Who will change the baby’s nappy?

It has been a long time since I last sat down at the computer to write. Since we said goodbye to the print edition of PLD Türkiye in March 2018, I seem to have written only 4 articles. Sometimes I can't find my way out of one for days, and I wrestle with words to say what I mean. But already, from these first sentences, I can see that I have missed writing, just as I have missed the magazine. Let me add "write more" to my 2020 wish list right now.

The title may have surprised you. What lighting design could have to do with nappies does not spring to mind at first. You're right, but the link is stronger than you think. Please let me explain.

Even though it has become less common in recent years, I spent most of my professional life explaining why the lighting designer profession should exist and why lighting design matters. The sentences and analogies I used again and again, sometimes in writing, sometimes out loud, changed and evolved over time. Then I noticed that I had never written down one analogy that I have been repeating all the time for the last 3 years, and which I did not invent. It belongs to my friend, the important Swedish lighting designer Kai Piippo, whom I also had the chance to host as a speaker in Türkiye. I came across Kai's approach in the film “Perfect Light”, which we also screened in Türkiye, and it has stayed with me since the first time I heard it. This article is about that.

Light is a miraculous thing. We may forget it in the daily rush, but light is the one thing we cannot do without to connect with the outside world. 80% of the information and messages that reach our brain arrive through our eyes, that is, thanks to light. If I asked you to close your eyes and picture a forest, the first image to come to mind would be beams of light filtering through the trees. Physically, light behaves as both a particle and a wave. As if that were not enough, it also plays the lead role in miraculous natural events like the northern lights or a rainbow after rain.

That is why we all love light. The building industry is no exception. Client, architect, electrical engineer and so on: everyone involved loves light, and lighting. Just like a baby. With a few exceptions, almost all of us light up when we see a little baby, and want to kiss and cuddle it. But the moment the baby fills its nappy, that is when the family steps in and changes it. In other words, someone is responsible for the baby.

So who will take responsibility for light in the building process? If things go wrong and there is a problem with the lighting, who will be responsible? This is where Kai Piippo says: in the building process, responsibility for light & lighting, everyone's precious baby, lies with the lighting designer. The lighting designer is the only person who defines all the baby's needs and can step in the moment a problem comes up. So, if needed, the lighting designer changes the baby's nappy too.

I have to admit that an important event in my personal life also played a part in this article. On 20 October 2019 my son (Can Güneş) was born. Maybe not in the building industry, but at home, I have been the one changing the baby's nappies ever since.

Emre Güneş