš, as well as other speakers.

During the Q&A session, audience members asked questions about the partners of the current concept and how they can get involved in the development of the urban lighting concept. All of the discussion’s participants confirmed the relevance of the conference’s topic, inviting representatives of the local governments of Riga and other municipalities to participate in the next conference, in order to raise the issue of quality light and architectural experiences and help make them a reality together.

This year, the LightUp!2023 lighting conference took place for the first time. Given the great interest, the conference is to take place again at Furniture & Design Isle 2024 next year.